𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3¹⁸} {GLASS WALLS}

∆ {3¹⁸} {GLASS WALLS} ∆

"I'M GONNA SAY this once." Steve stepped into the room in front of the three people with him, his boot thumping loudly against the metal floor. It'd taken them a while to get back to New York, and Roxi had had to hijack and fly a plane from the nearest airport because Steve hadn't thought through the plan when he sent Clint back before them. She'd ignored both the twins' and Steve's eyes on her the whole time, simply opting for saying nothing and letting autopilot take over. If she was too emotional, and still in full control of her physical body, there was no telling how badly she would mess things up. She was still trying her hardest not to think about the fact that Ultron had Natasha, and was still numb to any pain she would normally have felt. 

"How about 'n-once'?" The dried blood still coated Roxi's palms, clinging to her as if determined to bring her nightmares to life. Every time she moved her fingers, she could feel the covering cracking, and it was similar to how she felt. Whenever she tried to come to grasp with what was happening, to make sense of it and gain control of it again, it was as if she could feel herself cracking, her mind slowly getting ready to do something Roxi knew she would forget. So, she supressed it, and the thoughts of what had happened, avoiding looking at Steve at any costs as she deliberately glared into the room in front of her, at nothing in general.

"Shut it down!" Steve wasn't happy with what Tony was doing, and Roxi couldn't say she had any trust at him in that moment. Here he was, doing exactly what had got them into the whole damn mess, with even more dangerous tech and experimental methods. Not to mention that whatever was in the cradle was built on Ultron's base consciousness, which definitely wasn't good. It was a metaphorical recipe for disaster. 

"Nope! Not gonna happen." The twins had already stepped more forwards, into the room, trying to get a gauge of the situation, while Roxi knew how Tony's mind worked and only needed one quick glance at the Cradle to see that she had been right. It also seemed that Tony was getting Bruce to help him put JARVIS - she had no idea where he had come from - into whatever was in the Cradle. Roxi was perfectly happy staying behind the two Sokovians, unable to be seen. She didn't need an unusual amount of focus on her right now, as she beat down her inner turmoil in favour of listening to Steve and Tony argue about what was happening in the lab.

"You don't know what you're doing," Steve scolded the men as if they were schoolchildren caught playing with something far too dangerous for their own good, without a clue that they were doing it. Tony probably had a reasonable idea of what he thought he was doing, but Roxi was sure he'd had one of those when he accidently created Ultron, as well. What people thought they were doing, often wasn't the case, a premise that Roxi had become familiar wit hover her many years of working for SHIELD.

"And you do?" It was Bruce that cut in now, probably trying to take some attention off Tony, who continued plugging various things into the Cradle and fiddling with whatever fancy computer displays he'd been using to try and achieve his aims. Roxi could've quite easily stopped whatever Tony and Bruce were doing with a flick of her hand, and she could crush the Cradle into a small ball if she had wanted to, but no-one had told her to, and for the first time probably ever, she was willing to hear Tony out. Maybe for once, there would be genuine logic that she could understand behind his choices. It seemed that even Steve and the twins had forgotten her momentarily in her silence, not that she was complaining. It let her observe better. She briefly wondered where Clint was, though her eyes were brought back to Tony every few moments when he did a little hop over the thick set of cables that was draped across the floor. It was particularly distracting, especially when she caught the action in the corner of her eye.

"She's not in your head?" Bruce's voice was filled with a kind of careful anger, that was, at the same time, more threatening than outright threats would've come across. His face was unusually blank as well, which made his aggression even more pronounced, maybe something he'd picked up from Fury, Roxi herself or Natasha.