𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3²¹} {PUZZLE PIECES}

∆ {3²¹} {PUZZLE PIECES} ∆

IT WASN'T LONG after that that everything went to hell.

Tony had arrived in the church in the middle of the city where Ultron had arranged the first meeting with Wanda and Pietro, where he had met up with the psychopathic tin-can that he had created. Roxi hadn't heard whatever the two of them had said, but it was undoubtedly nothing good, because the ground quite literally began cracking beneath Roxi's feet. She  took hasty steps back just in time to avoid the cold, metallic hand of one of Ultron's dummy bots as it burst through the floor.  She acted completely out of instinct,  ripping it out from underneath the cobbles with her powers, and crushing it with a simple flick of her wrist.

The appearance of the robots brought several people out of Wanda's stupor, resulting in a momentary confusion, and then, inevitably, the terrified clamour as people broke out of line and began to yell, to scream, and to leave the group that the Avengers had so carefully cultivated. Chaos fell quickly, with Roxi dealing with as many robots as she could while still being aware of the tide of Sokovian citizens that now swarmed around them. Car horns began to blare, mixed with their screams that hung so awfully in the cold air, a deep rumble sounding, shaking the ground beneath them as she watched a line form, the earth being ripped apart with such a brutal, cold force that it made Roxi want to shudder. It was if the city was warning them, letting them know what would come if they couldn't stop it, when the world would be consumed by an event so disastrous that it seemed to come from a story, from pure fiction. But it would be real; in their reality. They had to deal with it. Roxi had to deal with it before it got wildly out of hand. Ultron had laid out his plan like a perfect jigsaw ready to be put together, every piece in place, ready to be connected. And now, Ultron had started to do that, carefully slipping each puzzle piece into the exact slot that it belonged in.

The world around Roxi, went up. There was no other way to describe it: quite simply; up. The deathly grip that she had been holding on her quarterstaff faltered, as, for the first time since New York, Roxi froze. Her aversion to falling hadn't gotten any better, and if anything, her job had only hindered it. New York; when Tony had fallen, DC; when she had jumped out of an exploding building forty floors up with Sam next to her: now, she could add another situation to the list. It took far too long for her to break out of her haze, realising she had been standing stock-still for the last few minutes. Time she could've been using to save lives, to stop Ultron, to find Natasha. Even if she hadn't heard Tony's conversation before, she most certainly did now, hearing his harrowed voice through the comms.

"FRIDAY?" From what she had gathered in her brief amount of listening time on the Quinjet, Tony had replaced JARVIS with a new AI, now that his oldest one was compromised.

"Sokovia's going for a ride," the AI confirmed grimly, just in time for Ultron to start his grand speech, to explain his master plan to them, to let them see the finished product of that jigsaw that had been so painstakingly assembled.

"Do you see the beauty of it? The inevitability? You rise, only to fall. You; Avengers, you are my meteor, my swift and terrible sword, and the Earth will crack with the weight of your failure. Purge me from your computers, turn my own flesh against me; it means nothing. When the dust settles, the only thing left living in this world, will be metal." Their was something so oddly eerie, so terrifying about the last word in his announcement. It hadn't been particularly long, but it had done its job in filling the team with a certain type of hopelessness and fear. Roxi could feel cold dread running through her veins, mixing with the adrenaline in a fierce combination that was likely to get her killed. But Roxi had learned to something that a lot of people hadn't, and that was to use those negative feelings to her advantage, to allow them to fuel her fighting, to strengthen her resolve and stop any more from creeping in.