𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{4³} {SLIP-UP}

∆ {4³} {SLIP-UP} ∆

IT WAS IMMEDIATE. The moment the truck that had rammed through the barrier, a group dressed in black combat gear swarmed into the facility, and Roxi found herself thrown into combat once more. Sam and Steve were easily the first ones in, as Roxi continued to wind her way over to the Institute, weaving in between hordes of people who reminded her of Sokovia. The crowds there had only hindered her, reminded her of the weight that they on their shoulders, of the burden and responsibility that they carried. They had to win, every time, because otherwise, everyone lost. If they failed, the rest of the world payed the consequences. That was something that Roxi was sure that she wasn't ready for.

But she was rarely ready for anything, and over the years, she had persuaded herself that you could never truly be ready for something, no matter what it was. But Roxi knew how to fight, and she wasn't going to let them lose today, or ever. Not as long as she could help it.

By the time she actually reached the fight, the others had done a good deal of the work - Natasha had used a motorcycle and Wanda had flown, while Roxi had just settled for her normal method of running as fast as she could. She didn't mind though. As long as they managed to bag Rumlow with minimum casualties, then the mission would be a success. It was as Wanda began to siphon the gas that Rumlow had used out of the building that she arrived, slowing to a stop with her quarterstaff extended in her hand, her fingers wrapping around the grip carefully. She had been working on keeping her emotions in check over the past year, after her incidents involved in the events the previous year.

Wanda had been more help than she'd suspected, even though the girl had peered into her mind and now saw her in a way that no-one else never would. She had quite literally seen the horrors that Roxi's mind produced, and put her through almost daily, when she woke up trying her hardest not to scream so that she wouldn't disturb Natasha in the next room over. Of course, they'd been magnified strongly when Wanda had thrown open the metaphorical trapdoor in Roxi's mind that the icy-eyed woman used to help her compartmentalize. Wanda had started to teach her how to use the trapdoor as a sort of filter, so that she would be able to find it easier to process her emotions and her memories, so that they didn't explode out of her in a burst like the one she had let out in Sokovia.

Natasha had been reluctant at letting the Maximoff get too close to Roxi; she wanted to protect her, because the woman meant more to her than anything ever had. It didn't help that Wanda knew her name, something that had taken so long for Roxi to tell her. It was a monumental part of the woman's past, and for Wanda to know it by having slammed her way through every defence that Roxi had put over the years, and then meddle with the woman's deepest fears; it didn't sit right with Natasha. Nevertheless, if it was what Roxi needed, she wouldn't stand in the way of it. The woman needed it, and Natasha wanted her to be happy, and she would do almost anything so that she was. Roxi wasn't quite like anyone she had ever met, and Natasha wouldn't let any harm come to her if she could help it. Both of them had been through so much, and while Natasha had undoubtedly been put through more, she had been brought up to deal with those sorts of issues, and found them much easier to look past, to overcome. Roxi had had to teach herself to do that, to process her childhood, and every way that she had been different, every way that she wasn't normal, that she didn't have an average life.

She hadn't done it as well as she should've, and for a long time, she'd settled for shutting everything out as best she could. That had brought her to 2014, in DC and in her little house with Natasha, where she had realised that maybe, emotions weren't so bad. And then there was Ultron, where she had found that she had no clue how to regulate what she was feeling. She needed help with it, no matter how much she didn't want to admit it, and Wanda had been able to help with that.