𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{4⁶} {OVERSIGHT}

∆ {4⁶} {OVERSIGHT} ∆

SILENCE STRETCHED THINLY across the room as each of them processed what they had just been told.

Roxi's head was spinning; as if she had been spun in a circle so many times that even her thoughts became repetitive and round. She couldn't wrench herself out of the whirlpool in her mind, that dragged her every thought around so that it grated against her skull before sucking it towards the centre of her mind to join a churning mass of her thoughts. What Secretary Ross had informed them off, most definitely wasn't what she'd been expecting.

But hadn't she, for the past few days and weeks, been wondering if they needed another form of supervision? Yes, they worked well with Steve and Tony somewhat in charge, but there had been that thought nagging at the corner of her mind for the past few months. It was so easy for something to go wrong in their line of work, and they needed someone who knew the exact measures to take to stop those things from happening. 

The Accords, however, seemed to be on a whole new level. Essentially, they wouldn't be able to act against a force if this 'United Nations Panel' didn't agree, even if it was an event with the scale of the last three incidents, where the whole world could be put in a state of danger that only they seemed to understand the severity of.

Nobody else quite seemed to recognise how it felt to be the last line of defence; the only thing standing between the world and its imminent destruction. They assumed it was easy, that it was natural to them, and that they were brave enough not to feel daunted even in the slightest by what they faced. But all of them were scared, nervous, terrified. Roxi was sure that she could pinpoint exactly what each of them had felt during the incidents, because it was always the same thing; a hot dread that drenched you so harshly that it made your limbs weak and your stance shaky before you even had a chance to fight.

It wasn't natural, either. Almost all of them had grown up either being told or believing that fear was useless. Though, in Natasha's case, they would make an exception if you were the one instilling it. It was simply something they'd gotten used to by force of habit. Part of it, for some of them, was the inability to back down a fight, but for others, like Roxi herself, never dared back down because she was absolutely terrified of the consequences of losing. The past few years, even more had been on the line, and Roxi had drilled it into herself that she wasn't allowed to fail, no matter what. Because if she did, if all of them did, the consequences would be on them. 

But the last few years especially, Roxi had found herself slipping. It had started with Pietro. She'd failed, and the consequences were partly the guilt that had lay so awfully heavily on her shoulders for so long that she was almost used to it's weight. That was how she'd dealt with Ara's death, after all. She'd allowed herself to become accustomed to it. She couldn't afford to let herself slip again, because she didn't know if she'd be able to deal with the aftermath.

Perhaps that was why they, why she needed this management. Their job not only relied on them every time the world was ending, but they rarely got more than a year or two of a break between incidents. They needed someone to keep them in check, but it had to be someone who knew how to handle people like them, who were quite unique from everybody else in more ways that the average person could dream of. They were different. There was a certain way that you had to handle people like the team, and people assumed that it would be a great deal of caution. Because they were dangerous, and Roxi would be lying if she said she suspected that no-one in the room apart from Vision didn't have some form of PTSD. They needed to be treated like you would treat anyone else, but the person in charge would have to be ready for anything without walking on glass around them all the time.