𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{5³} {TWO YEARS}

∆ {5³} {TWO YEARS} ∆ 

THE CALL, IN retrospect, she had entirely expected to come at some point. Roxi had been taking in the sights of Venezuela when her phone had rung, and although the number was familiar, the call in itself was irregular. 

It had been Tony's number, though it was untitled, that flashed on the screen of her phone, and though Roxi hated to admit it, the fact that the call was late instantly raised her guard. They had, for a long time now, called or texted at specific time, depending on whether discrepancy was needed, likely for Roxi. This was unusual, and it had instantaneously unsettled her.  It was something that she had grown simultaneously distasteful and thankful towards over recent months, because she loathed the feeling of paranoia lacing her mind like a venom that seemed determinedly untreatable. Yet, her fear, her awful feelings, had saved them at least a few times, especially recently when there had been a random crime wave washing over certain areas of the world. Though they were unsafe, they were incredibly easy to hide in.

If you learned to slither into the cracks in between the chaos, you became virtually invisible to the carnage of reality. Roxi had found that at a young age, that if you were quiet and observed enough, you could shelter yourself from the harshness of the world. You could only do it so long though, before you ceased to truly exist. It was similar to taking a breath and slipping beneath the water, immersing yourself in tranquility, essentially falling into nirvana. Until your lungs began to ache and the instinct of your body begins to scream against you, and forced you upwards, outwards, breaking your shelter like a glass cover that shielded you from reality, where you can be found again.

Being found was specifically what they had been hoping to avoid for what had stretched into far too long. It wasn't the way that time had used to flourish, to languish. It wasn't wonderful, it wasn't lovely, it wasn't euphoric. It was drawn tight, almost transparent from the force, and it ached to  drown in its toxic silence for too long, to the extent that sometimes, when the venom grew too potent, Roxi's powers had unfurled infront of her, the white candle flame had flitte and sparked, and something around her would go wrong. It had caused their need to travel to become more urgent, and Natasha had found that Roxi was particularly keen on blaming these situations on herself, for many reasons.

There had only been a few select moments over the past two years that the two women had been separated, and it had made for many more calm, awfully silent evenings like the one when Natasha had returned from Budapest where it would've bettered them to grow closer in the tension of their situation. They hadn't got any closer, though they hadn't grown further apart. Neither of them had found a right moment to express the thing that they longed to tell each other, and Roxi almost depended on that fact. After all, Natasha couldn't know, not yet. Not until they were certain. Certainty was essential in the regard of this specific matter, after all.

So, Roxi had answered the phone with a quiet dread inside of her, because maybe Tony had confirmed it. Maybe it was real, not simply a theory, born of paranoid minds and concern regarding the people around them. She had answered it away from Natasha, and upon hearing the voice that came through the speaker, she was glad that she had. It wouldn't have been good for Natasha to see her so shaken, not when the world around them was so determined to crumble, to shatter into ashes in the wake of an insatiable fire that they had lit, however accidentally. 

"Umm, Ryder?" Bruce Banner's voice crackled through the speaker of Roxi's phone, and the world froze, if only for a moment. Roxi heard a lamp behind her - metal - creak, and forced herself to release her fingers from their newly curled fist, ignoring the dull pain in her palms and the indents her short nails had left in favour of hoping to regulate the amount of emotion that filtered through her voice.

"Bruce, how was your holiday?" The sarcasm was something that she'd picked up from Natasha's dry wit only very lately, to distract from the hush that the world could adopt - the one that Roxi had grown to hate, and had come to know as the silence that followed.

"Horrible, actually, but I need you to listen. I've already called Steve, he said he'd let you know but I didn't know how long that would take and I-." The scientist's words had grown increasingly rushed and mumbled and hard to understand, so Roxi drew in one more long breath as she had grown so accustomed to doing, and cut him off. Whatever this was, it seemed to be urgent, and urgency was something that she was sorely missing from her life.

"Bruce, calm down. Tell me the essentials, Steve will catch me fully up to speed. What's coming?"

"Thanos."

{A/N:} Well hey look, it's a chapter. Yh, i still write these and i have not disappeared. Sorry for the missed chapter last week, I have heavy writer's block atm which is why this is so short and so sht but yall gonna have to deal with it until my mind starts working again.

Anyways, 11 days guys and we finally see it. Also some SELF PROMO caus why not. I have a technically finished WandaVision fic called Damocles and I published the start of several stories a month or so ago so if you could check that out I'd highly appreciate it (and the new introduction part for Blood Moon, which I uploaded today. It's the first part.)

Pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,

Thanks :)

JABBERJAY_011

Written: 26 / 06 / 2021

Published: 26 / 06 / 2021