𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{5⁶} {STARS}

∆ {5⁶} {STARS} ∆

IT WAS NATASHA, in the end, who broke the deathly silence of the Quinjet, and Roxi's head snapped up at the sound, a soft, small smile gracing her lips as she processed her words.

"I thought we had a deal; stay close, check in, don't take any chances." Although Natasha's words were stern and disapproving, they came from a place that she rarely allowed a thought to escape from, let alone be voiced. It meant that Natasha had at least partly given up on her grudge against Wanda for what had happened at the salvage yard three years ago, if only for Roxi's sake.

It was an odd feeling that accompanied her smile, Roxi realised, as if this pocket of time in-between would be the last true time she would be able to savour anything for a long time. As if the moment that the Quinjet touched the ground again, the weight of the world would fall onto their shoulders again. That itself was a horrible sensation, one of impending, inescapable doom that weighed on the back of Roxi's mind like a cool patch of shade that only covered the smallest part of her, and yet seemed to seep into her very veins. So she attempted to focus on something else, about how Natasha extending the circle of people she would show emotion around would be good for her, about how Natasha seemed to look good with any hairstyle she wanted to, or perhaps the way that she could see the stars through the thin veil of clouds that was draped across the sky around them, that they waded through with such a practised ease that it was able to settle at least one part of Roxi's mind that seemed to be constantly thinking, churning, making things as bad as they possibly could be.

"I'm sorry. We just wanted time." Wanda's tone was slightly dejected, and Roxi found her smile slipping from her lips and her attention brought back to the interior of the jet and those within it. Time was what they all wanted, it was what everyone wanted, at least in some form. But time was as fluid as the emotions that still thrashed against Roxi's skull like a stormy ocean, albeit less violently than they had used to, and it would slip through a person's fingers before they even had the chance to register that it had been there to begin with. Time wasn't fixed, nor was it temperamental; it was simply something that people had made themselves aware of because they had become so obsessed with their fears of death that they needed a way to ease their panic, and had needed some sort of barrier between themself and the inevitable. Sometimes she wondered if time was really a thing at all, or if it was just a concept invented by somebody who had nothing better to do than anxiously await the end.

But equally, hadn't her hiding her first name from as many people as she could for so long been her own barrier between herself and what was, in truth, inevitable? Surely, it had to be, and the idea of it sent a jolt of realisation through her body that made her want to twist her features in a way that demonstrated her lack of fondness for it. If there was one thing that Roxi admitted wasn't her best quality, it would be that to be unintentionally hypocritical, though there were many times she didn't realise she'd been doing it, and had only figured it out later on, as with this issue, and had begun to dislike a small part of herself because of it.

"Where to, Cap?" Sam's words provided Roxi little distraction from the catacombs of her own mind, but Steve's reply did jolt her slightly, if only because the word was a concept that she hadn't spared much of a thought in years.

"Home." At that moment, it seemed like such an old-fashioned notion. The idea of a place where you were safe, happy, calm. A space where a person could do anything without judgement, and if they were lucky, with another person. A little place in the wild world that was simply yours, where time was ignored in favour of comfort and barely existed to anyone lucky enough to be able to experience such a thing.

Roxi had had a home. She knew that, even if it had only been for a short while, and she knew exactly where and when it had been. That year after Sokovia, though it may not have seemed the best at the time, when she looked back on it, it seemed like one of the brightest times in her life. She and Natasha had been together, surrounded by people who had somehow become her family, and Wanda and Tony had grown from meaning so little to so much, to the point where they had become two of three people who were quite so important to her. Of course, she cared for all of them, even if she refused to display it, but Wanda, Tony, Natasha, they were different. They each were something she'd never had in her life; a sister, a best friend, someone who she had managed to find solace in, who she loved. They would've been novel concepts had she not spent quite so much time over the past few months considering the matter of where she would've been without Natasha's call at the beginning of it all.