𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{2⁴} {FILE R-D-E-A-R-N}

∆ {2⁴} {FILE R-D-E-A-R-N} ∆

ROXI HAD ALWAYS had a problem with money. She had never been one to trust without reason, and with money, you were supposed to trust a simple material to keep you alive. Especially something as changeable as money, that had different values in different places and changed practically every month. That was one of the reasons she hadn't liked Tony Stark much; he relied on it for practically everything. But right now, she was perfectly fine to pay for gas as they drove back to DC as long as Steve let her sit in silence and think.

Natasha was sat in the front again, while Steve once again drove as Roxi sat slumped against the seat, staring out the window as the landscape passed. The redhead had been passed out most of the journey and had only just started to wake up as Roxi's mind continued to race. Her back stung like hell, but she wasn't focusing on that. She could faintly hear Natasha starting to ask Steve questions, but the headline '17 dead in train crash' flashed before her eyes. It wasn't until she really focused on the mental image of the article that she realised why it was familiar. The date in the top corner had read '10 June 1985'. That was the day her parents had died, or so she'd been told. Was that just a happy accident? It couldn't be, this was HYDRA, after all. Were they simply collateral damage, or had HYDRA been aiming to kill them? She didn't know. Perhaps she never would. And then there was Fury's file, with the simple word stamped in red over his photo. The word 'DECEASED' flitted through her mind like a bug, and she wrenched her gaze from the window and stared at the ceiling of the car, hoping that it would make the image go away.It didn't help. If anything, the word looked more vivid against the woven grey fabric, showing up as a dark shade of red unsettling similar to blood. There was something so final about seeing it in that file, stamped with the unwavering confidence that the man with the long black trench-coat and eye-patch was actually gone.

And then there were all these little feelings that she'd never felt before. They unsettled her and made her uncomfortable, but it was strangely nice. She wasn't exactly sure why they were happening or what was causing them, but she knew that for some reason, she wanted to feel it again. She didn't realise that she'd been fiddling with her keyring and tracing the scars on her arms, both the bottle scars on her left wrist and the burn scar on her forearm, until Natasha half-shouted a question at her.

"Ryder! You okay?" The question jolted Roxi half out of her trance, as her gaze snapped onto the redhead who was twisted around in the front seat to look at her.

"Yeah," she answered instinctively, before looking back out the window. Natasha knew that she wasn't however; she'd noticed that the brunette tended to fiddle with her keyring when she was a little uncomfortable, and she rubbed the scars on her left arm when she was deep in thought about something she didn't actually want to think about. However, the redhead felt it would be best to leave her alone and confront her later, especially with Steve in the car. After a while, she noticed that Ryder had stopped fiddling, and that her chest was rising and falling gently as she slept. It was a light sleep, and her right hand was now clasped around something inside her jacket, likely a gun, or a weapon of some kind. The silence lasted for a few moments longer, before Natasha asked Steve the same question.

"Is she actually okay?" Steve glanced at her, pausing from drumming his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment to assess his answer before he looked back to the road and replied.

"I'm not sure, I think she got caught in the blast a bit before you pulled her in. I didn't ask, 'caus I figured she wouldn't answer."

"She finds it hard to trust," Natasha supplied, defending the sleeping woman in the back of the car.

"Yeah well, maybe I should take a leaf out of her book," He considered.

"It kinda seems like you already have," Natasha shot back, referring to the number of occasions where Steve was more than a little reluctant to trust her. Though that was partly her fault, she reasoned; if he hadn't found her on the Lemurian Star, he might've found it easier to believe her. An hour and a half later, as they finally neared DC again, and as the sun begun to rise over the horizon, Roxi woke up. Her neck was stiff an it ached from the slightly curled position she was sleeping in, and she noticed for the first time that her leather jacket had been completely burned through on the back. There wasn't much she could do about that except be annoyed; she'd left her spare at home. Thankfully, her weapons were fully intact, besides the small knife she had, which had been bent out of shape by the force of the fall. It was only then, when she sat up and looked in the mirror, that she realised that her face was covered with soot and dust. With a slight sigh, followed by a small cough, before she wiped her face in her dirty, torn grey t-shirt that she'd carelessly thrown on that morning.