𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3⁶} {A MECHANICAL MARIONETTE}

∆ {3⁶} {A MECHANICAL MARIONETTE} ∆

THE NOISE THAT shattered the air could only fall under one category - white noise. A mechanically generated sound used to disable people, to stop them from thinking or acting properly. Roxi had heard it one time before, she remembered as her head and the world beneath her swum nauseatingly and the noise continued. It had been a mission in a factory in Peru, which had had huge speakers posted through various rooms in case of an announcement. She'd been there on her own to get information from the foreman - a mole in a branch of the Brazilian mafia she needed to take down. She'd been making her way to the assigned meeting point when the noise went off. That one was different, a low, painful throb that shook her to her bones and made her head swim. This one was worse. The shrill, piercing noise made her whole body tense and start to tremble, her head swirling and pounding, her vision pulsating and making it almost impossible to even breathe. None of the others were having such a reaction, she was sure, but the fear of the noise and the pain and helplessness she'd felt last time combined into making Roxi's pathological fear of the situation, which in turn, had physical repercussions. 

Even after the sound stopped, it continued to ring through Roxi's mind, soon joined by  the angry screeching scrape of metal on metal as something limped into the room.

"Worthy..." it rasped, a strange, growling mechanical voice, leaving a trail of splattered oil behind it. It was one of Tony's Legionnaire bots, stripped almost all the way down to its essential systems. Wires trailed along the floor behind it, some hanging down from it's faceplate like broken strings cut unevenly with a knife, hacked apart until it broke. It stood with its back to them initially, before it teetered around, every single pair of eyes in the room on it as it rasped its next words out.

"No. How could you be worthy?" It asked as it sauntered forwards jauntily, lights below its face plate and chest plate glowing the bright blue of an arc reactor. Roxi's mind slowly quietened as the group of 10 stared at the robot.

"You're all killers," it supplied, still not looking directly at the group. The words hit Roxi harder than they should've; sure she'd been called a killer before, but never with such accusation or distaste, and never by a rogue machine.

"Stark?" Steve asked without taking his eyes off the bot, his jaw clenched with its words.

"JARVIS?" Tony asked, before he was cut of by the Legionnaire, which was looking down at the cables dangling eerily below it in free space, as if it had just realised they were there.

"I'm sorry, I was asleep.. Or, it was a dream," it suggested, moving its head with harsh, raw, metallic movements, rather than the smooth, calculated glide of Tony's Iron Man armour.

"Reboot Legionnaire OS; we got a buggy suit," Tony ordered quietly as it continued its monologue.

"There was a terrible noise.. And I was tangled in.. in.. strings," it spoke, the last word filled with a dangerous contempt, prompting Roxi to carefully extract her quarterstaff from its strap on her thigh as slowly and subtly as she could. The whole situation was unnerving her, and she couldn't help but feel that it was simply the calm before the electric storm.

"I had to kill the other guy... He was a good guy..." the robot admitted, the wires dangling freely as oil still leaked from its mechanical body. It reminded her frighteningly of blood, as the dark liquid pooled on the floor at the feet of the Legionnaire.

"You killed someone?" Steve asked, a perfectly unreadable look on his face. Roxi wasn't sure why he was focusing on that point; all of them had killed someone, it shouldn't be anything new, and it wasn't to her. But to Steve, that was a different story. He still wasn't used to this way of killing; knowing everything about a person before he did it. What he was used to, was war. Soldiers fighting behind the mask of their company without even knowing the other person's name. And the Avengers weren't at war, Yes they were fighting, yes they fought battles and captured HYDRA bases; but they weren't at war. At least, not yet.