𝑻𝒓𝒂𝒑𝒅𝒐𝒐𝒓 ✘ 𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐀 𝐑𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐅𝐅

{3⁷} {METTLE & METAL}

∆ {3⁷} {METTLE & METAL} ∆

FAR AWAY, THE two enhanced from their Sokovia meeting were meeting the new version of Ultron in a church, and Roxi honestly would've preferred to have been there with the killer robot, rather than doing this. Or, what they were going to be doing. Currently, she was waiting for Clint to finish his call with Laura so they could sit down and talk for a moment. 

"That's a negative, I answer to you," he reported, Roxi holding her quarterstaff once again, her hands still trembling slightly as she waited, although she was not too inclined to have the conversation with the man about how she got her powers. She'd managed to avoid having it with everyone except Natasha and Fury, even Sam, Steve and Hill, which was surprising, with everything that had gone down in Washington D.C the year before.

"Yes ma'am," Clint  continued as Steve and Hill arrived on the landing from the stairs, the former with a tablet in his hands. Something had happened, and judging by their faces, it wasn't especially good, though it probably wasn't too bad either.

"Barton, Ryder. We might have something," Steve told them, his voice grim, but stern, indicating that whatever was up, was important, and that they needed to focus on it.

"I gotta go," Clint said through the phone, hanging up quickly as he turned to Steve. While Laura was important to him, he was Avenger, so saving the world came first. He shot a quick glance at Roxi, telling her that he still expected an explanation.

"Who was that?" Steve asked, raising a brow. Roxi smirked slightly at Clint as he supplied his answer.

"Girlfriend," He answered with a slight shrug. They followed Steve and Hill back into Tony's lab to figure out their course of action, and Roxi changed her grip on her quarterstaff slightly as she asked quietly

"Should I tell Laura that you called her that?" Clint's face paled slightly and her smirk grew bigger as he murmured an answer

"You wouldn't dare." Steve handed the tablet to Thor, who took in what it showed with a rather grave look on his face.

"What's this? Tony asked, wandering around the table to stand next to Thor, who gently slammed the tablet into Tony's stomach, although it didn't seem to bother him.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker," Steve supplied as Tony looked at the image, presumably, one of Strucker's body.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us," He joked, Bruce craning his neck to look over the billionaire's shoulder. Roxi took the tablet from Tony's outstretched hand, not really caring if he was done with it, to get a good look at the picture as the conversation continued.

"This is a smoke screen," Natasha stated while Roxi took in the image before her. It was Strucker, slumped against the corner of his small cell, blood seeping through his chest and blue shirt, some left on the wall from the initial shot. Five letters were scrawled on the wall in his blood, dripping slowly down the grey wall. P - E - A - C - E. It was spelled out as if none of them knew the word, as if the concept of peace was completely unknown to the seven people in the room, who all knew it was aimed at them. It was strange, to see it written in such a way, as if it were a word in a foreign language, a concept that none of them could begin to understand, and as if Ultron had a better knowledge of it than any of them did. It was if he was the fisherman taunting the blissfully unaware fish with a lure. The insinuation annoyed Roxi. She wasn't stupid, and the rest of her team certainly weren't. The only one she wasn't sure about was Steve. Sometimes his desire to do the right thing led him to be impulsive and brash, getting him into situations he didn't want to be in. 

"Why send a message when you've just given a speech? Natasha inquired, nodding her head slightly towards Steve and Thor, who'd both spoken to Ultron during their encounter.