∆ {2⁶} {FAIRY TALES} ∆

ROXI HAD NEVER quite understood the point of fairy tales. They seemed trivial compared wo things like learning how to read and write, and all the happy endings had simply annoyed her. No-one really had a happy ending, there would always be another chapter to read, another page to turn, another sentence to ruin things for the hero. They were a simple kind of lore, telling people only what they should be in the watchful, cruel eye of society, rather than what they could be if they wanted, like some form of twisted propaganda to be the perfect princess. People like that had never sat well with Roxi. Often, their wealthy lives would simply stem from luck, just as Tony Stark's had. It had been luck that he had been born into the family that he had, and that he's taken after his father in weapons design. It had been luck that he'd gotten out of that cave and grown to be Iron Man. Everything around her was based on luck. Except from the fact that she was sitting in a car with a traitor, a man she barely knew, a super soldier completely focused on doing the right thing, and the red-haired assassin that made weird feelings in the pit of her stomach flutter nervously. No, this wasn't luck, this was a poor choice, on Roxi's behalf. She was sat in the back right seat, Natasha in the middle, acting as a buffer between her and Sitwell so Roxi wouldn't shoot him, but also because she was the shortest.

"HYDRA doesn't like leaks," Sitwell fretted anxiously.

"And I don't like traitors but what can you do?" Roxi muttered to herself, receiving a half amused, half disapproving stare from Natasha.

"Then why don't you try sticking a cork in it?" Sam suggested forcefully. Roxi probably would've chosen something a bit more colourful, but it seemed some sort of ban had been placed on her having contact with  Sitwell. Natasha popped her head forward , so it was level with Sam and Steve's seats.

"Insight's launching in 16 hours. We're cutting it a little bit close here." Natasha informed them, a waft of roses and vanilla hitting Roxi as the air con turned slowly. It was then that she realised that she was still wearing Natasha's coat, and checked the pockets for her weapons just to be safe. Sure enough, the sleek black, curved cylinder lay in one of the inside pockets, two pistols and a variety of knives in the others, but for some reason, she felt as if she was under-prepared.

"I know. We'll just have to bypass his DNA scans and access the helicarriers directly." Steve replied, nor sounding overly enthusiastic.

"What? Are you crazy?" Sitwell burst out, leaning forward until Natasha pushed him back into his seat, "That is a terrible, terrible idea." Something hit the roof with a loud thud, and Roxi's hand immediately jerked to her quarterstaff, which was apparently a smart idea, because a moment later, a metal burst through Sitwell's window and yanked him out of the car harshly as he flinched and yelled, before being thrown in to the path of an eighteen-wheeler. Roxi was slightly pissed that she hadn't been given the opportunity to finish the bastard off, but he was dead, for betraying her family. For betraying S.H.I.E.L.D. 

The person on top of the car shot through the roof as Natasha dodged the shots and clambered into the front of the car, and Roxi shielded herself from the bullets using a sheet of metal that had been left in the car by whoever owned it before. Steve quickly changed gear and the car skidded to a halt, sending the intruder flying onto the road in front of them. He landed on his back and flipped over inelegantly before using his metal arm to bring himself to a halt with a terrible screeching noise as it scraped along the tarmac. Both Natasha and Steve looked at him with some form of recognition, and while Roxi didn't know who he was, she made an educated guess that this was the Winter Soldier. The person who'd killed Fury, Natasha had told her as they'd driven towards the fort where Sam's gear had been kept. The white flame roared at the thought, leaping and prancing through the air in a destructive dance, and Roxi did her best to keep a lid on it.

The Winter Soldier slowly stood up, his metal arm gleaming in the light, wearing bug-eyed goggles and a black mask perfectly moulded to his face. Natasha brought out a gun just as Roxi heard the engine coming up behind them. She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but it wasn't quick enough. The vehicle rammed the back on the car they were in, causing Natasha to drop her pistol and Roxi's quarterstaff, still just the handle, to be jolted from her hand into the front of the car. She dropped the sheet of metal with a slight clang, and grabbed one of the pistols from inside her jacket. The Winter Soldier leapt on top of the car, landing with a bang and a crash as the glass splintered and shattered into crystalline sand. Sam slammed on the breaks and for a moment they slowed down until the Winter Soldier's metal arm crashed through the windshield and ripped the steering wheel out of the dashboard. 

"Shit!" Sam yelled as both Natasha and Roxi aimed their guns at the Soldier. Natasha's didn't hit him, and Roxi's deflected off his metal arm, causing her to let out a curse. The car continued onwards, veering and swerving from left to right until the army vehicle once again slammed into the back of the car, causing Roxi to jolt forwards and slam her head off of the head rest in front. She swore again as an ache started up, and fumbled with the pistol. The car was pushed to the side and tilted as it came in contact with the barrier at the side of the road, before crashing back down with a thud. Steve fought to get his shield ready as Roxi called forwards

"Sam! Pass me that," gesturing to her quarterstaff. A moment later, the car slammed into another barrier and Steve pulled Roxi forwards roughly as he protected them all with his shield. The car flipped over and soared through the air as Steve slammed the car door out from beneath them and they all landed with a heavy thud on the road, skidding along for a moment on the ruined metal. Sam, who was the furthest away, quickly grabbed the black cylinder and looked at it, confused for a moment before he threw it at her as the three of them scrambled up from the ground. She grabbed it out of the air, quickly pressing the button that caused the rest of the quarterstaff to shoot out, and batted the first RPG out of the air as it flew towards them, fired by the Winter Soldier. He fired another one in quick succession as Sam gaped at Roxi, and it landed on Cap's shield, who was blown backwards with such force that he skidded over the roof of a car and off the motorway bridge. Natasha, Roxi and Sam (who had rushed to join them) sheltered from the downpour of bullets behind the cars that lay freshly abandoned on the street. Roxi quickly hung her quarterstaff from her belt again so it would be easier to use her pistols, which she pulled out, and started shooting with at the HYDRA agents.

A grenade exploded a couple of feet away from Roxi, and she was thrown over the barrier onto the other side of the road, where Natasha quickly joined her, much more elegantly. Roxi got up quickly, sprinting after the redhead as they dodged bullets and RPGs. One of the grenades hit a car that they'd ran behind, and the pair of them were blown off the bridge onto the road below. For a moment Roxi's free fall and her heart lurched horribly, until Natasha grabbed her with one hand as she fired a grappling hook at the underside of the bridge, causing them to swing to the ground safely. Roxi, being lower down, had had to let go and roll on impact with the ground because she was lower than the redhead, who timed it perfectly, letting go and sprinting away, quickly joined by Roxi, who'd always been a fast runner.

"This is going well," she called as they ran.

"Yeah, perfectly," Natasha called back, slightly breathlessly. The redhead stopped upon seeing the shadows cast down from the top of the bridge, and grabbed Roxi's wrist and pulled her back under shelter. Roxi stumbled for a moment and cursed herself for not being more attentive. Natasha gestured to the pair of pistols which lay in her grip, and Roxi nodded silently. Carefully, the pair took aim, and fired up at the people on the bridges. She managed to hit a few HYDRA agents, as Natasha's bullets glanced off the Soldier's arm and deflected into the others. The two of them ran forwards while he was gone from sight, taking shelter feet from each other, Natasha behind a lorry, Roxi in between it and a car that sat to its left. A split second later, the Winter Soldier emptied his magazine at the spot where the two had been moments before. Both of them fired at him once again, never actually landing a hit. Roxi probably would've used her powers to help control the path of the bullets, but she couldn't do much with bullets yet; she'd tried, and on top of that, she was still hurt, as her aching head and stinging back were happy to remind her, and it'd been a while since she'd got some sleep. The night before Natasha had called her had been one of her bad nights, and she'd woken up shaking, tears that she didn't want to fall streaking down her face, and her breath coming out in short, sharp bursts as she peeled off her covers and sat down on the cool, wooden floor. That wasn't helping now.

The Winter Soldier fired back at them and Roxi flattened herself to the ground as fast as she could, pressing herself up against the lorry. They ran together once more, away from the onslaught of bullets that didn't seem in anyway eager to end. But eventually, after what seemed like an age of feet thumping on the pavement, guns firing, and bracing herself for a bullet to hit her back, the gunfire stopped, and Roxi cast a wild look back at the bridge, where the Winter Soldier still stood, gun in hand. Natasha paused for a moment and recorded herself on her S.H.I.E.L.D device as Roxi crept slowly into position behind a car that's been abandoned, its engine still running, growling in complaint as it stood idle. The world seemed to slow and the sound seemed to quiet when the Winter Soldier entered the area, and Roxi froze, her breaths instantly becoming longer and calmer. She could faintly hear the recording that Natasha had set up, and the Soldier could too, because he turned slowly and rolled some kind of sphere below the car where the redhead had propped the device. The sphere blew a moment later, and even though she knew Natasha wasn't there, Roxi jumped and she traded her guns from her quarterstaff carefully, trying to remain as silent as possible. Natasha leaped onto the Winter Soldier's shoulders, kicked his gun out of the way, and pulled a thick wire tight around his neck. He stumbled backwards into a car, grabbed Natasha's shoulder and threw her off into the car opposite.

He picked up his gun to fire again and Roxi started forward, but Natasha beat he to it and sent a Widow's Bite at the Soldier, which hit his metal arm. He was stunned for a moment and that was enough time for Roxi to hoist Natasha up and for the pair to run once again. She didn't like running from things, but Roxi knew it was smarter to come back to this problem later. Natasha yelled out some warnings to the civilians around them frantically, her voice cracking with desperation and adrenaline. A well aimed shot hit her in the shoulder and Roxi quickly pushed the redhead in front of her, pushing her against a car gently so she could recover from the initial shock. Roxi crouched in front of her, extending her quarterstaff and waiting for the Soldier to show up. He landed on the bonnet of a car a couple of meters away and Roxi sprung up swiftly and ran straight towards him, Steve trailing a little way behind. 

She pressed the second button on the handle and the blades on the end shot out, sharp and ready to use. The first thing she did was knock away the soldier's gun just as it fired at her, causing the shot to veer wildly off course and embed itself safely in the tarmac below them. Then, she twisted the quarterstaff so that the other end pressed against the Soldier's upper arm, making the gun fall out of his hand. His metal fist came straight towards her stomach and Roxi quickly pulled her quarterstaff back towards her body and blocked the punch, the metal of her weapon creaking slightly. She pressed down on the top of the quarterstaff so that it was no longer vertical, and so that the end point dug into the man's metal arm while the other end kept kept his hand at bay. She was just about to continue her sequence when the Soldier's normal arm jolted to the quarterstaff and pulled it out of her grip, throwing it to the side, before once again going to punch her in the stomach with his metal fist, this time landing it. She was sent flying, and crashed to the tarmac harder than she would've liked, and a pain in her left shoulder told her she'd dislocated it. She rolled along the road for a moment longer, completely winded and lay there for a second until Natasha reached out and pulled her back to the shelter of the car as Steve tried his luck. By the time she looked around and focused on the fight, Steve had lost his shield, which was now embedded in a van, and the Winter Soldier was attacking him with a short dagger that looked about the size of a pocket knife. 

Her attention snapped back to Natasha when the redhead let out a slight gasp of pain, and Roxi carefully started to stump the blood flow. If only one thing could go right today. But, unfortunately, the world didn't seem to want that, and Steve was losing his fight. She gritted her teeth, and glanced at Natasha before starting to stand up, the dust and sweat on her face mixing into an unattractive grey colour and made her look almost as dirty as when they'd shown up on Sam's doorstep. 

"Wait," the redhead said quietly, her breaths shallow, causing Roxi's face to morph into concern for a millisecond until that disappeared, "help me up." She hadn't really been expecting Natasha to ask for help, but did as requested, and she couldn't help but feel some kind of pride that Natasha trusted her. It felt good. But this wasn't the time for good feelings. This wasn't a fairy tale, and Roxi already knew that this fight wouldn't have a 'happy ending'. When Sam re-joined the fight, however, Roxi wasn't sure if she'd be right. Natasha grabbed an RPG gun that lay discarded next to the car, and leant her weight on Roxi for support as she fired a round at the Soldier. But then, a swarm of black, military cars of the kind that S.H.I.E.L.D used surrounded them, and Roxi's heart dropped. She glanced to her quarterstaff, which lay a few feet away and plodded over, still slightly winded from the blow to her stomach. Before she could snatch it up, however, a barrel of one of the agents guns pressed against the base of her skull and she straightened up, her face twisted into a scowl as she was forced into the middle of the ring and onto her knees with the others. She still had a small dagger or two in her boots, and her pistols, though the guns would definitely be taken off her. The HYDRA agent didn't take the gun away, instead, they pressed it in so hard that Roxi was sure she'd have a red mark. 

She had been right. They wouldn't get their fairy tale ending to this, because they weren't princes or princesses who danced in ball gowns until the clock struck 12, no. They weren't even heroes. She certainly wasn't anyway, and she didn't deserve a happy ending if she ever got it, but right now, with a gun against her head, surrounded by traitors and HYDRA agents, she was little more than a criminal.

{A/N:} So... That was an intense chapter. The video at the top really reminds me of how much Natasha's been through and how much more she deserves. I'm only kinda happy with this chapter, because I wrote it literally all toady and that's because I was working on a trailer for the book, which I'm proud to say is finished. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/wGHdZ6s6OPc

It's not the best, but I'm pretty pleased, so let me know what you think. It took 7 and a half hours xD. Anyway, next chapter Fury's tea is spilled and Roxi meets Hill again. Stay tuned and that chapter should be up next Saturday. Thank you so much for 3.5K reads and over 200 votes on this, it means so much to me that you're enjoying this story. Have a lovely week,

JabberJay_011

3010 Words

Written: 19 / 09 / 2020

Published: 19 / 09 / 2020