∆ {5¹⁰} {SNAP} ∆

THE BATTLEFIELD, BY this point, was utter carnage. As Roxi trailed Wanda towards where Vision seemed to be, she found herself awkwardly avoiding bodies and hopping over ditches that held large puddles of purple - blue and red blood mixed. The crude weapon she'd made was heavy in her hand, as her breath was in her chest, and her thoughts were in her head. The beginning was chaos.

She spit out a rude word in Spanish, glancing after Wanda who'd simply flown over the chaos, wishing in that moment that she could simply fly and avoid all this mud and blood and guts. She'd be able to avoid the falling that kept popping up too - finally.

"Everyone, on my position, we have incoming." Steve's command was just that, and Roxi immediately sped up as she found an easier path of raised earth that acted like stepping-stones among the sea of violence.

"I'm on my way," she replied, though stopped for a moment as a thought occurred to her, and set off again a moment later, hoping that it was the right call. If it wasn't, well, hopefully it wouldn't have too much impact on the outcome of the battle. She arrived in the clearing, Natasha a few seconds behind her, and the pair of them stood shoulder to shoulder, examining the clearing.

Roxi felt it before anything else happened. The disturbance in the air, the shift, the sudden cold and lastly - the fear. It came even after Roxi felt the metal gauntlet that the titan wore on his hand, of the same kind that Thor's axe was, but somehow drenched in a slow, thick, dripping feeling that instantly reminded Roxi nauseatingly of blood.

Then the portal started opening, and Roxi drew in one last long, deep breath, before she turned to face her inevitable fate. Thanos was massive. Purple, wearing metal plated armour and nothing other than apathy on his face, he faced them.

"Cap, that's him."

"Eyes up, stay sharp." The titan merely walked forwards slowly as Bruce ran at him, the Hulkbuster suit marred with scrapes and dents, and missing an entire arm. Roxi simply regarded him at first, waiting, watching. Initially she hadn't moved because she'd felt the barrier she'd placed through the treeline take a few hits - a pair of simple lines that would cut through any metal that hit them. Not entirely efficient, as it would likely leave many of the creatures alive, but effective.

She watched with a cruel fascination as Thanos used the stones to take care of her teammates, not truly hurting them, just stopping them from interfering. Something about the stones that were nestled in the gauntlet had caught her attention. She managed to drag herself out of her stupor fairly quickly, and let out a short sound of annoyance that she'd allowed herself to become distracted so easily, and faced Thanos, examining his armour once again before she did anything.

She began squeezing, slowly at first, around his chest, hoping to impair his breathing, and when that didn't seem to work, she simply held the metal he wore in place. She could feel the strain beginning to nag at her, the toll of the barrier and keeping the titan still. He raised his hand with the gauntlet, probably planning to wave her away as he had the others, but instead found that his hand too, froze in place.

It was he who watched her curiously now, the woman with icy eyes, a stone-masked face and a power that actually seemed to have some worth against him. Perhaps this task would be more interesting than he had previously thought.

Roxi's resolve was wavering. She could hear Wanda and Vision behind her, bidding their goodbyes. She just had to hold until that damned stone was gone, the one that had caused all the issues in the first place. But she felt it as Wanda began to pour her energy into the Mind Stone, and she realised that somehow she had forgotten to tell the team about the potential consequence of its destruction. But she couldn't stop them now, not when they were so close.

She was still going strong, she could still keep the great titan in front of her from moving, she could still keep those creatures from surging to his aid. A glance at Natasha, who lay, trapped under rock, and she redoubled her efforts; she only had to hold on a little longer, just a few moments longer-.

Roxi yelled as the stone shattered. A wave of pain had rocketed through her, and the shockwave had sent her right into a tree, which was dented with the force of her body. There was nothing but numbness in the in-between. Her head rang, her vision began splitting in two, all she could smell, taste, even feel was blood. Her body was unresponsive, and yet, her eyes still worked, and she could still watch. Her power had released its hold, and somehow, the titan was still standing. But surely that didn't matter, because they had won, surely.

Something had happened to her hearing in that moment, too, because it felt like she was watching a muted film, and the colour was starting to drain, too. She watched as Thanos spoke to Wanda, even putting his hand on her head; an action that inspired a harsh need for movement within her. Yet, nothing was happening.

And then, the scene before her reversed. Vision's body un-slumped, the mind stone reformed, and suddenly, Roxi's senses were back to normal. She could hear, see, move, yet she could still smell and taste that metallic liquid, and she could feel the beginnings of a sharp pain blooming in her chest. She didn't understand, they'd won, what the hell was happening? The damage to her body seemed to have been at least partly reversed, but she found her brain lagging. She heard Wanda let out a frantic

"No!", watched her sister-figure be thrown through the air by the titan and suddenly found it within herself to stand up, stagger forwards a few steps, and once again try and pull the titan to a halt. He'd let her do it before though, it seemed, because not only was there strain to keep him from moving, but also for her to keep doing so; weariness was beginning to set in. It delayed the titan long enough for Vision to realise what was happening, but that was when Roxi lost her grip. She found her whole body tense, and eyes wide as Thanos pried the stone out of Vision's head, leaving a caved-in section of ripped, sparking wires and torn metal.

She fell forwards onto her knees, her eyes turning suddenly to Wanda, whose pain she could practically feel from her position a few feet away. She didn't really absorb anything going on around her; Thor arriving and beginning to fight the titan. Instead, her vision focused on the young Maximoff, and seconds later, she found herself beside the woman, wrapping her in a hug. It was the best effort that she could muster in this moment; words weren't seeming to comprehend inside of her head, which still seemed to be several minutes behind.

Roxi simply cradled her sister in her arms, holding her as tightly as she dared, forgetting the blood, the red that stained her senses. Then, momentarily, she had no senses again, and this time the world was washed completely white. By the time she could see again, she found herself practically blinded anyway, yet another nasty bolt of pain twisting through her body. Her eyes were practically screwed shut from it, and yet they shot wide open a second later, wide with fear as she felt where Wanda should've been. Instead, the arm she'd had around her sister's shoulders fell to the ground, and she found herself looking to Wanda with a raw panic of the kind she'd only ever felt once before - when Rhodey had been falling. This time, it was worse.

Seconds later, she found herself alone, slumped on the earth next to Vision's body, ash drifting around her to the ground. In her panic, her mind jumped onto only one thing, and she scrambled desperately up, and ran to where she'd last seen Natasha. She'd managed to free herself from the rocks, or maybe they had disappeared when everything went backwards, Roxi wasn't sure, but she threw her arms around Natasha so tightly that the woman had no choice but to return the gesture. The two of them held each other as tightly as possible, Roxi ignoring the fact that she could barely see, or think, or that blood seemed to taint all of her senses.

They only separated a good minute later, Roxi still holding Natasha's hand, not daring to let their contact stop, and watched with fear-frenzied eyes as Natasha's other hand raised to brush over the vest she wore. It was Yelena's vest, Roxi knew that much, and after seeing the fear on Natasha's face, pulled her closer again. They stayed in a state of confusion, fear, grief and relief until Rhodey voiced exactly what the majority of Roxi's rain was thinking.

"What is this? What the hell is happening?"

And then there was that infamous silence of the kind that Roxi had grown to loathe. A silence that followed. A silence that you were meant to grieve in, a silence that you were meant to forget horrors in, one where you try to remember wonders; a silence that followed catastrophe, where the world stopped for a moment, and everything caught up to you.

But Roxi Ryder didn't understand. She didn't understand how you could go from winning to losing so quickly. She didn't want to understand that people were gone, and that they probably wouldn't come back.

No, Roxi Ryder didn't understand, but she cried anyway.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

Well, would you look at that. Finally done with IW. I have so many plans, and I thought of some more while writing this chapter. Also I thought I wouldn't be able to get this past 750 words but there you go. Because these are so short I think I'll have posted these four over two weeks, which gives me two weeks to start Endgame, and hopefully I don't go through another massive chunk of writer's block. Pls vote, comment, let me know what you think, etc.,

JABBERJAY_011

WORDS [1750]

WRITTEN [1.1.2022]

PUBLISHED [12.1.2022]