Here is tomorrow
Just past sunrise
My fingers reaching out
Cause we are believers
The gods of the skyline
The curse can't tie us down
We've waited so long
We've waited long enough
This is our right
This is our song
This is our moment in history
Ten million roads turning to one
This is our fight
Where we belong
No one can take away destiny
So let the night cover us all
The stars will never fall
Stars, by Arrows to Athens, from the album Kings and Thieves, released in 2011
Logan had gotten on board with the whole plan, though he wanted a shot at Steve if he came across them. Once he'd figured out that she'd been at Siberia, his claws had unsheathed rather violently, and the slightly feral look in his eyes promised retribution. They were slowly making their way around, hopping from location to location, trying to find those who could fight- or rather, would fight. It wasn't conscription: because as dire as the situation was, they weren't about to force people to fight.
The next person on their list was Deadpool. He had a notorious reputation, one that was both impressive and intimidating. He had a screw loose, that much was evident, but he was also an accomplished murderer. He tended to be kind of good- as good as a murderer could be.
Then again, so was she- which made debating Deadpool's morality entertaining. They'd done their homework because the last thing they wanted to do was approach a murderous red-suited antihero without any idea of who he was. Wade Wilson, a former cancer patient, underwent experimental treatment to cure his cancer.
While there weren't many records- aside from one's that basically read out "Psychopath, do not approach" in some colourful language, and didn't bare well for those who crossed him. Still, he was closer to home, so he was the last one they went to on the first round of visiting folks. They were having intervals between searching to both sort out who they had with them, and reconvene.
The best plan, after all, was a well thought out one.
"Roe."
Peter told her, looking somewhat seriously. She looked from where she was sitting at her desk, looking at the grooves etched into the mahogany wood. Her room was fairly modest because she still didn't really get the purpose of unnecessary things like posters. That didn't mean that there weren't things on her wall- there was.
On the back wall, there was a map of the entire world. Tony had told her that she could just have it simply projected on, but she'd answered that she'd preferred the paper, even with its tendency to fall down. On the map, there were markers- most being where she'd had missions. Not that any onlookers would know that at first glance.
It had actually been her therapist's idea- when she got time, to revisit some of those places, and make new memories to replace the negative animosity. Each market represented different times in her life, and when she revisited, she could almost mark them off, creating a new chapter. That was why, next to Washington, there was a picture of her, Peter, Tony and Pepper, standing together.
On her face, there was a genuine smile, not a faux one. She'd been shyly holding hands with Peter, somewhat abashed and awkward about the whole thing. Pepper had been testing her head on Tony's shoulder, and he'd wrapped an arm around her, holding her close. In the background, there'd been a picture of the Washington monument.
There was a lack of people around them because she'd made themselves a little "illusion". It was more complicated than that, involving some physics, and reflection of light, but they'd appeared as completely different people. Had the general public known that the Tony Stark was there, then they'd have never had a chance in getting the photo.
There was another one next to where London, UK was, and it was instead a photo of her and her brother and her niece and nephew. It'd been taken by his wife, who had been accepting of the fact that her husband had a long lost sister. Despite their beginnings and the fact that her brother looked more like her father than a sibling, they'd all looked happy, and she held it close. The pictures were her way of grounding herself whenever she had a bad day.
"Roe."
Peter tried again, and she swapped her focus from thinking about memories to actually engaging with Peter. She tilted her head, hands curling around the desk as she let her pencil lie on the ground, her uniform notes rounded and smooth, in a mixture of languages as was the usual for her. Peter leaned over her shoulder, skim-reading what little he could.
Peter might have been talented in languages, but there were over forty used in those notes, and he couldn't be expected to learn them all. Still, it was the thought that counted, and she appreciated him trying nonetheless.
"Yes?"
Peter stole the pen out of her hands, and she let him. She could easily have kept a hold of it, but she didn't- whatever he was going to say, he deserved for her to listen. So she pushed away from her desk slowly, turning to face Peter as he backed up, sitting on her bed, as Crow opened a lazy eye from his cat tree, before standing up, jumping down it gracefully as all cats tended to do.
"I know the situation isn't exactly a nice one, but you can afford to take breaks, you know that, right? You're not working at your best with barely any sleep, and I think Helen is about five minutes away from drugging you."
She definitely didn't want that to happen- even if she didn't exactly get affected by most drugs. Most of the times she'd been unconscious, it'd been due to injury or some other factor: very rarely was she downed by sedatives. It just didn't happen- it was difficult for a dose to be administered to her.
Roe would rather not anger the medic, thank you very much. Well… Medic? Doctor? Doctor was more accurate, but she was in a med bay, not a hospital.
Regardless, Roe knew that Peter was right, even if she was used to little sleep. But she couldn't help it, it was a part of her instincts that she couldn't shake off, the instinct that she couldn't sleep while there was a mission to be done.
It was one of her vices, something to be worked through- but it was one of the very first bits of "training" drilled in her head, stuck in there, and it was going to be one of the very last bits to dislodge. It's not like she slept often anywhere, simply incapable of the basic human action. It was remarkable that she even had a sense of time in the first place, considering how many times she'd been frozen and unfrozen, sometimes in different times, different places.
Peter tried to help her sleep, by sleeping with her. Not in that sense, she didn't really feel comfortable with the thought, but they laid side by side, sleeping next to one another, neither wanting to face their nightmares alone.
Roe couldn't tell if it was just her HYDRA training acting up, or if there was something seriously wrong with her. She'd entertained the thought of talking to Helen a few times, but that kept getting pushed further back and back as she got more and more distracted. Peter had never tried to force it on her, never even asked, but she felt like she was letting him down, far beyond her lack of knowledge surrounding relationships.
It's just, any time she thought about it, she felt repulsed, a feeling quite unusual for her. She'd killed people in many different ways, seen many experiments done, been tortured and done the torturing, and seen the bloody aftermath of Siberia. None of that resulted in this repulsion, just regret. But the act… the thing that was sexual intercourse, it made her sick in a way she couldn't understand.
She'd never gotten sick before, and it didn't seem to hamper her missions, so with everything else going on, it was put on the back burner. Still, Roe knew she needed to talk to someone, but wasn't sure who. She didn't want the words minced for her, didn't want platitudes or anything like that, but she wanted to know.
Peter's hand tentatively found itself on her cheek, wary of startling her, but she blinked her eyes and stared at him, his own eyebrows furrowing. His hand rested on the side of her cheek, and he looked at her with concern as Crow slunk onto her desk, batting the pen off of the table to be an annoyance.
"Take a break? Please? Do anything but this- you're going to be needed at your best, and Deadpool nor the others will be going anywhere. Tony even said so."
Roe nodded, picking up the pen robotically and putting it in the pot, before closing the lid of her notebook, leaning into Peter's touch.
"Alright."
She agreed, still thinking. She stood up, and wrapped her arms around Peter, enjoying the comfort that the simple action gave her. His arms wrapped around her waist, and they pressed their heads together, Roe shyly pressing her lips to her cheeks.
"I'll take a break."
Why she decided to go to Tony of all people regarding her plight, she didn't know. Maybe it was because of the unintentional bond she'd formed between them during the Siberia incident, maybe it was because she looked up to him as a father now she had none. Maybe it was Tony had good advice, and maybe it was she knew he wouldn't judge her.
Regardless, she found herself in his lab, entertaining You and Dum-E and Butterfingers with their green ball, bouncing it off a wall in an empty corner of the workshop. It was just her and the bots at the minute, even with FRIDAY and JARVIS mingling. Tony came In through the sliding door smoothly, casual shirts and jeans clear.
There were stress lines on his forehead, and the ever-present bags under his eyes, but he still looked fairly chirpy, feet rolling with enthusiasm, even as he noticed Roe's slightly concerted face, and strolled over to the other seat, sitting into it, and pushing back in it, draping one foot over the other. Soft music trickled over the speakers, much against Tony's normal style.
"What's up Birdy?"
He asked, leaning forward once he noticed the look on her face. She threw the ball again as she turned to face Tony, cupping the ball as Dum-E brought it back, crashing into You. They were beeping in binary that she was dully noticing, but wasn't actively concentrating on, having more thoughts on her mind.
"I'm… conflicted."
Tony raised his eyebrows, whiskey eyes focussing on her brown ones. Tony looked relatively healthy considering he'd been near death- his eyes were still brown, although they still flared with blue when he stretched his powers. Though Roe knew he would have been glad to not have the Arc Reactor, he seemed settled within his skin, the idle blue glow still somewhat jarring to see within him.
It was difficult for her to admit any kind of perceived weakness, courtesy of HYDRA. One thing you give away is another to bite you later. Every fibre of her being that was HYDRA was screaming at her to keep it quiet, to repent and train it out of herself. But obviously, she tuned that out, catching the ball with her air elements.
Normally, she wouldn't use her powers like this, but she needed all the practise she could get- and holding a small round ball that was delicate was surprisingly difficult. Too much pressure and it would burst, not enough, and it would fall loosely from her "grip." Throwing it with too much power meant it'd bounce back too quickly, not throwing it hard enough meant it'd just drop, and it wouldn't really be a game of fetch.
"About what?"
She now had his undivided attention and the joking attitude he'd had before had stripped away. Knowing what Peter's enhanced hearing was like, she'd chosen now to approach Tony- when all individuals with enhanced hearing were out of the building. It wasn't her intention to make Peter feel bad in any way, nor force him to think that she needed more help then he was already giving her.
Still, nervousness filled her. It crept in, wrapping around her like a cloak, shivers running along her back like icicles on a winter's day. She pushed it to the side- she should not be getting so nervous over admitting something to Tony of all things- and caught the ball again, throwing it for the ever-enthusiastic bots to catch. They never grew bored, and the repetitive actions soothed her somewhat: after all, she did like her habits, and she liked repetition, both things she'd been denied before.
"I love Peter, and I find myself enjoying his hugs and touches. But I know that a part of relationships is… intimacy, yet the thought… makes me sick. It makes me feel uncomfortable. Is there something wrong with me, that I feel this way?"
Tony's head tilted slightly, but before he'd even begun to speak, he shook his head to reaffirm the fact that there was nothing wrong with her. Well, not physically anyway.
"No, I don't believe you're sick, Roe. Tell me, what do you know about the LGBTQ+ community?"
She knew enough about it, knew that it was a group for under-represented people- or at least, that was her understanding of it. It was an acronym that reflected each member that they represented, whether they were heterosexual, homosexual, pansexual, or they had some other unique identifier. It didn't really matter to her- she didn't care what people wanted to be called- whether it was outside social norms or not- or who they liked- a relationship was a relationship, why should they be controlled?- or what their pronouns were- she was an "it" for many years before she settled on she- what mattered to her was that she obeyed them. If someone would rather use the "they/them" pronouns, then those would be the ones they used- she knew what it was like, being forced into an identity that she didn't want.
So yes, she was well-acquainted with what they were, and what they stood for.
Still, she wasn't exactly sure where Tony was going with this- she just wanted to know if she was sick or not, and as much as she respected the LGBTQ+ community, she didn't get how it affected her directly.
"I know that it is an acronym about different orientations, often misrepresented within the common community. Within the group, such unrepresented or misrepresented orientations include bisexuals, transgender, and those who are non-binary. There are many more."
Tony hummed lowly, nodding slowly as he looked at her with a serious expression.
"Well, this is what I think, Roe: I think you might be asexual."
Author's Note
Note: I did not mean to offend anyone with my interpretation of the LGBTQ+ community. When Roe says she does not care, I meant it in a "she will respect anyone's identity or pronouns" and not, "I don't care you are [blank]. I'm sorry if this comes across as misconstrued, I myself am an asexual, and am drawing a little on my own experience. I apologise if I offended anyone.
University is... busier then I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying it, but balancing money and work and jobs... well, it's interesting to say the least.
Anyway, I need to sleep because I have class early tomorrow. I just spent the last few hours working on maths, and I'm shattered.
Thanks for all the reviews!
~Cait
