There was a fox
And it was her destiny
To not be caught
So she thought
She could get away
With anything Causing pain
And so many slain

There was a hound
And it was his destiny
To track the ground
And make all found
How the people begged
For him to chase track her trace
And put her in her place

The Paradox, by The Hound + The Fox, released in 2020


Tony looked at the girl in front of him, seeing her quickly process the words "I think you are asexual.". It washed over her with ease, but Tony waited to try and determine if she truly understood. Considering she'd seemed to think that she was sick or ill or something else entirely.

Tony had his suspicions for a while, the way she seemed itchy about contact. He didn't know everything about her missions or backstory or her time at HYDRA, but he knew that it wasn't pretty. Her therapist had heavily implied that there was some kind of trauma that involved things that made him want to blow up the nearest HYDRA base, and not for the usual reasons.

It's not like he needed an excuse to destroy some bases.

Anyway, she looked genuinely confused, which was quite a feat all things considered. Roe had always been a closed book, so to see her so confused was… intriguing and concerning at the same time. He'd been anticipating her to not even known what LGBT+ was, considering how close-minded HYDRA was half the time, so he was pleasantly surprised when she came up with a fairly accurate description.

Still, asexual was an easy term to explain, in the grand scheme of things. Still, there were branches of asexuality, and only Roe could decide if she wanted one, or any or none of them. He'd explain it the best he could, but in the end, it was up to her, and only her. Nobody could take that away from her, regardless of what anyone else thought.

It was her decision, and nobody else should give a damn and just respect it. When Tony woke up this morning, he admittedly hadn't thought he'd be giving sexuality advice. Still, if Roe chose to come to him, he wasn't going to turn her away: it was important that she had someone who she considered trustworthy.

"Asexual is an umbrella term for it all: there are many different types of asexuality Roe: the usual theme being a distinct lack in interest for sex. However, what type you are- if you even agree with me- that's up to you to decide."

Roe's face flicked between several emotions rapidly, neutral, confused, intrigued, and some others. They were like micro-expressions, never staying on her face for more than a few seconds. Still, as she threw the ball again for his daft little bots, she was transfixed on every word that Tony was saying, as though he was saying the greatest speech on earth.

He was not, of course, he really wasn't saying anything beyond being informative, but it was a nice push to his ego- had he still put stock on it.

"I see. So, there is nothing wrong with me then? This is normal?"

On the edges of his mind, he could feel JARVIS intertwining himself within his brain, soothing edges Tony didn't even know he had. You, Dum-E and Butterfingers were beeping in one's and zeroes', as excitable as a kid on sugar. He hadn't coded them like that, it had been a glitch in the system, but he wouldn't change them for the world.

They were his boys, like he'd exclaimed so many times before.

"Perfectly normal."

He told her bluntly, and Roe nodded as though he had personally told her the secrets of the universe: even though it was more like she was the one who was privy to that at the moment. With her ability to communicate with the Time Stone.

Tony still had no idea what to think about that: should he be concerned, impressed? Probably not impressed, but that only went to highlight his tumultuous thoughts. It was proof of the thing he'd seen all those years ago, what he'd been deemed "crazy" for seeing when he'd told his teammates. He'd wanted to prepare for it, had been when he'd added extra measure upon extra measure on his satellites, had tinkered away and away at his suits, driving him and pepper further away.

He still wasn't exactly sure what had drawn them back together again: Peter? Roe? He was engaged now, something he'd thought would never happen, because of his wild and eccentric nature, mind flicking from thought to thought faster then his suits could accelerate.

He was engaged, and he'd just been told that there was a potential world-ending threat on the horizon.

He hoped Pep didn't want an immediate wedding- he refused to do it on such a short notice- against his impulsive desires- because he wanted to enjoy it. He couldn't enjoy anything with this weight hanging over his head: and he was willing to bet Peter and Roe couldn't either.

Then there was Roe's court case coming up: which would be good to provide her some closure, to take another weight off of her chest. Roe took so much in, she didn't know what it was like to be carefree. She was different from that cold and prickly, unable to do something that wasn't a command, person she had been when they'd rescued her- she was beginning to become something like a teenager.

A teenager with a lot of issues, but who didn't have issues nowadays? He certainly had lots during his teens- at least Roe wasn't getting black out drunk or taking hardcore drugs or sleeping with anything in sight. Granted, she had enough PTSD to give forty therapists a full-time job, and enough murders to give Nat a run for her money, but she was working past it, and that was all that really mattered- she'd held herself accountable, and he knew that she still felt guilt about what she'd done.

She was like him in that aspect, really. They held a lot in common- not just deep-seated issues and their love of Peter.

"I'm glad. I thought I was bro- I thought there was something wrong with me: more than the usual anyway."

Neither of them commented on her near slip up, because they knew that things like that happened. It was inevitable. It was a dark world when you could be proud about someone making a joke, but that's what happened when you were unlucky enough to be in HYDRA. Not that it was her choice, and I think everyone can be proud of the person she's becoming.

"I'm sure JARVIS or FRIDAY- or FINCH if they're working yet would help."

That much was true enough. Roe nodded, as she watched the three bots fight over the small ball, before taking it back, wrapping one single hand around it. As though she were a magician forming a trick, she did something with her hand, and her powers, and split it into three, tossing one ball to each bot. They looked at her as though she'd grown a second head, before chirping in rapid fire binary at the two of them, giving Tony a headache right in the centre of his temple.

He'd gotten more of them nowadays: he'd been hoping, with his new healing factor courtesy of extremsis- though the Arc being in his chest again was a little bit of a drag-

"They're going to ask you to do that forever now."

Roe smiled, edges turning up, as she stared at the three bots, baring her teeth like a wild animal that was staking a claim.

"It's a good thing I don't mind then."


"Roe. Take a break- let us handle finding potential allies."

Rhodey told her, appearing in the kitchen as she sat at the breakfast bar, writing detailed notes in her notepad. While she was aware that she could just simply type things out, there was something she preferred about handwriting it.

He was the second person that had said this to her, and it frustrated her a little. They had always- besides Steve- been good at giving her space, treating her like an adult. But now, they were actively pushing her to be normal.

A normal teenager.

Roe couldn't be normal. She didn't know how to be. In fact, the only person who wasn't trying to convince her was Peter- the only thing he was convincing her of was to take breaks now and then. She was trying to get a list of people who would help them. The list was not very long, because you didn't exactly make allies in HYDRA. Besides Logan, her list of people who didn't hate her was fairly short: most people who she came across, for better or for worse, ended up dead.

It wasn't as if they had a habit of letting her spare people- and that had come much later into her time at HYDRA. There had been a reason she'd run stealth and assassination mission more than blunt-force ones, and her profile, her ledger, her list, whatever you wanted t call it, was both long and short- the number of the dead high, but their killer, a ghost.

That was certainly biting her in the arse now. Still, the fact that they were treating her as if she was a mere child aggravated her more then she liked to admit. She was not trying to be petulant, nor was she trying to be irritating or full of herself: the point of the matter was that the stones had talked to her, and she was no more then innocent teenager then Peter was.

"I took a break a little while ago."

Crow was curled up around her shoulders like a warm scarf, sound asleep, his breathing relaxed. She liked to focus on it when things just got a little bit too much. Where scents became stronger, the flashbacks downright vicious. It was better than some of her other coping mechanisms. Rhodey gave her a hard stare as he took a sip out of his coffee or whatever it was. It certainly smelt like coffee: but it could also be a cappuccino or mochaccino or any of the others.

His gaze was like stones, as Roe continued writing down her list, briefly pausing to stroke Crow's head. His tail was draped down the back of her shirt, flicking from side to side idly. She wasn't even lying to Rhodey, she had taken a break for exactly that reason.

She'd still not told Peter about Tony's suspicion; she'd been privately thinking about it to herself. She had never been one for labelling things about herself; but then again, she'd never been given the choice before.

Would Peter still accept her if she told him? She was all too aware of how some people were treated, and while she didn't think Peter was one of those people, she wouldn't be surprised if the possibility of her asexuality turned out to be a turn off.

Before, long ago, she hadn't understood why people got stressed or scared over such things as sexuality. If you loved someone, you loved someone, they should appreciate that they love you just the same, and that if you truly loved someone, you would accept them as she were.

But that was also before she had been with Peter, and the fear was all too prominent. Peter was, as cliché as it sounded, her first love, her first proper experience of love, outside of familial. She loved him in a way that went against her training, went against everything she ever knew. But she still loved him.

She hoped she never gave him reason to doubt her.

"I bet you have. But let us handle it- go and try and be a teenager Roe. What about continuing your degree? Finishing FINCH? ACER? We can handle it ourselves."

Roe set her jaw, shivers going down her spine as she locked her emotions behind the mask she wore so often. Blowing up at Rhodey would do her no favours, so instead of verbally acquising, she gathered up her notes, tucking them under her arm and heading up, Crow opening one slitted eye before shutting it again.

As annoyed as Roe was at Rhodey, he had a point- FINCH and ACER were two projects she needed to finish, both of them fledgling AI's. FINCH had been put aside in favour of "intergalactic battle planning" and ACER had been put aside when she'd gotten Crow, distracted with all that being a cat owner entailed.

Crow was pretty relaxed for a cat, happily sitting on someone's shoulder or around their scarf: and he almost had a sense for when someone was feeling low. He would stay around them much more then he usually would, being much more like a cat instead of a weird child-baby with paws.

That was a weird analogy, even for her. Roe was hardly an expert in cat-behaviour: canine maybe, considering the number of times she'd had to hide as one- but most cats weren't so in tune to emotions. She knew that this specific trait was one that Tony and Peter had looked for when getting him, but the way his emotions flicked from one to another was uncanny.

But it was hard for her to just switch off, to not worry. It was ever present, the urge and drive to do something about it was one she couldn't ignore. It was a mission she had both received and had prioritised, and she couldn't switch off the fact that if they failed, it was the world at stake.

Any person would worry about that, HYDRA or not.

She was less concerned about the mission itself, and more concerned about the consequences following it. A large-scale war akin to the first and second World War meant lives lost: and it was something she couldn't control. She'd never considered herself to be a control freak, but she didn't like things she hadn't experienced before, things she couldn't predict the outcome of.

She sat herself down at her desk, hand resting with a pencil off to the side, deep in thought. Was it stupid for her to worry about something that wasn't 100% confirmed? Logically, taking preventative steps worked out in the positive, because they'd be prepared in case anything happened. The training didn't have an expiry date: and it wasn't as if it would be useless the minute threat was over.

The worry was always present, niggling. She had finally got where she wanted to be, not completely recovered, but she had a family. Something that she had either been denied, or had torn away from her, again and again. The threat that was heralded above them wasn't even one they could warn the general public about- with no proof, they would just be called crazy.

They, no matter how much the Avengers and company had done to protect them, would never believe them through word of mouth. And while they deserved to know what was happening, would they actually believe them? Even if they did, they would likely run around panic buying, screaming that it was an apocalypse.

Not all of them, but some.

Crow meowed from his position around her neck, and she scratched the top of his ears. She'd developed some habits, and one of them happened to be speaking allowed. It didn't escape her that if she'd done that during HYDRA, she wouldn't have lived to see the next week. Roe tapped her pencil against her desk again, staring at her notes that almost seemed to become squiggles at this point, a jumble of words and phrases that she couldn't identify.

"What do I do?"

And even she herself couldn't tell whether she meant the situation with Peter, or the potential earth war. She was certainly stressed about the two of them, although both for different reasons. But there was a commonality- she was terrified of failing, and if she failed…

Well, the consequences would be dire.


Author's Note

I'm sorry this was so late! I've had technical difficulties- which I managed to fix- and good old student debt to worry about.

Thank you for all the reviews lately, it really encourages me to keep writing!

Thanks again,

~Cait