Work Text:
Labs felt like home to Ava. And she hated that.
It’s just that if you’d spent as much time in them as she had they become your home, whether you like it or not.
She’d always been a scientist at heart- the influence of her father was strong even before the accident- so when Val started to pour money into the renovation and improvement of the Watchtower, shortly after the New Avengers was formally founded, everyone was ecstatic. Amongst a new training facility and upgrade weapons cache, there was also a brand new lab with state of the art equipment so that Ava could continue her life’s work.
Being a gun for hire on the run meant that she hadn’t had a proper place to work on her suit or her research in ages so when the new lab was finally constructed, it welcomed her in with its sharp edged comfort. And for a while Ava didn’t notice the loneliness, just happy to be home. Until Bucky came to see her about his vibranum arm and Ava realised that it was the first time anyone had been down here other than herself in a month. Then the loneliness started to settle.
So she let her work consume her, in the same way it always had. It’s always easier to dismiss your loneliness when you’re working on your survival. Ava had gotten considerably better at controlling her phasing even managing to get it to work in favour for her and not against her. It also hurt less. She’s always known pain, having your very being be ripped apart and then put together again every second hurt but this new suit made existing easy and the phasing tolerable. Still having extra weight on you all the time was difficult, especially so when you needed to fight but Ava had learnt how to deal with it. A plus side of being in a team of mostly soldiers and assassins meant that you spend a lot of time together taking full advantage of all the new training equipment and weapons and this meant Ava trained with some of the best fighters, and even beat them sometimes.
But being stuck on the lower level in the lab most of the time doesn’t do great for the mind.
Ava felt disconnected from the them, she was apart of the team but only because of association.
The others tried their best to understand her and her work, hell Bucky came down most mornings but there’s only so much a 117 year old man can understand about the subatomic universe and quantum mechanics.
She didn’t even sleep in her own room and god, somehow that just made everything worse.
Everyone was given their own room in the Watchtower: an area just for you, your own private environment, to feel however you wanted, to do whatever you wanted and yet for Ava that was the lab. Don’t get us wrong, she tried to sleep in her room during the first few weeks and some nights she could, most nights she couldn’t so she would decide to go down to the lab to work on something, figuring that she could at least be doing something during this time. It’d end up being something trivial but she’d work until each blink took physical strength and it was easier to close her eyes for a minute or so and then she just… fell asleep on the steel bench and soon it became routine.
She slept every night in that lab.
Labs were the only constant she knows, they lull her into feeling secure, into feeling safe. She hated it, labs were a reminder of every painful thing that happened to her but that was home, no matter the memories.
None of the team knew this, all caught up in their own minds that they didn’t really pay attention as to where anyone went to sleep at night, I mean why would you?
It wasn’t until one night Ava found herself at the top communal levels of the Watchtower in need of a glass of water, that it all came unraveling.
She walked into the kitchen area pausing to look out into the night sky of New York to admire its view. As she wondered closer to the kitchenette her eyes caught movement in the dark, a figure shrouded in the shadows. Her adrenaline and survival mechanism kicked up gears and Ava automatically prepared to fight.
The figure laughed and it’s only then that Ava realised that it wasn’t the Void or someone else here to kill her, only Yelena.
“It’s only me.” She said, raising up her hands in a faux surrender as she walked closer. Ava exhaled, trying to get rid of that fear in her chest.
“So, can’t sleep?” Yelena asked curiously. She’s wearing what looked like pyjamas but the darkness obscured Ava’s view.
“No, just getting some water.” Ava moved in closer to open the fridge, the light hurting her eyes as she reached in to get a bottle of water.
Neither of them were particularly close and rarely were they alone together to form any stronger bond than the one the whole team shared. Ava grabbed a bottle and turned back heading towards the elevator eager to return back to the lab.
Yelena watched her in confusion, “Where are you going?”
“Lab.” Ava answered plainly, as if it was the most obvious thing.
“Why?”
That stopped Ava dead in her tracks. No one else knew about this. She could feel the embarrassment creep up her spine and the panic to seem normal taking over. “I’ve- I’ve got some work to do there.” She lied.
“At three in the morning?” Yelena asked carefully as if she was going over Ava’s words in her mind, weighing their credibility.
Ava doubled down, “Yes.” Turning to rush off, anxious to leave. She mumbled her goodnights and turned the corner down the hallway to the elevator.
She wanted to forget this interaction even happened, it was embarrassing that Ava hadn’t thought of a better reason as to why she was down there so late at night. She wondered if this just made her seem even more awkward than before. Her mind spun out as anyone’s mind often does late at night. The adrenaline rush and conversation had drained her and Ava wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and put this behind her, maybe in the morning it all wouldn’t seem so bad she thought.
The next morning, Yelena didn’t mention anything about their encounter last night at all to Ava when they went to train early with everyone else. That worried her, why wasn’t she saying anything? Was she waiting for a better time to talk about it? But the day went without any word from her about it and so did the next and the next and before Ava knew it a whole week had passed without Yelena asking her about it. And as the week slowly passed so did Ava’s worry about that night and that worry eased itself back into the back of her mind.
It was getting late- Ava struggled to keep her eyes open as she read through old research files and papers. She figured everyone had probably gone to bed and could feel the way she was just about to do the same when a knock on the glass doors to her lab appeared.
The noise shocked Ava’s nervous system and she swivelled around to see, to her surprise, Yelena standing right at her as if she had been waiting for the perfect moment to surprise her.
Ava felt that weird embarrassed feeling from a couple nights ago set in and she desperately tried to focus on the words in front of her.
Yelena saw right through it, Ava knew, but she wasn’t gonna admit.
Walking in, she looked around the foreign surroundings trying to understand it. “You spend a lot of time here.” Yelena observed.
Ava payed her no attention rather focusing very intensely at the proposed 3D model in front of her. “Uh huh,” feigning disinterest.
Yelena stopped her pacing, turning towards her, “You wanna talk about it?”
Annoyance was started to prickle at Ava’s skin. “There’s nothing to talk about.” Her answered was clipped.
Now a silence set in, the atmosphere was charged, loaded with all the things they wanted to say to each positive and negative. Yelena stared at Ava as she refused to look up from her desk, willing her tired mind to comprehend the words on the pages.
A gentle voice broke through, “Good night Ava.” Ava looked back just in time to catch the last glimpse of blonde. She didn’t even hear her walk away.
The next couple of weeks continued as normal but it felt weird. It almost felt like being a suspect in a crime, always waiting for the next round of interrogations. But they never happened. Life continued as normal, as if no secret was revealed. Ava continued her work all day in the labs until she eventually fell asleep. And the team continued to go on missions. And Yelena continued to act like nothing had happened.
It’s strange the tricks and jokes the universe likes to play on us. How sometimes the very thing we pray doesn’t happen to us, happens to us. That’s what Ava found herself in, at the upper level of the Watchtower with that skyline of New York, face to face with Yelena late at night. Again.
Swallowing her pride, Ava said a small hello as she walked past the kitchen, where Yelena was, to get to her room.
“Working late?” Yelena asked after her and the humour in her voice was just undeniable.
“Yeah,” she cleared her throat, “Something like that.” Ava answered politely heading towards her room, feeling a bit uneasy.
The power converter she needed had to be in one of the boxes under her bed- she just had to figure out which one. Ava flipped the switch in her room, got on the ground and started pulling them out, methodically opening each one and checking all the other equipment she had collected to see if it was the one she needed.
“You wanna come with me?” Yelena said out of the blue.
Ava whipped around to see the blonde standing in her doorway, hands folded at her chest.
Her eyebrows furrowed half in confusion, half in annoyance. “To where?” She said exasperated, flinging her arms out in front of her as if to further prove a point.
“The roof, unless you want to keep working on your sci-fi projects.” A grin playing on her lips.
“They’re not sci-fi projects.” Ava mumbled under breath.
“Come.” She said as she turned back to the kitchen and towards the elevator.
And for some unknown reason Ava got up and followed her against all protest from her brain. Maybe she was getting sick of loneliness of the lab and in need of some sort of connection. Maybe it’s late and she was just more susceptible to being convinced.
The elevator took them to a maintenance level and Yelena lead them through grey tunnels slick with grime and with rusted pipes weaving above their heads. It was a vast contrast to the sleek and polished design of everywhere else in the tower. It was also colder here by an unnatural amount. The corridor ended with a single door with a handle across it that Yelena pushed opened and Ava was transported to another world.
The night sky was the backdrop to the light show that was New York; the lights of office buildings mimicked the stars in the sky above and looked like they had all fallen down here onto earth. Each individual light, all bright and colourful, was a story that added to the cityscape. The brisk night air invigorated Ava- it made her feel more alive. This was a type of heaven, if you believed enough.
“I know, it’s beautiful.” Yelena read her mind.
Ava’s answer was lost to the wind.
They walked to the edge of the large rooftop, leaning against the railing to look outwards. Yelena reached into her hoodie and pulled out a box and a lighter. She pulled out a single cigarette placing it between her lips and struck the lighter a couple times before she successfully managed to light the cigarette.
Taking a deep breath in of the tobacco, she turned away to blow the smoke out west before turning back to Ava.
“You want?” She held out the lit cigarette to Ava the small space between them.
Ava looked down at the offering, “No, thanks.” And the cigarette was back between her lips.
The wind and puffs of smoke were the only noises up here as Ava stared down at the roads below, no cars were in sight at this time of night and yet life was still being lived in all the bright buildings.
“Sometimes I come up here and look out, all the tall buildings and twinkling lights in all of them. I don’t feel anything when I look down though. No fear, no anxiety just dullness.” Yelena’s words a strange surprise to Ava, she wasn’t expecting something like that from her.
The quiet returned, the cigarette still burned.
Ava didn’t really understand why she was here or what this was, was it some sort of bonding ritual? But still she responds. “I’d probably phase through the ground knowing my luck.” She joked darkly- her phasing was better thanks to her new suit and a host of other things but it would never fully heal.
“What’s up with that,” Yelena gestured vaguely. “The moving through walls?”
Ava’s sigh was laced with something heavy. “It’s called molecular disequilibrium.”
Yelena stayed silent, cigarette discarded on the concrete floor beneath, looking at her for more answers.
Ava continued, “The molecules in my body go through different stages of matter. That’s why I can phase through objects.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.” The word escaped Ava before she could stop it.
Yelena’s face was blank and Ava appreciated that, she didn’t want pity for the pain or a pretend understanding that Yelena knew what was happening to her.
“My parents were killed in the explosion of the quantum tunnel my father built. I went back after he told me and my mother to run. I- I didn’t want,” she chocked on her words but turned to play it off as if she was just clearing her throat, “I didn’t want him to be alone.” She didn’t think about that day ever, sometimes it’s easier to never think about those things. “After the accident I was like this but worse.”
Ava looked back up, it all felt a bit raw saying this aloud.
“My childhood was traumatic as well don’t worry.” It sounded a bit like a joke coming from Yelena. “Turns out being a child assassins isn’t a healthy upbringing.” Her eye contact flickering, never seeming to stay in one place. “I have nightmares most nights about it and the people I have killed and my…” she trailed off, bitting her tongue hard. “I’m here most nights because it is nice.” She paused, “It’s better.”
“I sleep in the lab because that’s where I’ve spend my whole life as a science experiment.” Ava gave a morose smile.
This felt more intimate than being naked, this was like presenting what was underneath her skin. And she wanted to say more. She didn’t realise how much she was pleading for anyone to listen to her. Solitude chokes you of connections.
“Foster took me in and so did SHEILD, only there was a caveat I was to be trained as well as studied.” Something broke at that second, “I thought they would help me.” Tears crossed the barrier and onto her face. “They turned me into a weapon.” Her voice splintering.
Sniffling and trying to seem less pathetic than she was in that moment, Ava immediately tried to wipe them off her face. She was crying in front of the first person to ask a surface level question about herself and this is what happened to her. Ava couldn’t help but feel liked she’d messed this up.
Yelena didn’t say anything, just even shifted closer.
Her voice was thin when she finally spoke. “I have nightmares sometimes of killing my friend when I was ten. That was our task, betray someone you love. The ultimate test of loyalty.”
The confession made Ava’s heart hurt, “Yelena,” she placed her hand on top of the blondes, “You can’t blame yourself.”
The vigour returned to her voice and she pulled away, “No. I killed her. I could have refused and been killed myself but I didn’t. I chose to kill her instead.”
The night air has a way of uncovering deep wounds hidden beneath thin bandages. There’s a line that you cross at certain point. One where you go from a child, victim to their circumstance, to the attacker. One where your actions are not manipulated but your own. They’d crossed that line. It didn’t matter when.
“Every death since her has been my choice. I chose it.” Tears had began to run down Lena’s check.
Ava stood there, gripping the railing. She didn’t like what Yelena had said. She didn’t like how hard the words hit. She didn’t like that Yelena was right. How far can you blame circumstances? How far could Ava blame the agents at SHEILD for the pain she caused to the man who was like a second father to her? How far could Ava blame the agents for all the people she killed in search of a cure after she escaped them? How far could she blame them for them for her lack of humanity?
Yelena took a gulp of air, throat feeling constricted, “I’m so angry at what they took away from me. And I’m angry at myself that I somehow continued it.” There was an intensity in those words like the pressure of them had become too much.
Neither of them wanted to lie to the other one- tell the other that it was all okay. Instead the two of them stood on the rooftop facing out, side by side in mourning and anger with tears decorating each of their faces and wind whipping at their hair.
Yelena’s fingers made the smallest of touches with Ava’s and she was half expecting her to move it but the contact remained. But Ava was greedy. This connection, this contact was the first she had had in a long time and she wanted as much as she could get. Her touch was safety and deep, bone-touching understanding.
The ghost drew her fingers gently over the blondes hand just so that only the last two fingers were covered. Not too much but enough to know it was intentional. And then in one moment much like a match being lit, one moment there isn’t anything the next light, their hands intertwined. Squeezing each others for some semblance of comfort. Anything to replace that gaping wound of trauma.
No more secrets about what they had done or who they were. They stood there for a long time, entwined. It was painful but it could be painfully together.
That night sparked something between them. The next night Ava went straight to the roof, hoping to find her there again. And she did that the night after that and the night after that one. And Lena was always there. And just like that a ritual was born; one where they’d seek each other’s company out at night on the rooftop instead of sleeping in a lab or having nightmares.
The meetings didn’t stops there, slowly they bleed out into the daytime. Lena would show up to the labs during lunch a few times a week and would always bring Ava a plate of something and ask her about what she was working on- the feeling wasn’t something Ava could name but felt like warm liquid being dripped into her veins.
And she would show her was she was doing that day and always tried to make it interesting to Lena by letting her fuck around with some of the stuff in the lab. Even though she could tell Lena wasn’t all that interested, the effort to try and understand and spend time here was more than enough for Ava.
It took a good two months of getting to know each other for Ava to find the courage to ask Yelena to train personally with her and show her more techniques- slightly embarrassed to show an assassin her own skills when it came to violence- but Lena was patient with her, even impressed.
The two of them stared pairing up together for missions just to spend more time talking together and to everyone’s surprise they worked really well together- they complimented each other, made up in areas that the other one was weaker in.
All their moments together, big and small, came to a head one night. Right back to where it started on the rooftop.
“I think they have to prescribe me something to knock me out so I can get a few hours of sleep.” Lena had been complaining for the past ten minutes about how bad her sleep had been the past couple of days. And, coming from her, Ava knew that it meant her nightmares had been worse than usual.
“Maybe you should try sleeping in a lab.” She half-mumbled out.
Lena turned to look at her and Ava gave back a smile before they just stared laughing.
It felt electric when they were together Ava loved it, it made her happy. Nothing else, she thought, has made her feel like this.
“Do you, uhh, do you think you’d be able to sleep better if you had someone next to you?” The question was innocent enough in Ava’s mind but it sounded scandalous when said out loud.
“Probably not.” Lena answered honestly. She glanced over at Ava. “Do you think you would be able to sleep in a bed if there was someone else in it?”
“I have no clue,” she laughed.
The moment suddenly felt heavy. Like it was brewing with something.
“Do you- do you want to try?” Intentions blurred together in that question as Ava thought about what she had just proposed. A part of her was regretted saying it immediately. Fuck, had she overstepped? The rooftop for all its open space now felt like the most cramped place in the world.
Yelena’s voice finally answered, “I mean,” she paused and Ava prayed she wasn’t doubting herself, “we can try.”
Those words shouldn’t have made Ava feel that much excitement.
She tried to sound nonchalant, “We can use my room.”
Lena nodded an agreement and turned to head back into the Watchtower with Ava two steps behind. And with shaking hands she opened the door to go inside.
She took the ghost down the elevator and through the halls until she eventually lead Ava into her own room, softly closed the door behind her.
Nervous didn’t begin to cover it. Ava had no clue how to act in this moment and she certainly didn’t wanna do anything weird and potentially scare off Lena or worse lose her friendship. Ava let Lena pick her side of the bed before she shrugged off her coat leaving her in her a softer version of her suit that she used to sleep in and laid down next to her.
“You can get under the covers you know.” She half joked as she got in bed. Her attempt to try and ease the awkward tension in the room and her own nerves.
Yelena did not reply nor did she move and silence took its reign. Thick, suffocating, embarrassing silence. The kind where you don’t even think you can move in fear of making it worse. A pang of homesickness for the labs hit Ava in her chest.
“So do we sleep now or…” Lena’s voice finally broke through.
Ava tried to stifle her laugh but couldn’t, causing Lena to start laughing as well. The situation was awkward, they could both feel it, and the lack of direction on what to do from either of them made it ten times more awkward but at least they could recognise that.
The ghost turned to face the other woman in her bed and caught a glint in her eyes from the few rays of city light that escaped into her room. “Or we could just talk. Might be less strange.” She gazed around her room, “It’s more comfortable here than the roof. A lot less pretty though, just plain white walls.” Suddenly wishing that she had spent more time here putting in any amount of effort to make the room seem more hers.
“You are not a bad substitute.” That snapped Ava’s attention back towards the girl in her bed. Her breath caught and she felt her skin burn up, Lena just watched her on her side.
Three seconds. Ava’s eyes flickered up and down Lena’s visage, just catching at her mouth. Two seconds. Lena’s hands moved up to hold Ava’s face delicately. One second. She pulled her in close and kissed Ava. But only for one second. A lit match and then it was extinguished.
Shyness wasn’t something that Ava was use to seeing in Lena but she didn’t dare to make eye contact with Ava now.
Ava took her hands and placed them on Lena’s face, mirroring the same position she was in. She caught Lena’s eyes again and gave her a soft smile before she summoned up all her courage to kiss her.
This time the kiss was longer, slower and gentle. Ava was out of her depth, she didn’t have all that much experience. But Lena held her face and pulled her in close as if she was something holy and the feel of her lips was enough to convince Ava that there was such a thing. The slight clattering of teeth and the accidental lip bite here and there made it endearing if anything to Lena. Her hand moved down to hold at Ava’s waist and that made something in her want more immediately. That touch was intimate, that was want in liquid form shooting through her body right now.
Ava tilted her head slightly to kiss Lena more and her hands found purchase in the old white t-shirt Lena was wearing, gripping onto the fabric and almost fully pulling her closer in desperation. More feeling of her against her. The lip bites weren’t all so accidentally anymore. This was connection like never before and it felt good.
Lena slipped her tongue into Ava’s mouth and Ava reciprocated, controlled movements as her tongue explored the foreign place. Her hand weaved into the blonde stands pulling them with delightful force and Lena responding with more feverish energy in their kiss, pushing her tongue further into her mouth. She liked the way Lena tasted against her mouth.
The hand at Ava’s waist traced circles on her clothed skin as it wandered further down. Stopping at her hip bone the fingertips pressed hard against the skin as Lena bit at the ghost’s lip. The sensation was like walking a tightrope of pleasure, high strung and tethering right on the edge. Pausing her actions, “Can I- ?” Lena started to ask but she as cut off, Ava frantically nodding at whatever it was she wanted to do to her before going back to kissing her with all that she was starved for.
Flesh slipped under polyester fabric and skin touched skin. Lena circled her clit with varying speeds, teasing her with light touches just to hear the noises she’d make.
“Le- Lena please.” Ava’s half-lidded eyes looking up, pleading with her. She could feel how wet Lena was making her and her body subconsciously pressed down on Lena’s fingers at her clit craving the sparks that rushed through her body.
Fingers slipped into Ava, her breath hitched. Everything felt good and it consumed her. Her body stretching to accommodate this new thing, back arching as her brain was overwhelmed with dopamine. A moan tore through Ava as Lena set a harsh pace, sliding in and out of her with firm pressure that made her brain glitch. Soft hands that tore up her insides and made her unable to speak. Their kiss had turned messy, lips slick with spit as Ava tried her best to not throw her head back and whine on her fingers.
Lena’s fingers hooked something inside of her and Ava’s vision went white, pleasure wasn’t a strong enough word to describe this. Ragged whines spilt from her lips, breaths shallow yet somehow her chest was heaving. “Fuck- fuck, Lena.” She moaned into the blonde’s mouth. She just smiled against her and Ava could just feel the smirk on her face that she had her like this, pliant and oh so responsive to her touch.
It didn’t take Ava long to cum, Lena locked onto one specific spot inside her and pressed harder against her walls but Lena’s words were what sent her over the edge.
The blonde moved her lips down to Ava’s throat, mouthing at it, “Please,” she heard her whisper, “Please, I want you.” Ava’s hands balled up the fabric of her bedsheets and Lena’s clothes, her whole body locking up as a wave of ecstasy came crashing down over her. Whimpering loudly as Lena continued to finger her through her orgasm, she had never heard herself like this; all needy and pathetic with fractured moans leaving her mouth at the last few moments of her orgasm.
The excitement of the night started to die down and reality started to set in. Lena left a final kiss on Ava’s throat before she carefully took her hands out of her and started to move to get off the bed.
“Wait,” Lena turned at those words and suddenly Ava felt way too aware of what she must look like; all sweaty with hair stuck to her face, “What- what about you?”
The grin that appeared on Lena’s face was mischievous, “You can make it up to me in the morning.” As she leaned back over to kiss Ava deeply.
The ghost could have melted right there. She leaned back to look at her partner with something glinting in her eyes and a new mark on her soul.
Lena went to the bathroom, returning to clean them both up before laying back down in bed with her ghost. Embarrassment should have been present but they were both too exhausted to think about things like that. Moonlight made its appearance through the clouds to cast a dim light against their bodies pressed close together, hands holding each other’s arms and waist and legs tangled.
“Thanks for taking me to the roof.” Ava whispered, almost asleep and still riding a wave of euphoria, “I like feeling less lonely with you.” She wasn’t fully aware of everything she was saying and she didn’t hear Lena’s response as sleep dragged her down.
Lena watched Ava for a while, unsure for what reason, until she found herself closing her eyes every so often until it was easier to just keep them closed. She didn’t even feel herself fall asleep.
And for the first time in a while, both of them slept in a bed peacefully.