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Ava is a ghost. This has been the truth ever since that explosion that took her parents life - and, really, hers too.
Ava is a ghost. She doesn’t exist – not truly. She is just an imitation of a human being, close to correct but wrong around the edges. She thinks and she feels and walks and talks just like a human, but she doesn’t exist like one. Not quite.
Ava is a ghost. She goes through life entirely unnoticed, haunting every room she steps in but never being noticed. As soon as she is gone from someone’s sight, she ceases to exist. No one remembers her unless she is needed. Nobody needs her unless they want something from her.
She can walk through walls. She can phase in and out of existence. Her callsign is Ghost because of her abilities, but truly, Ava feels more like a ghost when she isn’t on a mission. When she is just herself, passing through life entirely unnoticed.
She has always been like this. Existing as nothing is so deeply ingrained in her body. Being seen is a luxury she could never afford.
Ava has bad days sometimes. Everyone on their team does. There are a lot of things wrong with them: not a single healthy life, and not a single therapist between the five of them. It’s fine. They get through the weeks well enough. They have their own coping mechanisms: Yelena and Bob watch shitty TV shows and consume drinks made purely of sugar, Walker takes over the kitchen and cooks far too much food, Bucky disappears for days on end with his cat and then returns completely fine, and Alexei – Alexei seems completely fine, in all honesty.
And Ava - she does what she does best: she becomes a ghost. It’s easy. It’s all she’s ever known.
When she wakes up one day with her body aching more than usual and a heavy fog hanging over her head, she doesn’t have to think for another second. She downs three extra-strength ibuprofen and disappears.
Sometimes, like this, she loses time. Sometimes, like now, it’s a blessing. Time flies by and she doesn’t feel it pass; time flies by, and she can ignore the ever-present ache of her body.
Bucky would call this ‘dissociating’. Ava calls it surviving.
It isn’t healthy, she knows, but she also doesn’t have a therapist to shout at her over bad coping mechanisms, or do whatever therapists do. Ava is good at this, and it works, so she does it.
In complete honesty, Ava does not know what time it is when she’s dragged back to herself. The pain is still present, still strong. She is sitting on the rooftop and the sun is low in the sky; she has always found comfort in nature, in the world around her. Standing under the sun and looking out over the city reminds her that she is no longer contained in a lab, that she is free to go wherever she wants. Her body aches, her atoms tearing themselves apart, but her mind is clearer now. She doesn’t feel as down as she did earlier.
Small mercies, she supposes.
It takes a moment for her to realize that Yelena is sitting beside her. She doesn’t speak. She isn’t even looking at Ava. She’s just sitting beside her, quiet and patient.
It makes Ava’s heart squeeze, makes her lungs tighten.
Yelena, Ava knows, is a kindred spirit. She has known this for a long time, since the moment they met in that vault and Ava saw a Red Room assassin pointing a gun at her.
They haven’t known each other for a long time - just around seven months now, if she’s remembering correctly - but Ava feels like they’ve known each other for much longer.
Yelena is familiar in a way that nothing and no one else has ever been before. Looking at Yelena is almost like looking in a funhouse mirror - a bit different and distorted, but so deeply similar. Almost the same.
Yelena seems to notice her watching, despite not glancing in her direction. She silently digs into her pocket and pulls out a rattling bottle of pills, setting them on the ground between them and lightly pushing it towards Ava.
“You did not show up to dinner,” Yelena says as Ava dry-swallows a few pills. “And I did not see you at the gym this morning. You always go on Wednesday mornings. You go as I leave, we say hi – it is routine.”
Ava is well-aware of this interaction they share every Wednesday, but she never thought to call it a routine. She never thought it was something Yelena went out of her way to notice. She doesn’t quite follow whatever Yelena is getting at, though. She arches an eyebrow.
“So,” Yelena continues, beginning to idly swing her legs back and forth as she fixes Ava with a look, “what is wrong?”
Ava blinks, meeting Yelena’s eyes. Her gaze isn’t sharp or accusing, just curious. “You think something’s wrong?”
Yelena shrugs a shoulder. “Bob has been in the living room all day and he said you did not enter the kitchen once. You love going to the gym and sparring with Walker - he always complains after, but he did not today. Alexei was so sad he could not bore you with his stories of his glory days that he moved on to target poor Bob.”
Ava huffs out a smile laugh, a smile pulling at her lips. She has been appeasing Alexei and his need to tell tall tales of things that surely never happened a bit more recently – not out of interest, but because sometimes she doesn’t want to be alone nor does she want to have a conversation, and so she lets Alexei talk at her for a few hours. It makes her feel less lonely, and she’s grateful to not have to actively engage in the conversation.
“And you are up here, alone,” Yelena finishes. “You do not like to be alone.”
She doesn’t. She never has. The fact that Yelena knows her well enough to know this, to know her routine, it’s… it’s strange. Unexpected. But not bad.
“And how do you know all of this?” Ava retorts. “Are you stalking me, Belova?”
“I am trying to look out for my… for you,” Yelena simply says. The ease of how she says it makes Ava feel a bit breathless. “But if you think so little of me, I can go.”
Yelena doesn’t make a move to leave - she doesn’t even try to stand up - but Ava is quick to grab her wrist and hold her in place anyway.
“You can stay,” she says. Yelena smirks at her, obviously smug, and Ava rolls her eyes. “Actually, if you’re going to look at me like that, just leave.”
Yelena chuckles, rough and husky. Ava enjoys the sound, the sight of a smile on Yelena’s lips. She watches as Yelena’s gaze shifts into something softer, a look she has seen a few times before but she doesn’t think she will ever get used to.
“Are you okay?” she asks once more.
“I’m okay,” Ava replies, and despite the ache in her body, it’s the wholehearted truth. “The day started out rough, is all.”
“You should have said something,” Yelena murmurs. “Walker would be forced to make your favourite food and Bob would take it to you in bed. You would get the whole pampering.”
Ava laughs. It’s true. Whenever someone’s not feeling too great, Walker can very quickly be cooking whatever they want; his experience cooking his wife three meals every day while she was pregnant pays off well for them. Bob, smart and silly and kind, insists on making sure whoever isn’t feeling great is comfortable.
It’s an odd arrangement, but it’s theirs.
Sometimes, though, Ava forgets what she has. Two and a half decades of barely existing has altered her mind. It’s instinct to disappear, to go unnoticed. It’s what she’s always done. The only person who’s ever cared for her was Bill, and she loves him dearly, but by the time she fell into his hands she was so used to disappearing that it was only natural. And Bill, a truly lovely man, wouldn’t push because he respected her privacy, thought she was making boundaries.
Once upon a time, if Ava was feeling shitty, she could slip away and nobody would notice. Once upon a time - no more than just seven months ago - Ava spent her days entirely unnoticed. Nothing more than a ghost in every place she’s ever called home.
She never really noticed just how lonely of an existence that was until now. Not until she found someone who is just as lonely as her willing to keep her company.
Ava has been alone for a very long time. It’s a prison of her own design. She’s been stuck in there for so long that she forgot the cell was never locked.
“You didn’t have to come check on me,” Ava murmurs. It feels so reminiscent of a night they shared together just a month ago, only with the roles switched. It’s oddly comforting, knowing that they are back in the same spot they once were.
Yelena shrugs a shoulder. “We are friends,” she simply says. “We have to look out for each other.”
They look out for each other. Ava isn’t alone anymore. Even when she tries to disappear, when she tries to slip away into nothingness, now there’s someone who will notice that she’s missing.
Now, there’s someone who sees her. There’s someone who remembers her when she leaves the room, when she fades from sight. And not just one person - there’s a whole group of people who care enough to notice.
It’s new. It’s different. It feels a bit suffocating, in all honesty, to know that she no longer can fade into obscurity, but not entirely in a bad way. It’s strangely reassuring; a heavy weight on her chest that takes her breath away, but soothes her nonetheless. Like a cat curling up atop her lungs but purring all the while.
Ava isn’t a ghost anymore. Not really. Not like she once was.
The sun is lower in the sky now, pink and orange and blue stretching across the sky. Yelena lazily stretches her arms above her head. The silence between them is comfortable, and Ava likes that, too. Sometimes silence can be stifling - sometimes Ava hates the silence the most - but whatever sits between Yelena and Ava is comforting.
Yelena is comforting. It’s probably strange that Ava finds comfort in a deadly assassin, but the same thing can be said about her, so she supposes it really doesn’t matter. Ava finds herself feeling at ease around Yelena more than anyone else. And sitting up here, with Yelena by her side, Ava cannot help but stare.
Yelena is – beautiful. This isn’t a new realization. This isn’t some unknown fact. Ava avoids going online as best as she can, which isn’t too much of a problem considering Valentina still hasn’t connected the internet for them and no one else in the building really knows how, but she’s seen enough edits and posts of people thirsting over Yelena to know that she isn’t the only person to notice. There are a lot of people who think Yelena is beautiful, but they haven’t seen her like this: lit up by the sunset, face smooth and relaxed, entirely at ease.
This is a sight that is only reserved for Ava - a sight first shown to her just over a month ago that she has kept close to her heart ever since.
Yelena is beautiful. She’s breathtaking. She is sharp and soft, both physically and personality-wise. She is a trained killer, strong and quick and violent, but she is also so deeply kind.
It always shocks Ava, just how kind Yelena can be. Not because she doesn’t expect it, but because Yelena’s life has been so miserable, it would only make sense for her to be an asshole. And yet, she is one of the kindest people Ava has ever met. She tries to act cold and harsh, tries to be aloof and uncaring, yet she loves so deeply and so obviously.
She is truly, completely mesmerizing.
Ava is so fascinated with her. So enthralled.
“Thank you,” she says, and Yelena turns to look at her. Her eyes are soft. Caring. So obviously good. “For noticing me.”
Yelena laughs, quiet. “It is difficult not to,” she replies. “Noticing you is the easiest thing to do in this stupid tower.”
Ava’s heart skips a beat. It feels like there are moths in her stomach. Ava isn’t stupid; whatever is going on between them isn’t exactly subtle. They are friends, yes, but it feels like they’re on the precipice of something else. Like they are inevitably spiraling towards something out of their control. Ava is well-aware of the way she gets to see parts of Yelena that nobody else does; that still doesn’t prepare her for wherever they’re headed.
Ava is fucked. Truly and deeply. She knows this. She thinks Yelena knows it too.
She returns Yelena’s smile, and hopes for the best.