[Ava had never needed him to be a good man. To be honest, she'd never really known that good men existed. That good people had, because she'd never really known any. She might not have liked most of the SHIELD agents that looked after her, but for the longest time that was sort of her bar for what made a good person. Steve Rogers was like some platonic ideal, so good it was hard to believe he was real. Even after she met him. Sana had been her first encounter with someone genuinely caring, and it had been strange for her.
She laughs a little when he brings up STRIKE and her birthday, and she shrugs her shoulders, looks at him with a curious look, a little enigmatic, like she's considering something. Not quite bittersweet, but a quiet sort of truth. But then she switches to something more playful, doesn't get lost in it.] Natasha never really knew what to do with me. Even after everything that happened. Do you still remember what my birthday is?
[It didn't really mean anything, but she was curious. It's easy talking to him. No SHIELD, no 7B, none of the trappings of the life she'd had before, just here on this strange planet at the end of the universe. He bites into his chocolate bar, and Ava breaks off another piece to idly nibble on. She looks him over when he mentions squats being good for calorie burn, and there's a slight twitch of her lips. ] Too bad there's not a pullup bar.
[She quiets for a moment when he brings up the fact that they'd been wiping her. With someone else, it would have been rougher, harsher, but Rumlow had been there, he knew, he'd had to deal with her when she didn't know who he was, where she was. And that just makes it another piece, not a secret. And she doesn't blame him for it. He'd never even been there, just seen the aftermath. They'd wipe her when she remembered too much, they'd tell her the same lie: that she'd been rescued from the Russian Mafia, that she was here for her protection, and that it was trauma.]
I didn't really have them back then, I guess. It was later. Things sort of went to Hell when I was seventeen. I was psychically linked to Natasha, which she obviously wasn't too happy about. There was this big plot that involved this machine in Istanbul, but I had to blow it up to break the link. And then- [She holds her hands up and wiggles her fingers in a clear pantomime of powers. But the thing was that given what she's found out about the program, about her mother and father, the way everything kept coming back to her genetics she'd never really know if this was like Banner's freak accident, or what she was supposed to be.]
no subject
She laughs a little when he brings up STRIKE and her birthday, and she shrugs her shoulders, looks at him with a curious look, a little enigmatic, like she's considering something. Not quite bittersweet, but a quiet sort of truth. But then she switches to something more playful, doesn't get lost in it.] Natasha never really knew what to do with me. Even after everything that happened. Do you still remember what my birthday is?
[It didn't really mean anything, but she was curious. It's easy talking to him. No SHIELD, no 7B, none of the trappings of the life she'd had before, just here on this strange planet at the end of the universe. He bites into his chocolate bar, and Ava breaks off another piece to idly nibble on. She looks him over when he mentions squats being good for calorie burn, and there's a slight twitch of her lips. ] Too bad there's not a pullup bar.
[She quiets for a moment when he brings up the fact that they'd been wiping her. With someone else, it would have been rougher, harsher, but Rumlow had been there, he knew, he'd had to deal with her when she didn't know who he was, where she was. And that just makes it another piece, not a secret. And she doesn't blame him for it. He'd never even been there, just seen the aftermath. They'd wipe her when she remembered too much, they'd tell her the same lie: that she'd been rescued from the Russian Mafia, that she was here for her protection, and that it was trauma.]
I didn't really have them back then, I guess. It was later. Things sort of went to Hell when I was seventeen. I was psychically linked to Natasha, which she obviously wasn't too happy about. There was this big plot that involved this machine in Istanbul, but I had to blow it up to break the link. And then- [She holds her hands up and wiggles her fingers in a clear pantomime of powers. But the thing was that given what she's found out about the program, about her mother and father, the way everything kept coming back to her genetics she'd never really know if this was like Banner's freak accident, or what she was supposed to be.]
It doesn't scare you?