I don't know, exactly. [There's a thin, uncertain look at that when he asks if they were related.] I called her sestra when we first met. I know they modified me, but I don't know exactly how. And I had parents, although they were both Red Room scientists. I was- my mother's first test subject. My earliest memory is of being curled up under her desk in the lab, and I'd steal her pens out of her labcoat and draw under there. I wrote my name, once. I don't remember much about my father.
[She doesn't go into the details, hits the important parts, but also-- her childhood hadn't been a kind one even before SHIELD, before she'd been in the Red Room program, before all of the quantum entanglement nonsense. She'd never had a chance for anything else, and her mother had not been a kind woman. All she remembered of her father was a ballerina doll from the Bolshoi that her mother had said he'd sent for her. Someone else might question if they were her parents at all, but Ava didn't. Couldn't, especially now, when those were answers she'd never get.
She laughs softly when he mentions Ivan.] That he was. He helped run the Black Widow program out of the Red Room back during the Cold War. He was KGB, an old army dog as he liked to call himself. He managed to stay through the regime change, used connections and money to guarantee himself and his experiments a place under the SVR. And then he used the technology my parents created to make the Opus program. But, Natasha put a bullet in his skull, and I haven't seen him in Stasis, so hopefully that's a closed door.
[She quiets for a moment, considers, sighs as she leans there, just enjoying his company and the warmth of the fire.] Next time you go, maybe I could go with you, if you wanted? I mean, you might have rugged good looks, but I'm sure Rollins could use a pretty face now and then.
[Of course, part of it is that she understands that. Having your only friend in Stasis, being pretty sure they weren't waking up. Trying to work through where to go.]
no subject
[She doesn't go into the details, hits the important parts, but also-- her childhood hadn't been a kind one even before SHIELD, before she'd been in the Red Room program, before all of the quantum entanglement nonsense. She'd never had a chance for anything else, and her mother had not been a kind woman. All she remembered of her father was a ballerina doll from the Bolshoi that her mother had said he'd sent for her. Someone else might question if they were her parents at all, but Ava didn't. Couldn't, especially now, when those were answers she'd never get.
She laughs softly when he mentions Ivan.] That he was. He helped run the Black Widow program out of the Red Room back during the Cold War. He was KGB, an old army dog as he liked to call himself. He managed to stay through the regime change, used connections and money to guarantee himself and his experiments a place under the SVR. And then he used the technology my parents created to make the Opus program. But, Natasha put a bullet in his skull, and I haven't seen him in Stasis, so hopefully that's a closed door.
[She quiets for a moment, considers, sighs as she leans there, just enjoying his company and the warmth of the fire.] Next time you go, maybe I could go with you, if you wanted? I mean, you might have rugged good looks, but I'm sure Rollins could use a pretty face now and then.
[Of course, part of it is that she understands that. Having your only friend in Stasis, being pretty sure they weren't waking up. Trying to work through where to go.]