Chapter Text
Oh God, no thank you, Ava thinks, and engaging her helmet, immediately fades from view before she can enter the lunch room. Sometimes Ava's condition - her curse; one way to put it - ends up being a gift. Such as avoiding trouble or worse, small talk.
It's not like she'd want to go back to a cell again. But there's times when you turn a corner and come upon a room of people you just don't have the energy to deal with or weather a conversation, trying to act normal like everyone else. Even when you (mostly) like them well enough.
So when Ava hears Alexei's booming laugh, followed by Walker trying to talk over him about some military story or another and the clink of plates in the kitchen, all hopes of a quiet lunch go out the window.
So Ava takes the easy way out - hardly what she was trained to use her powers for, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
Ava slips right past the open door, even walking right through Yelena on her way up to join them.
It's actually a new record for staying intangible by the time she makes it several floors down. Ava even manages to hold it a few seconds longer, even when her skin prickles like someone's holding a brand centimeters from it or the wash of colors threatens to blind her, and her head pulses with the warning of a coming migraine. Just to be sure.
Until it becomes too much, and Ava comes out, lungs burning and eyes blurred, to lean against a door frame as she catches her breath and waits for her legs to stop buckling.
The sound of metal and then flesh hitting a reinforced punching bag finally makes it through the fading ringing in her ears. Straightening up, Ava wanders over towards the balcony nearby, and looks down.
James Barnes has his back to her as he gives the punching bag the beating of its life. If it were a human target, it'd have a hole punched through the rib cage as easily as a knife going through butter, but something like this was supposedly made to take even Captain America's strength -
The punching bag goes sailing with a screech of metal as it's punched right off the reinforced bolts in the ground. It slams into the wall with an explosion like a mini bomb of sand and leather went off.
Barnes stares at it for a long moment. Just stands there, a light sweat along his shoulders, and yet for some reason he seems almost small just then. Or maybe like he'd been the one to get punched.
Ava's head tilts, resting her elbows on the railing. Everyone else I get. We're all screw ups, done plenty of terrible things for money or country, then asked for more. But Barnes? He's the odd one out. (Besides Bob). Had more of a future, if you didn't count the Congressman thing.
He doesn't pick up another bag. Instead, Barnes drags a hand over his face, straightens up… Then looks right up at her.
Barnes looks exhausted, dark rings under his eyes like he hasn't had more than a couple hours of sleep. And even a super soldier needs some, but it looks like he's running on fumes. Despite this, it seems it hasn't affected him as much as he thought; as if sensing she was there long before, he turns. When he catches Ava watching, all he does is jerk his chin to the mat, inviting her to join him for training without a single word.
Ava comes silently down the stairs, feeling a little like she'd glimpsed something she wasn't supposed to see. Whatever this was all about, she's taking it to the grave.
Barnes picks up a set of firearms modified to fire darts designed to deliver an electric shock - no messy wires to get tangled up in and multiple shots (useful) - from a nearby table. Once she joins him, Barnes passes her a dagger, which Ava hefts and settles into a comfortable grip. He's very quiet. Doesn't seem put off by the fact she's quiet too. Ava likes that already about him.
Not too heavy or light, but not the blunt weapon she'd been expecting. Not afraid to train with real weapons with someone he doesn't know, Ava realizes. She's always been particularly fond of daggers: elegant and silent.
They take several steps back from each other. Barnes falls into a crouch, while Ava's helmet comes up and the visor comes online instantly. She hefts the knife. Ready.
There's no signal. Just the shift in Barnes' weight.
He's much faster than he looks, crossing the mat so quickly that Ava has to dance backwards in order to avoid the darts shot her way, followed by the menacing hum of Barnes' metal arm as he swipes at her. Trying to get her off balance, force the fight on his terms immediately. The arm bounces off the knife she brings up to deflect it, with Barnes nearly robbing her of it before she catches him in the side with a knee.
Barely enough to wind him. But enough to make him to let go.
Ava might not be trying to kill, but she's not taking all that much care to avoid drawing blood. It's clear Barnes is holding back; granted, it comes with being able to kill a man if he isn't. And even then, fighting him isn't easy even if she manages to counter him. Technique only carries you so far against someone with the serum and decades of HYDRA training.
He would've won if Ava had been above fighting dirty, which she isn't. Fighting dirty just means fighting to win.
She phases.
Bill called it 'quantum shifting', but Ava preferred her term for it. Phasing feels like stepping off a high dive board and into ice water each time. Or maybe stepping off the edge of a skyscraper. Your lungs go up in your throat and your heart freezes. It feels like floating in a spectrum of colors you've never seen. It's both parts exhilarating and terrifying.
Then Ava's back in the proper world, settling into something like a dance. She manages to disarm Barnes of the tasers, but he's swerving just as fast to dodge the charge she sends his way, a punch scraping the air right above her as she ducks and phases again. She phases and emerges, landing blow after blow.
(Ava leaves him a single long slice right along his cheekbone as a souvenir, neat as an artist's signature. Or a reminder that maybe the serum isn't enough in this day and age. )
Again, she phases out, and easily side steps the backhand, flowing around him like a dance. Barnes' back is the perfect target to phase back in at and neatly slam her boot into the back of his knee.
But even then the alarm bells go off; because at the last moment when Ava started phasing tangible, Barnes looked right her way before she'd even solidified. As if hearing the shift of air and energy preceding the quantum landing.
Barnes already lashing out quick as a viper as he turns to absorb the blow. Quicker than Ava's ready for, terribly quicker than she can move. He drags her by the ankle, crashing Ava into the mat with the air knocked out of her, and before she can phase, he lunges over her so terrifyingly fast she almost misses him move, with a metal hand gripped tight on the visor and neckband, clawlike, right over where the main circuits are. It gives a threatening whirr, like he's holding himself back from shattering it.
Ava freezes, suddenly unsure she'd beat him to the punch after all. If she can get the jump on him again.
The dagger she'd been holding clatters to the ground, Barnes' blood staining the mats.
"I could've taken a couple Widows back in the day. You would've been a royal pain in my ass though," Barnes says softly as he rises then offers her a hand. It's… gentlemanly of him. For a former HYDRA asset. When Ava clasps his hand, he lifts her as easily as if she weighed nothing.
With a mechanical hiss, her helmet releases. Ava brushes at the sweat dampening her temple with one hand, and catching the fresh towel Barnes tosses at her with the other. Her heart's races, her lungs burn, but it's the good kind that comes from a good sparring session.
Barnes isn't even out of breath, but he takes one of the benches, then pats the seat next to him. Ava joins him after a moment, suddenly unsure of herself and not liking it.
Fighting is easy. Missions are (mostly) easy. Sitting and talking with someone isn't. Avoiding it is why she's here in the first place.
Barnes glances at her and offers a tentative, weary smile. "You put up a hell of a fight. Though the suit's the weak spot for you. If someone knows about your abilities, if they're quick enough, they might anticipate where you're coming from and take it out."
"Yes, well, I might actually end up disintegrating for real if I don't have the suit on during a quantum shift," Ava points out dryly. "I'd like to avoid that.
"Oh."
The silence that falls is painful. Barnes suddenly finds the mismatched hands settled on his lap quite interesting. Not at all what she expected from the Winter Soldier.
"I used to be good at this stuff," Barnes mutters to himself.
"Don't worry. I don't have much to compare it to."
Barnes snorts, and shaking his head, sprawls back against the wall, flexing his knee to work it after the kick she'd landed on him. Anyone else would've been sent to a hospital. But Barnes just rotates it a couple of times and then he's good as new.
Ava can't help stealing a glance at the long cut she'd left on Barnes' face, which is already knitting itself together right in front of her eyes. Honestly, it's creepy. It's so unsettling that Barnes catches her staring before she can look away fast enough. At least Barnes does the polite thing and pretends he didn't notice.
"So…" Ava says quickly, uncomfortably, grasping onto the safest of small talk like it's a lifeline. "I suppose you've got something fun this weekend. Maybe fireworks or-"
"I'm not really feeling the whole Fourth of July thing these days."
"Bad memories?"
Although she doesn't know him well, even Ava can catch the flicker of sadness that Barnes tries to cover up. "Something like that."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked," Ava says and starts to get up; better to give him space before she stumbles upon more of his private business.
"No, it's… It's fine. You're good. I'm just not great at talking."
Ava sits back down again. "And yet you ran for Congress."
Barnes winces. "It felt like a good idea at the time."
"Seems like a poor choice of a job, especially considering the target it puts on your back."
"I guess it helps that everyone already dug up all the dirt on me after Project Insight," Barnes replies. "It's not as interesting the second time around. Well, maybe not to everyone." which isn't entirely true: Ava had seen a couple news clips of Barnes trying to talk about a bill he was trying to push, only to get drowned out by reporters latching onto his past; whether it be as the Winter Soldier or Captain America's friend, anything but what Barnes was trying to get done. Drama and gossip is what gets headlines, after all.
"Sounds like a lot of planning and talking about problems, but not much doing," Ava says. "But maybe it was worth a shot. Better that than being Valentina's clean up. Out of all of us, you tried to be better."
"We've all done bad things, Starr. Every one of us. It doesn't mean you're always going to be -" Barnes starts.
"At least you had an excuse," Ava says, even when Barnes grimaces. She meets his gaze steadily. Laying her cards out, make Barnes see her for who she is. "I just wanted to live so badly I'd do anything. For anyone. It didn't matter how low or who the target was. I wanted the pain to stop."
Barnes sighs. "I get it. I might not agree with it but I get it."
Really? Did you feel the same way before HYDRA broke you in? wonders Ava. Before that spark was snuffed out? Had he clung to the same thought while he waited for rescue - kicked and fought and bit? She tries to picture him ever being the same man she saw in the grainy Youtube clips or the Smithsonian. So clean-cut even during World War II, with a dazzling smile, pretty grey eyes and a mouth that sat between a smirk and a pout. Anyone could picture Bucky Barnes sauntering about like he owed the town. Certainly charmed a room when he walked in and left broken hearts on the way out.
The man that now sits next to Ava might as well be someone else entirely. Like he's running on fumes or just instinct, doing things only because it had to be done. She can't imagine him really getting what she's saying. Barely even imagines him really living.
Ava leans forward with her elbows on her knees, no longer able to meet Barnes' eyes. Suddenly she's as tired as he looks. "I thought I'd stop once I got the cure. Turn over a new leaf, maybe try living like a normal person."
"But here you are," Barnes finishes.
"I didn't even really need the money anymore," Ava admits, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. She didn't even really need to take that last mission in the vault. Easy to save money when your options for life and travel were few.
"For some reason I don't see you being the retirement type."
Ava only shakes her head. "So why do you keep going? Stay in the fight?"
"Figured I'd try doing things the right way, the legal way, instead of shooting a problem. Turns out it didn't fit," Barnes shrugs. "I can't exactly go into retirement either. I got a cat and she has expensive tastes. Pick your poison."
Ava's mouth quirks faintly. "So what you're saying is you don't know what else to do with yourself. It's all you know and you happen to be very good at it. "
"Sounds familiar."
The silence that falls between them isn't entirely uncomfortable this time around.
"A friend told me once that with enough work, patience and kindness to yourself, even folks that've seen hell can come back from it. Maybe even make a home for themselves," Barnes says slowly as if trying the words out. Much like he doesn't entirely believe them but he's willing to try. "You just don't think it's you."
Ava brushes the hair that had started to fall towards her eyes and straightens up, thinking it over. For some reason, now she feels…at peace with it for the first time. "People like us will never have a place in society. But if we're doing something good, something for the right reasons, that actually matters - maybe I can live with it."
"Maybe we all got more in common than you think."
[Present Day]
[Ava Starr]
"I've seen prettier war zones than this," John Walker whistles, turning over a half-melted, half-frozen corpse with a boot. Half of it crumbles into dust while the other half stays put like a grisly ice-cube, one that just happened to neatly freeze the scientist's face in a look of raw terror. "If it wasn't Bucky, I'd say he's a goner. I'm giving him fifty-fifty."
"Wow, Walker, I thought you liked him," Yelena says somewhere over Ava's shoulder as she and Alexei pick through the wreckage. "I'd hate to see what you have to say about someone you disliked."
"He's not the worst. What he is, is the top sharpshooter on the team and our most experienced asset. It'd be a big hit."
"A little birdy told me it might be more."
John's voice goes sharp. "Now what's that supposed to mean?"
"What do you think it means?" Ava can practically feel the faintest little smirk on Yelena's face.
It's better Bob isn't here to see this. This world isn't for someone like him, Ava thinks, and leaves them to it so she can walk the room's perimeter, hand resting on the pistol holstered at her hip.
John's not entirely wrong. Ava's seen plenty of… messes as an operative. But even this is enough to make her stomach turn. It's clearly an off-the-books lab, and apparently this is what happens when several unsanctioned experiments go off at once. Ava steps carefully over several more bodies, some practically glassed into obsidian, the others sizzling puddles, noting the strange yellow uniforms on several of the more intact ones, mingled with others that look more rag tag but somehow more organized.
Almost in formation. In fact...
Turning, Ava crosses over to where there might be - ah hah. There's another squad fanned out to the side as if caught flushing out a target: not exactly all in uniform but certainly unified. She's seen it before. Even trained with them in it. One of STRIKE's maneuvers. Valentina's work or someone else?
"And we're certain he was here?" Ava pipes up, privately hoping Barnes wasn't.
"He turned his comms off a mile away and we found his tracker in a dumpster a block over," Yelena answers, swiping a finger through ash mingled with human remains on a wall to get a better look. Ava's lip curls when Yelena wipes it on her fatigues. "Then we have big explosion in fancy lab that no one knows about. I would bet - not all my money, but some - that he had a part in it."
"Barnes doesn't seem the type to break from a mission's parameters."
"You know, you'd think that," John says. And doesn't add anything more when Ava quirks an eyebrow at him to go on. Helpful. So helpful.
So Ava turns to other sensible one in the room, which is Yelena. "Are we not worried he might've been killed?"
"I don't see a body, do you?"
"No. But what's to say he wasn't vaporized?"
"He survived fall from moving train. He's luckiest man alive," Alexei adds.
"If you can call that luck," Ava mutters.
"I'm with Alexei on this one. A little blast isn't going to take out a super soldier, Ava," John says. Ava kind of wants to shake John in that moment; a little blast?! This place looks like a massacre! Is she the only one bothered by all this? "Trust me. Bucky's probably running around, hunting down more of these labs. Big sore spot for him. Last time Bucky went rogue, he got himself and Sam mixed up with a criminal. Actually broke the guy out of prison so they could go after people trying to make another serum."
"So you're saying his judgement might be clouded."
"I'm saying it could be personal."
"Same thing," still, Ava's not quite willing to let it go. She can't be the only normal one here about Barnes' disappearance, can she? Because if he survived at all, there's another possibility besides Barnes' going on a hunting expedition. It's like something's needling up her spine. Something that's saved her skin before. Ava waves to the corpses nearest her on the ground, the ones that have 'former STRIKE' practically written all over them. "Something doesn't feel right. Those ones in yellow - they're clearly part of the security for the lab. But these ones? They're STRIKE. Or were."
"HYDRA's gone if that's what you're getting at," and yet, now John sounds uneasy.
"That's what everyone thought the first time."
"Let's say HYDRA survived. Fine. Targeting a former Congressman and an Avenger right now is too bold even for HYDRA. They can't risk a high visibility target if they're trying to rebuild in secret," Yelena says, settling into business quickly. Which is something Ava finds she quite likes about her. The only other sensible one here. "The last thing HYDRA command would want is eyes on them so soon. They are like cockroachs. They don't do well under a light."
"What if they weren't here for the Winter Soldier at first?" Alexei interrupts. All eyes turn towards him. "What if the Winter Soldier and HYDRA were both after this lab, but happen to run into each other? The field agents take their shot then, for fame and glory."
Even John looks troubled at that. Now he frowns down at the bodies as if maybe wishing he could beat the truth out of them or something. "Judging from some of the guys on STRIKE, I could see that happening. Shoot first, think later. Opportunistic jackals."
Yelena closes her eyes against the group and the carnage they're standing in. It almost looks like she's counting to ten, but if Ava were to guess, maybe running through her options. When she does open her eyes, she seems calm, steady and remote as a glacier. "Here's what we're going to do. We split up to cover more ground but we travel in pairs. If it is HYDRA - or anyone else - no one's getting jumped, and -"
"I'll head the in-field tracking team," John says so quickly that Ava wonders if Yelena was onto something after all.
"And I'll go with John," adds Ava.
Yelena looks like she's fighting a headache at them jumping ahead, and only smothers it out of sheer willpower. "Yes, good, tracker team is settled. Alexei and I will head back to the tower after we finish with the scene, see what we can drum up. I want a good look around before the clean-up crew arrives. And not a word of this to Valentina."
(To be continued)