Oh, it's funny how

[decohere]

Who: Ava & OTA
What: so many memories
When: March
Where: through the rifts and into the MCU I'm so sorry (Argentina, SHIELD facilities, California) and the pool deck
Warnings: several cw marked for parental death, non-physical child abuse, assassinations... but plenty of less intense prompt options

(notes: characters entering the memory will go unnoticed until they do something to directly interact with it. npcs will not notice anything "off" about your character (wearing a bathing suit, that you're a skeleton, etc) and will assume they're in an appropriate role for the setting. however, if the characters acts disruptively they will react accordingly. ava herself will be more suspicious.

all prompts are ota, i'm not setting limits. sail ava will not be accompanying anyone into her own memories, unless i receive a specific request.

every prompt has options to die. if you strongly want or do not want this to occur, please let me know.)

i. It's crazy when the thing you love the most is the detriment
cw potential parental death (césar is the only character i'm allowing to potentially stop the quantum explosion entirely. if your character gets caught in the explosion, they will die. please respect both those conditions if you take this prompt.)

It's not your typical sterile laboratory environment, though most of the assistants are dressed in the white coats that make it clear that this is a place of science. It's a rundown looking warehouse, with high ceilings and train tracks visible outside the windows, though there's not much else visible to hint at the location. Secluded, with high fences and a security check point. Computers and equipment are set up at modest workstations, and a bald man stands at a monitor in front of a giant glowing machine. It pulses with a strange glowing light, but apparently it's meant to be doing that because nobody seems overly concerned. The man is identified as Dr. Starr in a hurried but hushed conversation with one of the assistants. "Excellent, this is the breakthrough we've been needing…" His tone is distinctly British.

A woman with dark curly hair is on a phone call, one of those older corded types that hooks into the wall that she's winding around her finger in mild annoyance while discussing funding with whoever is on the other side of the line. Occasionally she glances over at a small child, a girl with three fluffy pigtails, dressed in a pair of khaki pants and a blue cardigan.

Ava might only be 5 but she doesn't have to be reminded to not touch anything, as often as she visits her father's lab. She's currently up on a stool, perched on her knees and looking at a large blueprint spread out upon a table with curiosity. Unaware that she's the only thing inside it that will survive the next hour. Unaware that this is the single most important day of her life.

ii. When the hand you wanna hold is a weapon and you're nothing but skin
cw child neglect

It's a dimly lit and mostly featureless room, no windows and only one heavy sealed door, deep in the sublevels of a SHIELD facility. The logo is stamped rather boldly on a manila envelope laying out on a plain chair, the only piece of furniture accessible.

In the middle of the room, impossible to miss by its sheer size and taking up most of the floorspace, is a large metal-frame glass chamber, which occasionally pulses with an eerie glow of rippling energy. There's several monitors on the outside, and a handprint scanner for the lock.

Inside the chamber isn't much: a simple cot with a single pillow, a worn out white teddy bear flopped over, and a small girl quietly peering at a single page of a newspaper that she has spread out on the floor. It's the page with the comic strips and puzzles, and she's squinting at the crossword in intense concentration. She only has a few filled out and doesn't seem to be making any progress at all. But she doesn't have much else to do.

iii. Oh, 'cause I keep diggin' myself down deeper
cw child experimentation

"Reach through the glass," instructs a monotone scientist with a clipboard.

The young girl obeys, and slowly reaches her hand through the upright pane dividing the table she sits at, her arm almost as transparent as the glass itself. She's hooked up to several tiny sensors along her head, and another scientist is observing scans of her brain.

"Now take the cup." It's placed down a few inches in front of her outstretched hand with a small clink against the surface. Ava frowns nervously, because it's a tricky request. Keeping her arm through the glass, but also picking something up. If she messes up...

"Take the cup," is repeated in response to her hesitation. And Ava gives a small nod of determination, putting her arm further through and tries to close her hand around the cup. Her fingers pass through. She tries several times, and fails.

"I…" Ava begins, and then immediately shuts up at the cold look from the scientist. I can't has never been an acceptable answer. And neither has it hurts, which it's beginning to. The pain becomes increasingly visible upon her expression, as she continues trying to grab at that cup with no success.

iv. I won't stop 'til I get where you are
cw assassinations

It's dark and cool, a slight breeze. The rooftop provides a good view of a facility below. Everything is deceptively quiet, but the lights show movement of a man passing by. A guard, with the low staticky buzz from his walky talky. There's also movement inside one of the windows, silhouettes.

And suddenly there's Ghost, flickering barely into visibility, crouched low at the edge of the roof, watching through the red lenses of her mask. "Target spotted," she whispers into her own comm, her voice distorted enough that it's unidentifiable.

And then she disappears again. A few seconds pass before brief shouting can be heard from the ground, shooting and stray bullets, and the first guard goes down.

v. I keep running, I keep running, I keep running


"Another high ranking official has been identified as an agent of Hydra in our latest coverage of the-" Ava mutes the tv, but she still watches. Almost obsessively.

She's dressed in a too large sweatshirt and what appears to be grey leggings, but is actually the underlayer of her stealth suit that she has shoved into a backpack. She's sitting upon a creaky bed in a rather cheap motel, quietly eating cup ramen. A room she hasn't actually paid for. She's only been free for a few days, but doesn't quite know what to do with herself or where she's going yet.

vi. They say I may be making a mistake


The classroom is full, students all on their laptops though too engaged with the lecture itself to type. The professor is a middle aged black man, speaking rather passionately about physics. His accent is American, and a few students wear branded clothing that indicates this is the University of Berkeley.

"In an isolated system, particles co-exist in a stable phase relationship," speaks Dr. Bill Foster, standing in front of a blackboard full of complex equations. "If the system is interfered with, that stability becomes chaos. Unpredictable. Dangerous. Beautiful."

Ava sits at the very back of the classroom, dressed in nondescript grey sweats, slowly scrolling through her laptop. Her mouth quirks just slightly at those three words, knowing they're meant for her. But instead of notes or anything to do with physics at all, she's reading about a man named Scott Lang and his arrest at an airport, serving out his sentence at home in San Francisco. She taps her finger a bit impatiently and switches browser tabs to articles about the supposed death of a woman named Janet Van Dyne decades ago. She's waiting for the lecture to be over. Not so she can get out of there, but so she can speak to the professor.

"Isolated completely, a quantum system would revert back to separate states of matter," Dr. Foster continues. "Each entangled with a distinct state of its environment. In other words, the object in question would be both in and out of phase... with multiple parallel realities."

vii. I would've followed all the way, no matter how far


It's dark and the trees are impossibly straight and tall. There's a wrought iron fence with a sign warning to keep out. And a house with an angular entranceway with windows all the way to the ceiling.

There's no memory to explore outside, just endless quiet and empty. But feel free to come on in.

viii. I know when you go down all your darkest roads


Outside the memories, Ava stands on the pool deck staring up at the sky, her expression blank. "Oh. That doesn't look good..."

Comments

iv. I won't stop 'til I get where you are

[busball]

Klaus had been about to get in the pool when they saw the crack by the pool and leaned over to touch it. So turning up on the roof of a building in the middle of nowhere in just a pair orange and white board shorts and a pink floatie. Also no shoes. This isn't...dangerous probably?

Target spotted.

They look over and spot Ava, blinking for a moment. Why is she in her Ghost suit?

And then she's gone again? "Ava," he whispers as he crouches down, trying to keep out of sight as the sound of guns and screaming start. "What the hell is going on right now?"

[decohere]

The commotion draws the attention of more guards, rushing toward the scene and rifles drawn, pointing into the dark surroundings. But there's nothing to aim at, the only visible body that of the first guard. One crouches to inspect, the other pulling out his comm to request backup. He's interrupted mid-sentence, choking on the words as Ghost's fist clenches through his throat. And then with a deadly twist, she rips her hand back out and the guard falls right through where she stood, fading out into nothing.

The other guard pulls out his rifle, though it's shaking as he has no idea where to aim. Ghost is a series of discordant flashes in the dark, and then the rifle is wrenched from his grip. It fires and more bullets go flying, and at the end of the spray the sound of his neck snapping can be heard. She's quick and efficient, but she does hesitate to stare at the three dead men before turning and stalking toward the entrance of the building.

ii.

[millay]

Maeve had been in her room when she noted a crack on the door. She got closer and hummed as she did before she found herself standing in somewhere else. She looks around at the place where she is, seeing the chamber itself before seeing the girl inside of it.

She frowns at the chamber and takes a few steps closer to it. There is a sort of energy coming from it. The chair with the SHIELD logo causes her to pause. Ava.

There's another pause and she looks at her quiet before stepping forward again. "Hello, darling."

[decohere]

In the dim lighting, the accent that she so rarely hears since being taken into custody by the Americans, the gentle words... against all reasonable evidence, this woman could almost be her mother. Expression brightening as she stumbles to her feet, she presses palms to the glass, but for all the similarities and baseless hope, Ava quickly realizes that it's not.

Her mouth wobbles slightly at the disappointment she allowed herself. Her mother is dead. Less than a year ago, but dead. She peers at the woman shyly. Maybe she's a relative, from England? Come to take her back to family...

ii.

[be_seeing_you]

Ava has described her 'accommodations' at SHIELD to him enough times that he instantly recognizes what he's seeing the moment he steps into the memory. But his heart skips a beat when he realizes how young she is here. Rage boils beneath his skin and the urge to pick up that single chair and smash it against her containment cell is overpoweringly strong. But he can't. This is her past. It's all been said and done already. If he frees her now, it won't do anything. She will have nowhere to run.

But, if he can't set her free perhaps he can simply... offer her some comfort.

He approaches the glass, dragging the chair along with him. Casually, he takes a seat and looks through the glass, over her shoulder, to see the puzzle she's working on.

"Hello, Miss Starr," he says in a kindly tenor. "How are you today?"

[decohere]

He's an agent. Not one she recognizes but she's seen enough of them around to make a distinction between the way they approach and the scientists.

Those are the only two categories of people she sees anymore.

She sits up, watching quietly, trying to figure out the possible purpose of this visit. How she's doing probably doesn't have much to do with it, but the agents tend to have a bit more tact behind their coldness. She doesn't quite know to call it manipulation yet, but she knows they often start friendlier.

She shrugs.

ii. your rescuer has arrived

[theotherright]

One minute, Ava's alone in the room. The next, there's a short, scarred man, holding a long cane, dressed like he thinks you need to spend three figures to go to the beach.

It's not Arthur's first time stumbling into one of these things, but the sudden transition still catches him by surprise. The pressure change hums in his ears; the air is suddenly cool and recycled. As the bowl of petunias very nearly said to the ground: "Oh- what the- god damnit, not ag--"

He takes a step forward to find a wall, immediately collides with something, and makes flustered movements to retain his balance.

"--Jesus, sorry, I, sorry..." His hands are actually on the thing now. "I-I didn't... You... you're a..."

Oh. He laughs at himself.

"You're a chair."

Boy! Glad no-one saw that!

[decohere]

Concentrating on her crossword that she has no real chance of actually finishing, and without the constant awareness of her surroundings ingrained into her yet, Ava doesn't quite notice the man until he's stumbling into and apologizing to a chair.

She giggles from within the chamber.

i would have followed all the way

[goodweather]

(Phil has been trying very, very hard to avoid the weird reality cracks. It doesn’t stop him from toppling into one when it opens at an angle just as he gets up from his seat in the library.)

The smell of the woods is what hits him first, and he jolts upwards as he realizes that he’s somewhere else. Not only is he Somewhere Else, but he doesn’t have his sword, because it’d been resting on the side of the chair instead of on his hip.

Okay. He stands up and brushes himself off. Is this another one of Darcy’s? Or is something else going on? It’s hard to establish a pattern from a sample size of one.

There’s nothing around but the house; he can see that with the eye he still has left, blinking through the gloom. These trees are weirding him out. Normally he’d ascribe it to the Captain, but… he can’t expect the Captain to have had anything to do with the construction of the city of Lyon and some random old lady that they bumped into last time.

Nothing but the house, so he walks carefully up to it, and… hesitates, and… knocks.

[decohere]

There's no answer, but clearly somebody is home from the sound of something being knocked to the floor.

Nobody ever knocks. The only person with knowledge of this location is Bill, and he has a key.

The lights go out.

viii. I know when you go down all your darkest roads

[teethoftherisk]

Siffleur moves with a stiff precision, careful to avoid the cracks in the world. His hair stands on end, making his tail huge and puffy as he carefully pads along the pool deck. Even as he comes to a stop by Ava, he is ever so careful not to brush up against anything as he sits down by her feet.

He looks about as unhappy as a cougar can be, tipping his head up to look at her. "The cracks are everywhere. I do not know if anywhere is safe."

[decohere]

"Do you think this is the end...?" Because it sure looks as if the world is slowly breaking apart.

ii

[sabigoe]

It's out of curiosity that Fio goes poking at another rift that opened up in Sand Dollars. She should have learned the first time and luckily she hasn't been brought anywhere where she would draw in hostility. Yet. Briefly disoriented after stumbling through another rift, from a brightly lit room to somewhere darker. She looks around in confusion at her surroundings. Judith is still levitating by her side, which is a relief. The large chamber in the middle quickly grabs her attention, as well as the person-- another child close to her age.

Her pace suddenly picks up until she's standing right in front of the glass. Though Ava's far younger than the one she knows, she knows her face. From a photo. And from dreams.

"...Ava?"

She doesn't stop to think whether or not she should be acting more covert...

[decohere]

Ava perks up with excitement at the voice of another child interrupting her boredom. She hasn't seen any since the orphanage, and even there she hadn't been allowed to play with the others. Not when they worried about her condition being contagious. And the other kids had been scared of her anyway.

She hopes this girl isn't scared, as she stands up and blinks in and out of focus. The other girl looks to be around her age, with pigtails too, and even her own bear. Although it's floating, and Ava grabs her white bear off the floor and hurries over to the side of the chamber.

"Who're you?" she asks. And then suddenly frowns, because if there's another child here then she knows what that means. "Did they take you too?"

1. Crazy Science Times!

[pineapplesalmon]

César's coming into memories prepared now, a backpack of things he can lose slung over his shoulder. Wearing the clothes he came to the boat in to appear a little more normal (for some memories, anyway). Now, he has to orient himself as quickly as possible.

He blinks and looks around as he arrives. ... a lab. A lab with some sort of wormhole technology. César overhears a couple of assistants talking in Argentine Spanish. Interesting. He looks further over the room, sees the monitors, sees the other adults in the room, and then sees a young girl looking at blueprints. Oh... hmm.

Ava?

But first, time to drop his backpack and get into one of those lab coats before anyone notices him.

[decohere]

Catherine Starr hangs up the phone, and briefly goes over to check on her daughter.

"Spaghetti," Ava answers to her mother's question of what she wants for dinner.

"We had spaghetti last night," her mother replies with the amused patience of a woman that's had this conversation a dozen times.

"I like spaghetti," Ava replies, giggling as her mother straightens out one of her pigtails.

And then Catherine is walking away, handing off a report to an assistant.

Ava goes back to tracing her finger along the blueprint's outline of the strange machine her father is building.

II

[saltwaterlungs]

When Ava admitted her history as a child soldier, Darcy wasn't really... expecting the giant test tube. If she wasn't already regretting having said it, she really would be now, because if she'd been locked in a chamber like that, she would have already been gnawing her own limbs off.

The handprint lock is a pretty obvious barrier to getting baby Ava out, but she figures there has to be some sort of emergency release or escape or something for if there's a fire or poison gas or whatever else happens to child soldiers. Right?

"If I was a nerd, where would I put the off switch," she muses to herself as she examines the room. She's kind of figuring it's one-way glass that Ava can't see out of.

[decohere]

Ava sits up at the voice, turning slightly to watch the girl of an age that she can only identify as older than herself, but younger than all the adults. Even now Ava has no real clue about teenagers outside of a vague concept.

Assuming she means the light switch, Ava points by the entryway.

But she doesn't appear to be a scientist, nor an agent. "You're not suppose to be here," she observes.

vi.

[light_mischief]

Not every memory is going to be as useful as this one. Skulduggery finds himself standing at the back of a lecture hall in a contemporary university, watching an oddly familiar face discussing... physics. Hm. Quantum physics, parallel realities, isolation... He's unsurprised to see Ava in the back row, an aloof but attentive student.

She's doing a good job blending in... and he is decidedly not. He sticks out a bit in his black suit, gold scarf and carefully finagled sunglasses, but surely if he takes a seat by Ava in her nondescript sweats, he'd look less out of place?

"Excuse me, I hope this seat isn't taken," he says, taking initiative to grab the seat next to hers. He might as well try to learn something during all of this.

[decohere]

Yes, Skulduggery, that sure is Laurence Fishburne in the role of brilliant university professor, and the only man in this world that Ava trusts.

She wears her hair down to obscure views of her face, only turns it just slightly to glance at the... she squints, is he wearing sunglasses inside?

"That's a terrible disguise," Ava says flatly, with no actual answer about the seat because she's not willing to cause a scene. She's promised Bill she'd never disrupt, though he does casually glance back with almost mild concern before continuing his lecture on parallel realities.

Ava appears a degree more tense, as she flips her browser window back to the lecture notes.

ii

[inspector_spacetime]

Abed definitely recognizes the SHIELD logo when he sees it. He doesn’t exactly know where he is, but that provides him a good deal of context as he approaches the chamber.

“Hey,” he greets the girl, crouching down so he can be eye level with her. “How’s the crossword coming along?”

[decohere]

Though Ava doesn't recognize him, she guesses he's one of the lab assistants probably ready to take her away for more shots or tests. She rather delay that as much as possible, so she entertains his question instead.

It's not going very well, as he can see as Ava lifts the page to the glass between them. The crossword has a few words filled out. 22 across with TEST and 66 with CUP. 39 down with GRUMPY. Two of those are wrong.

The date November 2, 1995 is printed at the top of the page. She's solved the sudoku already, though it's covered in scribbles as many times as she's had to rework it.

Some of the comic strips have various drawings over them, mostly her attempts to fill in the backgrounds or give things more detail. But the marks are all very shaky, a clear indication she's struggling to keep her hands steady through the glitching.

v. I keep running, I keep running, I keep running

[pointofhonoria]

Crabb knows what these things crack things are even before she ends up inside one herself, thanks to Erin, but Crabb has always been the cat that curiosity is trying its best to kill and so it's not entirely unintentional that she ends up touching one.

She really didn't know what to expect, on the other side, but it definitely wasn't finding herself in what appears to be... a bathroom. A tiny motel bathroom, not that a woman from 1918 knows what the Hell a motel is.

It's a quiet arrival. Quiet enough that she gets chance to hear the snippet of TV chatter before it's muted, which answers approximately no questions about where she is but catches on the edge of her interest.

Shame that when she goes to try and move to listen at the door she trips over a little trash can. That's not quiet at all.

[decohere]

Ava freezes, shifts invisible as she tries to identify the source of the sound. She turns her head toward the bathroom. There's somebody in there.

A maid? She thought this room hadn't been occupied when she broke into it... but fuck, maybe she did pick one that already had someone staying. Hadn't she checked for luggage? How could she have possibly missed somebody in the bathroom? It didn't even have windows?

Ava breathes out shakily, approaches the door, and knocks. If there's no immediate answer, she's putting her ear to it.

iii

[makesomedeals]

The sensation of walking through these rifts is intensely unpleasant and Max smooths down his suit as a proxy for wanting to shake the feeling away. He hadn't intended to cross into one, but like a cat that fell off a table, he's pretending that he absolutely meant to do this and this... laboratory(?) is exactly where he wanted to be all along.

He doesn't recognize Ava as a child, doesn't understand enough about how humans age to see the resemblance on a smaller scale. But he does narrow his eyes at what's happening here, the sensors on her head reminding him uncomfortably of cabling and wires, bringing to mind some of the things Maeve had told him of her world. Arms folded behind his back, he strolls forward as if he belongs and doesn't look ridiculously out of place wearing the nice suit Skulduggery had given him and with his assault rifle slung over his back across his shoulder.

"Might I inquire as to what you're doing?" His voice is polite, soft and musical. Someone who didn't know him wouldn't hear the concealed disdain.

[decohere]

There's a pause as several scientists turn their heads to stare at Maximilien's interruption. And then the one at the monitor groans and speaks into a communicator. "Can Dr. Horton from the robotics lab come pick up his project?"

Another scientist mutters something about it clearly being a prank, dressing the thing up in a suit.

Ava's eyes are wide and full of wonder. "Ooh... neat..." and the brain scan display is sparking with interest.

ii.

[myagic]

"--Dammit!" Rita can't help but immediately huff with annoyance as reality shifts again. She didn't even see the crack to avoid it (it formed down at her ankle). She looks around--unfamiliar (typical), an odd chamber, seemingly monitored...with a kid inside? Weird. And suspicious.

By this point, she's getting fed up with these experiences enough to forgo any form of subtlety in trying to figure out where and what the hell this is, so she strides right up to the chamber and asks, "So what're you in for?"

You know, like it's totally normal to ask a small child why she's locked in a bizarre fishbowl.

[decohere]

The little girl looks absolutely startled by the sudden intrusion, dropping her pencil from loss of concentration required to keep her and it in sync.

Rita does not fit the profile of anyone that's meant to be here. And so Ava is slightly fascinated. Especially since she said a bad word.

"To get better," she tells her, because that's all there is to it. Or so she believes for now.

v. motel woe-tel

[broshaw]

Sharky really has been trying to be good, not stepping on any cracks while avoiding being sucked into other people's memories. He tries to keep a low profile when he's suddenly stuck in a new place, but uh. It can be kinda hard with some of these guys. Like the one where he wound up at the bottom of a fucking river????

This one, though? Stupid easy. He's just here outside a random door in a no-name motel, probably somewhere in either the US or Canada. It looks so close to his own home-Earth that he briefly considers bouncing and trying to head home for a couple days...

But, no. If he's here, like, right here, that means whoever this memory belongs to is nearby. And if they're in a place like this, they could probably use... well, either some backup or a sympathetic ear. He doesn't know how to get out of these things, but he bets it's got something to do with, like, fixing things for the memory-holder or something. Like a video game!

He didn't know what to do with the river situation, but here, it's a lot more obvious. All he has to do here is knock on the motel door. Which he does!

[decohere]

Without having properly rented this room for the night, Ava knows she's not actually meant to be in it. Nor is anyone else. So the knock comes as a surprise. Because wouldn't housekeeping simply have access and unlock the door?

But maybe it's the front desk... that had noticed someone inside that shouldn't be. She thought she had been careful, avoided cameras. Phased inside instead of breaking through locks or windows. Had kept the heavy block out curtains drawn so nobody could see her movement inside. Not that this place looked like it had much security, which was half the appeal. Maybe it had been the noise from the tv. But only the occupant next door would have noticed...? And they wouldn't have known she was squatting here, and it wasn't loud enough or late enough to trigger a noise complaint.

Ava goes through several scenarios in her head before finally peeking out through the curtains. To see a man that doesn't look like the authorities, at least. She frowns, considers ignoring it. But... she needs to know who sent him. Just in case she is being followed.

She opens the door, standing there in that stiff awkward sort of posture of somebody trying to 'act casual' and no idea how. "Hello..." she tries a friendly enough tone, even though her hands are tightened into fists. "Think you have the wrong room." See, benefit of the doubt! No need to attack! She feels very proud of herself for keeping so calm.

wildcard!

[be_seeing_you]

The next day after he gets back from his alternate life lived alongside Security in one of its memories, he sits Ava down on their shared bed with a serious expression on his face.

"Ava, the most extraordinary thing happened to me. I'd like to tell you about it."

[decohere]

She's a bit nervous at first, of what this conversation might entail with his expression so serious.

Had he learned something dangerous?

And then she relaxes slightly as he begins, nods. "Did you go somewhere...?" She's told him of most of her encounters within the memories, though none of them have seemed this level of extraordinary. She's certainly curious.