come_sailaway | well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease

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well they said she died easy of a broken heart disease

Who: Ava & OTA
What: Not doing so great! And an attempted memorial
When: Post-Excursion
Where: room 114, the literal walls, buffet, gym shower, cafe, the promenade
Warnings: these are not fun prompts. loss, self loathing and failing struggle with depression are very strong themes.

i. room 114.

The mission was a success. With no actual contribution on Ava's part and a growing list of mistakes she's neatly compiled in her thoughts, waiting to unravel for whenever Skulduggery finally tracks her down. And she dreads it, knows well enough how these things go.

It was her choice, Skulduggery was quite right. Her choice to sideline herself and pretend she wasn't even there because she couldn't handle dealing with a small group. Of people that already didn't like her, and any minor progress she made with Darcy she's sure has been entirely undone, confirming that she was right all along to treat her so poorly. It would have been a struggle on a good day, but after isolating herself for the last few weeks... God, she was wrong to think she'd be ready.

She should have bowed out before it even began, but her wellbeing was never a priority, not with so much on the line. And it had been all she had to look forward to, the only small scrap of hope that she might be able to help out. Prove to Skulduggery and the others she wasn't a complete deadweight. Prove Izzy wrong that no crew would ever want her. Reestablish that maybe there was a purpose to her continued existence and allow her to recover.

And then it all went from bad to worse with the series of curses, with Maximilien the only one caring to go after her as she took off running as madness infected her already weak mind. And he shouldn't have. She compromised them both, and then ordered him around because in her panic she had no idea how else to get him to follow, and she hates herself for it. And he must hate her now too, because he stormed off and she hasn't heard from him since.

The mission was a success with the added bonus of reuniting Friday with her girlfriend, even under such circumstances. She half expects the ship to be torn apart in a storm any moment, and can't will herself to care. She thought Jenny was valid the first time she attacked. She feels so even more now that her freedom has been stripped of her once more. But there had been mention knowing where her brothers were, and so she hopes. Hopes for Jenny's sake that it's true.

The mission was a success, and Ava's at critical failure. Huddled under her bed ever since she got dumped back at her room. Still in her stealth suit, gripping the katana that she had salvaged from Malcolm's room in trembling hands as her last line of comfort. Unaware of how much time has passed, unaware of her need to eat, never quite managing more than a fitful hour of sleep.

And that's where she'll remain until somebody convinces her otherwise.

ii. the walls.

And then she'll sneak off to fun new hiding spots, places she thinks nobody will be able to look for her, if anyone bothers at all. The advantage of being able to phase is finding nice cozy spaces between the walls, between the floor and the ceiling below it. Ava feels rather considerate of this as well, taking her misery somewhere far more private and out of the way while everyone else continues happily on. Her depression cruelly and completely crippling her ability to reach out for the help she so desperately needs and knows she doesn't deserve.

She's doing her very best to wait out her soul finally fading away with the rest of her, because that's what happens to the weak. And Ava knows that's what she is, despite all her attempts to tell people otherwise.

But somebody passing might hear the stifled crying from the walls, or catch a knee poking out from the ceiling. What first seemed like a great idea turns out to be a bit more cramped and uncomfortable than she was counting on. Try as she might, she can't quite get herself to join the rest of the ship ghosts. It feels very unfair.

At some point, she hears somebody walking far too loudly on the floor she's hiding within, and she reaches out to grab an ankle, phase claws and all.

iii. buffet.

Eventually she does get hungry enough that she can't ignore it anymore, a dizzy sort of sway as she stares blankly at the buffet. Despite the familiar variety, absolutely nothing looks good. She picks at a few packets of crackers and sits right there on the floor, removing her face mask that she's worn for far too long now leaving the skin under it in rough condition. She takes a couple disinterested bites, and then crumbles the rest in her fist. The crumbs get all over her already dirtied suit. With her mask off, she can tell just how bad she smells. That manages to ruin the rest of her desire to eat.

iv. gym.

She hits up the gym showers. She can't get her fingers through her hair, matted from being stuck under her hood for so long. She can't work up enough energy to feel upset about it, instead sits on the floor and watches the water drain.

v. sand dollars.

Grabbing her notebook from its hiding place in her room, Ava takes it with her to the coffee shop, finally dressed in something other than her stealth suit. A plain t-shirt and a pair of camp shorts that fit far looser than months ago. With a pair of scissors, she begins cutting the pages into smaller and smaller pieces, destroying all the notes she'd taken on the Captain and the mystery of the ship and all the things she's decided aren't important. She stops once she gets to the pages of the names of the vanished passengers, her throat constricting.

She never decided what to do about it, but it was a responsibility she took on. Ava sips uneasily at her mint tea, ignoring the small bits of paper that have fallen into it. They're scattered all over the table around her, some having drifted to the floor.

vi. the promenade.

Only a handful of people helped her with her project of collecting names earlier that month, and Ava does her best to fill in as many as she can with her limited interactions. Sarge and Wanda and Natasha and Peter... all from her own world. Eleanor, who helped her with the laundry, and her brother Luke. Kore, she'd been told about. Claudia, her late night company when so few others were up and about. Reigen who hosted that first information sharing meeting who called her out for snooping, who helped her toss the casino coins overboard. Dean, who all she knows about was that he was hot, and something about Diana's opinion on his hair. Flynn, Fio's roommate who had talked down Jenny, only to be replaced by somebody who looked so similar. That she kicked out of the camp cabin, and never got to apologize to. Conner, her first roommate that she had immediately chased off and never had a chance to apologize to. Lucy, who she killed by phasing into a tree during the Battle Royale. And never had a chance to apologize to. Conan (that she doesn't realize has returned.) Ginko, who had been so calming and kind. Lucas, who she was annoyed about when she found out Malcolm had another roommate.

And Malcolm. The only person she's ever allowed so close, that made her feel like she mattered and could be better. Who dedicated his life to getting justice for the dead. She feels guilty she can't think of more, knows there's so many others she's missing.

Lucius had left her art supplies awhile back. So she writes out each of their names in red paint along the floor of the promenade, leaves flowers she's made out of paper under each. She's sure it'll be cleaned up soon enough, but maybe if she keeps watch... There's more paint, for anyone that wants to contribute. As Ava continues quietly folding flowers at one of the tables.

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She's pretty sure by this point everyone thinks she's just looking for attention, with how much she continues to mope about. Makes her even more hesitant to seek out comfort, because it doesn't feel fair to use other people that way.

"Everything hurts," she tells him, head resting heavily upon his shoulder as he offers that solid support to lean against. "You want to think that all the pain is worth it. That as long as you achieve something of value... But instead of helping, all I cause are more troubles." And that's what upsets her most in all this.

"But I give what I can, and I try despite how hard it is some days to get out of bed, and I care, and all I ever ask for in return is... for it to matter." She swallows roughly. "I didn't even get a thank you." Because why would she. All of it would have been better if she hadn't gone along at all.

"I understand the drive to make a difference--to feel as if what you've sacrificed has been worth it." Slowly, he tips his head down until it leans against hers.

"You want it all to mean something more. You want to be acknowledged, even when such a desire feels selfish." It's something he's wanted too. Living in the shadows has its downsides.

"I acknowledge you, Ava. It's not grandiose in the great scheme of life, but you have been impactful to me. Do you know that?"

It's surprisingly comforting to hear those doubts repeated back to her, that somebody fully grasps the root of the issues. It does feel selfish, to want more for herself. When her basic comforts had been treated as an inconvenience and weakness since childhood. She's spent her whole life hurting and hurting others in turn and there's a heavy debt on her conscience. She was given a second chance, first by Janet and now from the Captain. And she feels like she has to earn it, to prove that the mercy wasn't wasted.

To prove to herself that the struggle of trying to stay alive would be worth it. That one day she'd manage to be happy.

But she keeps fumbling and failing and she never thought it would all be this difficult.

"I... I've always been invisible," she whispers, shivering slightly. "But every time I get a chance to be seen. Nobody likes what they see." And so she goes back to trying to hide away. Malcolm had been the one to call her out on it, her avoidance and tendency toward isolation. Without him to drag her out, to check in on her every day, she's struggling to find reason. That mission had become her reason to push forward, to accomplish something, and the one thing she thought she was good at got proven to be completely untrue.

"Me?" she asks, lifting her head in surprise at his statement, blinking water out of her eyelashes. "I don't even know what I want, not really. How was I ever supposed to figure out who I am, when I'm meant to be a Ghost?"

He lifts his head so he can turn to look her in the eyes. "I like what I see. You could easily have hidden from me here, I know you're capable. But you didn't. I'm glad that you didn't, because I am looking." There's a slight apologetic pause. "Not too close, mind you. But I see you."

He nods at her startled question, lip quirking slightly up at the corner. She's the one who got him to accept that there's no way back to his previous life. She doesn't even realize what a difference that made, does she?

"Those people that stole you away may have meant for you to be a ghost, but you aren't beholden to them anymore. This is the right question you are asking. What do you want to be? It may feel like a selfish question, but it is the one that every human seeks to answer. You are not a ghost, Ava Star, you are human. And you are not alone."

It's not the same as braving the hot tub with a naked Sharky to prove she's not a complete prude, or fumbling around in the back of the car with Malcolm. She's far more exposed, more vulnerable than either situation. But there's no guarding herself from expectation, having to figure out what's wanted of her. Still, she looks a bit bashful at his comment, and gives a little poke to one of the freckles on his chest. Because she sees him too.

"Thank you," she responds sincerely.

"And I don't know. I never really planned for a life, just focused on trying not to die..." and now she realizes it might not be her illness that overcomes her, but her very soul failing. And now that she's shaken off the urge to give in to the inevitable, she has no clear idea of what she's meant to do with herself.

"I want to be a good mother to Fio, and... a good friend to Maximilien. And support Skulduggery with his goals, because I believe in him. But those... are all for other people," she admits. "I just don't know. But when I was running away on that island, it was easy to think... that there was no reason for me to come back."

That poke elicits a breathy laugh. He's grateful they can both be this exposed to each other without any presumption of something more. They simply are, and isn't that enough?

"All of those wants add up to something, don't they? A desire for real belonging. I think it's only natural that such a thing would feel foreign to the likes of us. How many times were you told in the course of your duties that if you ran into trouble there would be no one there to get you out of it?"

When she was running away on that island... Just like he was. Running away on his raft. Thinking only of himself and his own freedom as he built it.

"I'm just as guilty of that line of thinking, you know? I didn't think anyone here would truly grieve if I left. And did try to."

She ducks her head again, stares down at her toes.

And all at once she realizes just how ingrained that expectation that nobody come after her when she took off in the middle of the mission, the feelings of personal failure and disposability conflicting with her guilty relief that somebody did. "... Maximilien came after me," she responds quietly. "Ruined his suit. But he. He's saved my life twice now." And she really has no idea what to do with that.

Ava frowns, knows that feeling well enough. But she's slowly learning more people care for her than she expected. She tries to brush her trembling fingers through her hair again, but there doesn't seem to be much use to it. "Was that you out there, on that little raft?" She'd only seen it from such a distance.

Number 6's feelings for Max will never be warm, but that does earn the arrogant robot a few more points of goodwill. "Is it still so impossible, after he's done it twice, to believe that you are someone he cares for? Someone who is worth caring for?" He's going to keep trying to hammer that message home to her, even if it is using Max as an example.

"Yes. I'm afraid it was me on that raft. I knew it was a foolish endeavor, but I hope you can understand why I felt the need to try it."

Noticing her trying to run fingers through her hair, he turns to survey the mess a little closer. That really won't do.

"I have a comb in my toiletry kit. Would you like me to try and detangle your hair a little with it?"

"I seem to have... underestimated how much I mean to him, yes," Ava replies softly. Still, she hasn't been able to catch back up with Max yet, after he stormed off upon their return. She worries.

But she has to get herself into... a better state herself before tracking Max down.

And so she hesitantly nods at the offer, knows her hair can be a lot to work through. "A toiletry kit," she doesn't quite mock. It's the sort of thing that makes practical sense. And not the sort of thing she thought to bring. "It's... easier if you. Have some sort of oil. Or cream."

He gives her a deadpan look when she questions his toiletry kit--one that seems to say "And, you don't have one?" without his lips needing to move at all.

What he does say is, "You're in luck. I happen to keep baby oil with it." It's an old fashioned method of smoothing and laying hair down in place that works in a pinch when he can't find his standard products.

"One moment." He gets up and goes around to the lockers to fetch his supplies and comes back with them and another towel in case she wants to cover up with it.

"Would you like to use this?"

She absolutely does not, and she makes a face at the silent accusation because it's entirely correct and so unfair because it's not like she usually showers outside of her own room. Sure Peter is well-groomed but it seems like such a high maintenance thing to have! And Ava thinks a loofa is the height of luxury so you're really fighting an uphill battle here.

She shuts off the water while he's gone, tries to squeeze the excess out of her hair. There's a moment where she considers taking the opportunity to slip away, but she lingers uncertainly until he returns.

She nods and wraps the extra towel around her body loosely, more aware of herself now to find it necessary. Still, he hasn't been weird about it so she finds no reason to either.

Realizing she's slipped into a long silence, she glances over. "I used to hate having handlers," she mumbles. Which is way more than she'd usually want to admit.

Number 6 never thought he'd end up being the high maintenance one, but he does like to keep himself looking sharp and clean shaven.

There's no tease in his tone, however, when he answers her mumbled admission. "I can guess that your handlers saw you less as a person and more an asset. I think it only natural to hate that."

By comparison, he is determined to treat her with dignity and respect. He's helping because he wants to and because he cares for her as a person. Something he suspects those handlers of hers never did.

"You need have no fear of speaking up to me. If I'm being too rough or tugging too hard please say so. I've only ever detangled wigs before and they couldn't feel pain."

"Yet..." she trails off, conflicted. No she hadn't been treated with much care, more like malfunctioning equipment needing maintenance. It had been strict, far more regulations than Ava preferred. But there was a routine to expect in the aftermath. She was never really dumped off on her own. And it turned out she was... lost when it came to caring for herself. She feels frustrated, and far too exhausted... and appreciative that he's willing to step in even for something so pathetically simple.

She sits on a bench, to make it easier than either of them hunching over on the damp floor, her arms crossed tightly around her midsection.

"Hah. Undercover wigs?" Though she knows better, it does provide her with an amusing mental image of him with wildly inappropriate hairstyles. "So did you ever give out other fake names, or is Peter your go-to?" She assumes the one he's given is a fake, but has never challenged him on the fact before.

He has intuited, based on the pieces of her life she's shared, that her distress now may, in fact, be because she's not experienced with the comedown aspect of stressful missions on her own. He understands the paradoxical stress that happens once the dust settles and one is left to assess the memories and critique their own actions. He's had debriefings with his own handlers, in cold offices under hot lights. But when the questions ended and he was free for the night, he always found himself with a drink in hand talking it out to himself. It's the part no one ever warns about. It's worse if not everyone makes it back alive.

He sits behind her and gently begins to pick her hair into sections, applying oil and then starting to run the comb through thin chunks of it. His hands are rough and calloused but his touch is gentle.

"Yes, sometimes. I had to play the part of a vagabond once or twice." The point had been to look terrible, and he truly had.

He chuffs a soft sound when she correctly calls him on his false name. It was only a matter of time before someone did. "I used plenty, but Peter Smith was the name my flat in London was registered to. It was one of my more official aliases. That seemed fitting at the time. The longer I stay here, the more it begins to feel like my own." Could he go back now and use his true name after introducing himself to so many as Peter? He could. More people are aware of what he was now thanks to some poor decisions he made on the beach. But he doesn't see the point. It isn't as if he will ever be going home.

"In The Village, they used numbers instead of names. I was given the designation 'Number 6.' I was only ever Number 6. After all that, I've become protective of my given name."

At least she could always direct her pent up stress at her handlers, she had more than earned her reputation for being difficult.

"Bond, Vegabond," Ava jokes mostly to herself, the tiniest smile as she glances over her shoulder at Peter.

"As dehumanizing that sounds... You do seem like a Six," she decides after scrutinizing him quietly, then turning her head back to allow him to continue with the detangling. She's not going to push for something he just admitted not wanting to give.

"I never needed a fake identity because I had no... real identity. If anyone managed to get my name, there was nothing to be done with it. No records, public or otherwise." She was untraceable.

She pauses. "Until Agent Romanoff leaked all SHIELD files." And then every record was out there. A good way to expose Hydra, sure. A good way to expose every other agent. She was lucky enough not to have a personal life to be ruined by it. No compromised identities. No loved ones to threaten. She frowns.

"All my medical records and experiments. All my kills. Accountability," she scoffs.

He huffs out an annoyed sigh at the reference. But today she is spared the full diatribe of why he hates James Bond and anything to do with "007."

"How can I seem like a number? Really?" His indignance is mostly in good fun, but there is a touch of real annoyance beneath it. He has a difficult relationship with that designation. He hates it, and yet he feels possessive of it at the same time. "Besides, my roommate is Six and if we both went by that it would be no end of confusion." See. It really was for the better that he chose an alias.

He pauses briefly with the comb halfway through the next section of hair. "You were exposed? I'm sorry. That wasn't fair to you. Accountability should be for those who had a choice. Even I can recognize that."

"I don't know. Like how people may seem like a color or a... smell or a certain animal?" Ava responds, though she understands the annoyance given it was something assigned to him. She stares down at her hands, picking at her cuticles.

"Sounds deliberate," she comments, of him getting assigned to a roommate of the same number. "This place has a way of making you uncertain. If it's messing with you. Or if things just happen."

The combing feels soothing, and she doesn't mind however long it takes, sighing softly. "Everything, everyone. Nobody was looking at me or for me, not in the chaos it unleashed. They took down... senators. CEOs. Government officials at all levels. But. It is out there." For anyone to stumble across if they knew what they were after.

"The way the Captain's sense of humor seems to turn, yes, I believe that was deliberate." For more reasons than just the name. "Having to refer to my own roommate by that leaves a sour taste in my mouth, and I fear it always will." Worse, because he's yet to tell Six anything about it, so he suffers in silence.

"I'm not sure I agree with such an aggressive method of exposing an organization, but may I ask you this? Did that event lead to your getting free of your handlers?"

She hums thoughtfully, uncertain if it's even the Captain that arranges the room assignments. Maybe it's more of a Friday job, given her general scope of duties. But people tend to assume anything they don't like is the Captain's doing. Maybe Friday had simply thought it'd be something the two 6's would... have something in common. "I'll call you whatever you prefer," Ava says simply.

"Millions of lives were at stake. I... understand why she did it," Ava admits quietly. She just really hates the personal exposure, the fear that anyone might get ahold of it. But there's nothing anyone back home can do to hurt her here.

"It did. Everyone was far too busy to pay any attention to me. I made my way to California to seek out the only man I knew I could trust."

If Number 6 could see past his own anger about it it, he might come to that same realization as Ava. Even he (and Six for that matter) has admitted that the present roommate arrangement has been as compatible as ever it could be.

"Thank you. Though Peter Smith is not the name I was born to, here, it feels as if it could be a second christening. It is what I would prefer to be called." If he is never returning home, is being forced to restart his life here, why not do so with a fresh identity?

"I hope, then, that despite the terrible invasion, it will have been worth it. Was it that man you told me about before, the Ant Man, who helped you?"

"It seems suitably generic," Ava comments approvingly. With no real flair to it at all. She has her own preference for simplicity, going unnoticed. She could never pull off such a fantastic name as Skulduggery.

"Guess it doesn't even matter here," she remarks, because the troubles of back home mean less each passing month. As all her worries and traumas just get replaced with new ones.

"Scott? No..." Ava looks conflicted for a moment. "The man I sought out was Dr. Bill Foster. He was... a friend and colleague of my father's. They worked together in the Quantum Division at SHIELD. Along with a man named Dr. Hank Pym." And there's a lot more history there than she really wants to get into at the moment. "After the lab accident in Argentina... SHIELD sent Bill down to investigate the reported Quantum anomaly. And he found me in the orphanage. He was kind, and... and he wanted to help."

She grips at the soft fabric of the towel. "I thought he was there to adopt me."

"Most good aliases are." If he'd known at the start that he would be adopting this name for himself with finality, he might have given it slightly more thought. But Peter isn't so ill-suited to him when all is said and done. This place has certainly done a good job of showing him he is not so unique. He doesn't need a stand-out name.

"It may have no effect on your future here, but the past always matters, Ava," he reminds her gently, while smoothing the comb through yet a new section of hair.

"Is it presumptuous of me to assume that you experienced little in the way of care and kindness in that orphanage?"

"The nuns weren't cruel... but. Back then nobody quite understood what was wrong with me. They couldn't touch me. I stopped talking after the accident, for a long time. I was kept apart from the other children. I scared them. Everyone thought I was damned," including herself. She'd tried praying, like they taught her to. And she'd learned rather quickly that if anyone was listening, it wasn't to her.

She wraps her fingers around a strand of detangled hair. "Bill did take me back with him. To America. To SHIELD. He never would have, if he knew what they'd subject me to. Bill tried to protect me, argued with them. Wanted to remain on my project, cure me. But to them, I wasn't a scared little girl that needed any of that. I was hardly human at all. It's easier for them to... forget that. When you're. When you look like me. And so they removed me from Bill's custody. Fired him. And there was nothing... nothing that one scientist could do on my behalf. Not against the most powerful intelligence agency in the world. I didn't see him again for twenty years."

"Not cruel intentionally, perhaps, but that was no way to rear a child." The very noticeable issues she has with self-esteem are now so understandable it hurts. He's tempted to ask if she would like him to wrap her in his arms but decides against given how vulnerable she is already.

"I'm so very sorry that they took the one good person in your life from you. That he was the only one who saw you for the person you were is deeply upsetting to know."

He pauses in his work on her hair so he can peer over her shoulder at her and attempt to make eye contact.

"You are not that scared little girl anymore. You are a self-possessed woman. I know how you will argue, that I am here helping you sort yourself out, so you must not be. But, presumptuous as this may be to say, I think that adoptive father of yours would agree with me if he could see you now."

"What SHIELD did to me was much worse," Ava says tiredly, and she's struggling to maintain her form again. It's good he's paused his work, because there's a slip in contact between her and the brush. But she peers back, and decides not to argue. No matter how broken she feels, Ava knows she's been falling apart her entire life. But she'll manage, and it helps to hear somebody else say so too.

"I miss Bill..." and if he's looking to wrap his arms around her, it's a good time, because she's crying anew, turning her head away quickly to cover her face with her hands. She can never wish Bill here even if it worked that way. She can never see him again. She's accepted that, but it still hurts.

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be_seeing_you - 2022-10-27 02:25 (UTC) - Expand

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