Ava Anatalya Orlova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krasnaya_vdova) wrote2017-06-21 01:35 am
krasnaya_vdova) wrote2017-06-21 01:35 am
This is a Call to Arms
Ava ran when SHIELD came crumbling down. It was maybe not the bravest, most-superhero thing to do, but as the SHIELD Academy went to pieces and she didn't know who to trust, disappearing seemed the best option. She grabbed the bag she kept stashed in her dorm room and she vanished. She'd been told she was safe, that she didn't need it, but being proven right isn't anywhere near as vindicating as one might think. She does what she can, but when a few agents show up and it's down to the cleanup, she's just a name listed as missing in action.
She has enough money stashed for a round-about way out of the country. She doesn't have anywhere in particular she's going, but she doesn't need one. The idea is just to survive. To get away from places where Hydra or SHIELD or the military or anyone else might look and just blend into the city streets. Ava spent three years penniless on the streets of Brooklyn-- she's good at surviving, fitting into the cracks and living off the bottom-rungs. It's a life she fits herself back into, living day by day for months as she keeps herself moving. The uniform she'd put together back when she was almost a SHIELD agent is stuffed at the bottom of her duffel bag as a not-forgotten memory. That she could be something, that she was still the Red Widow.
Instead, she's in a hoodie underneath an over-sized green jacket that looks like it might have come from some flavor of army surplus store. Even with her bright red hair, copper by the sunlight, she hardly sticks out. She keeps her head down, her clothes over-sized to draw even less attention to her body, and usually it works. Usually she's just an unremarkable girl like any other. But her skills are remarkable, and while she doesn't usually have cause to put them on display, even actively tries to avoid confrontations, a few men make the mistake of trying to steal her bag off her shoulder as she stops by the news stall, taking in the headlines and keeping her eyes down. Ava makes a point of giving people as little reason to remember her as possible and as little of her features to describe.
But when that hand goes for the strap of her bag, she's moving in reflex. Immediately in over-drive, twisting him by the wrist, slamming him on his back on the ground, and then it's a fight. Two on one; unfair odds for them. Part of her is honestly a little bit incredulous. Afterall, what sort of thieves target street rats like her? What sort of men care that much about a duffel bag on a young woman who still doesn't really live further out than tomorrow? She doesn't even carry much money on her. But they're concerns for later. And for a few moments she's all graceful movement and brutal efficiency. She moves like a Red Room girl, one of Ivan's special girls, the best of the best. But it's even more than that: she moves like Natasha.
The problem she recognizes all too late is the reminder that fights draw spectators: people watching, people who will remember the red-haired girl, and three men only too eager to complain to anyone who will listen. There's no proof that there's anyone out looking for her, but she doesn't want to risk it. She's been imprisoned before. The SHIELD Academy had been worth it when there'd been a reason, when there were people behind her, but with the chaos that seems to have followed the helicarrier's fall, she feels safer like this.
Ava's good at disappearing, slipping into the crowd, one moment a figure on the sidewalk, and then she's gone. Stepping into the shadows, melting down an alley, trying to let the world pass her by as she gathers her thoughts, decides what to do next -- she'd be hard to trace if someone didn't know the tricks she used, and people like that are very rare indeed. She's only still for a moment or two, planning her course back to the neglected warehouse she's been living in, away from the crowd and then circling back around, just to be on the safe side.
She has enough money stashed for a round-about way out of the country. She doesn't have anywhere in particular she's going, but she doesn't need one. The idea is just to survive. To get away from places where Hydra or SHIELD or the military or anyone else might look and just blend into the city streets. Ava spent three years penniless on the streets of Brooklyn-- she's good at surviving, fitting into the cracks and living off the bottom-rungs. It's a life she fits herself back into, living day by day for months as she keeps herself moving. The uniform she'd put together back when she was almost a SHIELD agent is stuffed at the bottom of her duffel bag as a not-forgotten memory. That she could be something, that she was still the Red Widow.
Instead, she's in a hoodie underneath an over-sized green jacket that looks like it might have come from some flavor of army surplus store. Even with her bright red hair, copper by the sunlight, she hardly sticks out. She keeps her head down, her clothes over-sized to draw even less attention to her body, and usually it works. Usually she's just an unremarkable girl like any other. But her skills are remarkable, and while she doesn't usually have cause to put them on display, even actively tries to avoid confrontations, a few men make the mistake of trying to steal her bag off her shoulder as she stops by the news stall, taking in the headlines and keeping her eyes down. Ava makes a point of giving people as little reason to remember her as possible and as little of her features to describe.
But when that hand goes for the strap of her bag, she's moving in reflex. Immediately in over-drive, twisting him by the wrist, slamming him on his back on the ground, and then it's a fight. Two on one; unfair odds for them. Part of her is honestly a little bit incredulous. Afterall, what sort of thieves target street rats like her? What sort of men care that much about a duffel bag on a young woman who still doesn't really live further out than tomorrow? She doesn't even carry much money on her. But they're concerns for later. And for a few moments she's all graceful movement and brutal efficiency. She moves like a Red Room girl, one of Ivan's special girls, the best of the best. But it's even more than that: she moves like Natasha.
The problem she recognizes all too late is the reminder that fights draw spectators: people watching, people who will remember the red-haired girl, and three men only too eager to complain to anyone who will listen. There's no proof that there's anyone out looking for her, but she doesn't want to risk it. She's been imprisoned before. The SHIELD Academy had been worth it when there'd been a reason, when there were people behind her, but with the chaos that seems to have followed the helicarrier's fall, she feels safer like this.
Ava's good at disappearing, slipping into the crowd, one moment a figure on the sidewalk, and then she's gone. Stepping into the shadows, melting down an alley, trying to let the world pass her by as she gathers her thoughts, decides what to do next -- she'd be hard to trace if someone didn't know the tricks she used, and people like that are very rare indeed. She's only still for a moment or two, planning her course back to the neglected warehouse she's been living in, away from the crowd and then circling back around, just to be on the safe side.