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.
no subject
Her bed was probably not what most people would consider comfortable, but between the safehouse in DC, living in the basement of a YMCA in Brooklyn, and other stolen bolt holes over the past few years, Ava had never really indulged in creature comforts. She murmurs thoughtfully as he talks about training her. "You were different than the others. You were- something she almost understood, I think." She looks distracted for a moment, her focus not as unflinchingly on him as it has been since he stepped into her little refuge.
"There was a mission in Paris. One of her first. The click of her heels in the rain, meeting the target, you took the shot. She smiled at you, like it was a game." She says it without thinking, then shifts a little awkwardly, fidgets with her fingers. It's hard to explain what it feels like. A movie in her head, except it's not her own, and the picture isn't always in focus. She shakes her head, trying to clear it, blinking him back into focus.
"Sorry," she murmurs, not quite sure what else to say, ducking her head. She has pieces of his answers. Things she can offer if he asks the right questions, strange as it is. Those awkward pieces of memory that outweigh her own, that she knows Natasha hates that she still has, even if they'd sort of made their peace over it. It was a violation for the both of them, in the end.
no subject
It was perhaps stranger still to know that there were, to a degree, others out there like him. All of them struggling to regain what had been taken from them. This was perhaps the Red Rooms and HYDRA's legacy. Lives stolen, the attempt at perfect soldiers made.
He watched Ava silently, drinking in the knowledge that she offered perhaps without thinking about how much it might mean to him. The fact of the matter was that he didn't remember any of that, yet what she said didn't ring hollow like some of those other facts that he had read about himself. He could almost smell the rain in his mind's eye, could imagine the smile that would be tossed his way, the elevation of the game, coy and curious.
"Thank you," he said softly and maybe for the first time in a very long time, he actually meant it. When had he forgot sincerity? He closed his eyes, thinking over what she had said and then stepping away as if seeking some manner of privacy but perhaps also giving her that opportunity to up and slip away if she wanted to take it. "I can't... ask her." Natalia he meant. With her came so much other baggage he couldn't yet face. "What do you say to seeking out information on our lives here and there together?"
no subject
There's a murmur of agreement when he says that he can't ask her, and Ava understands that feeling entirely. Her relationship with Natalia was rocky on the best of days, and there was so much between them that they hadn't talked about, things that Ava didn't quite know how to touch. It was easier to be here; out on her own, than it was to risk trying to contact Natasha, to ask for anything.
It makes her smile with a little piece of warmth at the offer. The idea of not being on her own is far more appealing than she'll say out loud just yet, but she doesn't bother trying to hide it too deeply. As damaged as she is, she still feels, perhaps even more openly than Natasha. "I think I like that," she offers, a little skittish around the edges, but choosing to trust him. She's pretty sure there were worse people to be traveling with, where ever they ended up going.
If she's honest, she hates being alone. It's just still easier than the alternative.
no subject
Of course, that she didn't immediately take the opportunity to run away from him might have been suspicious except that he knew that he could likely take her in a fight. It wasn't that he was arrogant of his skills compared to what he had seen, but he simply had the added years of combat, a greater musculature and of course his metal arm tended to trump many combat situations. She had every right to try to slip away; who could actually trust the Winter Soldier after all? He asked himself that question a lot, and it was one of many reasons he remained in hiding.
And maybe, just maybe, the trust had to go both ways. He turned his head to regard her, aware that they both had plenty to lose in this. "I know... of some HYDRA facilities that haven't yet been raided which might give us a clue. HYDRA and the Red Room worked together on quite a few projects, including the Black Widow and Winter Soldier ones. We should potentially start sooner than later."
He turned back to face Ava again. "Do you have anyone to tell that you're possibly going away for awhile?"
no subject
"I'm pretty sure OPUS too. They were able to have information passed to Fury to ensure he sent Natasha. That had to be HYDRA." A pause, a sharp inhale. "The people I stayed with when I was brought into SHIELD custody-- they kept me locked in some secret bunker in DC for five years. They'd threaten to wipe me if I didn't behave." She shrugs her shoulders. Telling him too much? Maybe. But the truth is that she knows things about him. Maybe more than he knows himself. Maybe it's a little easier if they can meet somewhere in the middle.
"I-- no. I don't." It's not even particularly convincing, but she's not really trying. She wouldn't try to deceive him, but Sana was complicated. It had been three years and she just... didn't know how to face the other girl.
"We can leave whenever you want." For Ava picking up and leaving really is that simple.