{Save tonight and fight the break of dawn, come tomorrow, I'll be gone

[justavoid]

[I'll make it pretty later y'all]

PRIVATE w/ immaterialgirlricochetingbullets white_widow
justavoid ciadirector projectgoliath & OTHERS

Comments

{Link List

[justavoid]

[What it says on the tin. Drop any relevant links to this AU under this comment!]

<b>Characters:</b> <b>Elevator Pitch:</b> <b>Link:</b>

Fit these into any point in a timeline you want tbh idkkkk

[justavoid]

Characters: Bob & Dex
Elevator Pitch: Post-mission; only one bed meme
Link: here

Characters: Bob & Dex
Elevator Pitch: I wasn’t telling you to shut up. That was directed at the voices in my head; TFLN
Link: here

Characters: Bob & Ava
Elevator Pitch: Ava, fresh out of the shower and towelless, asks for some help; Bob saves her~
Link: here

[white_widow]

Characters: Ava & Dex
Elevator Pitch: early days, talking about their previous relationship and reunion
Link: here

Characters: Yelena & Dex
Elevator Pitch: sizing each other up, Yelena aiming to dig into how he and Ava know/knew each other
Link: here

Characters: Ava, Dex, & Yelena
Elevator Pitch: memory sharing, Void time
Link: here

Characters: Yelena & John (not in this verse, but the event they're discussing has been mentioned in other threads)
Elevator Pitch: Towel Gate
Link: here

Characters: Ava & Yelena
Elevator Pitch: Towel Gate
Link: here

Characters: Dex & Yelena
Elevator Pitch: morning after, post throupling
Link: here

Characters: Dex & Yelena
Elevator Pitch: tfln: memes, t-shirts, toplessness, Towel Gate
Link: here

Characters: Ava & Val
Elevator Pitch: Ava telling Val that she's leaving, permanent style (sobs)
Link: here

For Bob - Dex and Bob's first meeting

[ricochetingbullets]

For the first few days, Dex keeps to himself. Things he is not good with: large changes in his life, new people, and no longer having to look over his should constantly to make sure none of Fisk's goons are catching up to him. All he does is come out to cook something to eat, go down to the shooting range on one of the levels, and then goes back to sleep. It's been a very long time since he was able to get a good amount of rest, so he's taking advantage of the time before the team inevitably has to go save the world from God-only-knows what. Probably a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater at this point. He wouldn't be surprised.

Finally, he comes out at a decent hour of the day around lunchtime instead of the dead of night and ends up in the common area. He sees there is a very large puzzle set up in the corner. Curiosity makes him go over to it. Something like this is catnip to the part of Dex's brain that was trained to be a sniper and got physically rewired to notice small details. Within two minutes he's already fit about ten pieces into place after only glancing at them each once. He's sure his instructors at sniper school would be very proud he still remembers his KIMS game training.

His head snaps up sharply when he sees someone else come into the room. His hand doesn't immediately go for a gun or knife, both of which he of course has on him. His right one just twitches a little bit, running a puzzle piece fluidly through it the way someone might walk a coin across their hand before sliding it into place without looking directly down at the puzzle. He hasn't met this one yet but he's heard a little about him. He definitely fits the descriptions he's been given by Yelena and Ava about him. "You must be Bob," Dex says. "Unless someone found another stray in a dumpster and has brought them home."

Dex looks very clean-cut, that All-American tall white blonde muscular stereotype of male law enforcement everyone pictured in their heads a lot in the early 00s, especially thanks to the enduring image of Captain America that persisted in pop culture. Maybe like he was a jock in high school and would have bullied someone like Bob for fun. Of course, while Dex looks that way on the surface and was capable of acting the part for a long time until it all fell apart, inside he's a fucking psychological mess instead. In social situations like this, there's always something that's just a little bit....off about him. Emotional responses that are far too muted or that he doesn't seem to possess at all, a lack of emotion in his own voice, and those very dead shark eyes that psychopaths are often said to possess by those that meet him. It doesn't help his limited social skills have deteriorated even further in the ten years since he still tried to mask as normal. Even if he doesn't say a word, it's easy for a lot of people to pick up that Dex is just a little left-of-center somehow, even if they can't figure out why.

[justavoid]

Bob was... unavailable during the initial meeting when Valentina introduced Dex to the rest of the team. Since then, he's seen vague flashes of the newest occupant of the Watchtower, but meeting hasn't officially happened yet. That fact is settling uneasy in Bob's chest, because he's also bad at new people and someone unknown and still unmet just... an infinite ticking from a clock in his head. It reminds him of Captain Hook and the crocodile in the Disney Peter Pan movie.

He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, as he pads down the hallway to the common room. He slows to a stop when Dex's head snaps up so quickly. It's almost uncanny how statue-still he goes immediately at the tension suddenly flooding the room. His eyes flicker to the man's hand, puzzle piece dancing across his knuckles, only saved from getting stuck by him effortlessly, blindly putting that piece exactly where it slips in without ever taking his eyes off of him. "Did you jus-" his eyebrows arch slightly. Shakes his head again before nodding, "Yeah, that's me..." He frowns a little at the comment about a dupster stray. "What?"

[ricochetingbullets]

Dex takes in the sight of Bob. In terms of the pecking order around here, he definitely looks like he's right on the bottom. It's not a kind thought (then again, Dex is not a kind man) but Dex is glad. He likes being on top of the heap, and even though he's still figuring out where he lies in the group, he doesn't want to be on the bottom either with this man who inexplicably reminds him of a Labrador Retriever. His voice still seems to have no emotion in it when he talks. "I asked Ava if they found you all in a box on the side of the road with 'Free to a good home' written on it when she started describing how you all met and she said it was something like that."

He glances down quickly at the puzzle piece, picking up another before discarding it and selecting a second one instead. Then he glances at the puzzle, trying to figure out where it goes. With the image of it still in his mind's eye as he mentally shifts the piece from one spot to the next to see where it will fit, his eyes flick back up towards Bob to see what he'll say next.

[justavoid]

He laughs a little at that, "I guess it's not a bad one, as analogies go," he shrugs and watches him as he moves further into the room. He gives him his space, won't crowd him, instead he drapes himself across one of the oversized, over-stuffed chairs.

"How'd you do that, by the way?" he peeks over the back of the chair at him. "You weren't even looking, how'd you know where that piece went?" He's used to witnessing the extraordinary at this point? He technically is that by definition, if he'd just... stop being too scared to try. That's Future Bob's problem, though. Sucks to be that guy.

[immaterialgirl]

[something is... wrong with her.

but given her relationship with her body, it's typical enough. that she doesn't even consider the possibility. the first missed period isn't anything unusual. with how strained her internal organs are she's never been regular, and at least it's one less thing to deal with.

with the well-intentioned reminders of the people that care for her, Ava does her best to take care of herself, keep up with the exhaustive maintenance of living. and in return, her body doesn't betray her quite as much as it used to. she finds enjoyment in the shared intimacy, the pleasure of physical contact that she had been so starved for. there's still days of pained flare ups, where she vanishes for hours to lay in her stabilization chamber to recover. more frequently these past few months. and though her teammates are aware of the necessity of her wearing her suit for her condition, she hasn't really invited any of them in to see this daunting aspect of her routine.

maybe eventually, but sometimes she just likes having the privacy, a space to herself to just decompress, basking in the waves of healing energy.

except it doesn't seem to be helping much, not this time. not with the frequent onset of nausea, the strange ache deep in the core of her. but it's when she goes to put her suit back on, she realizes maybe it's gotten a bit tight in the middle. she tries to think back over everything she's eaten recently, and suddenly the idea of food feels very unappetizing.

it's three missed periods now. and denial is doing a lot to mask the underlying panic. she takes the test anyway.

and bites down hard on her hand to muffle a terrified scream at the results. no, that absolutely can't be right. this shouldn't be possible at all. all the scientists, including Bill, had agreed. but that was back before Janet healed her, and the proof is enough to make her feel so incredibly stupid.

she sits there for awhile, overwhelmed and uncertain what to do next. unable to identify how to feel. the idea of telling anyone is paralyzing. she types up a text. to dex, to yelena. deletes them both. allows herself to finally cry for a bit, get it out of her system.

nobody can find out, Ava decides. she tosses the test into the bin, covers it up with whatever random things she finds to throw away as well. and takes the trash out herself in the middle of the night, to be rid of the evidence. it's when she's coming back in, looking absolutely miserable, that she runs into Bob. and though she attempts to greet him with a completely normal non-suspicious smile, it comes out more like a pained, apologetic cringe.]

[justavoid]

Oh, Jesus! [He startles when they nearly literally run into each other because he was too involved in his own thoughts to notice when she rounded the corner. She does that a lot on purpose to mess with some of the others sometimes, but she doesn't even have to try with Bob. He's just jumpy on his best days.]

Hey- Ava... [He clears his throat.] Everything okay? [She's been acting kind of strange lately, but it's all in weirdly subtle way he cannot quite put a finger on.]

[immaterialgirl]

[so maybe she has a habit of lurking around, startling her teammates by popping up when they don't expect her, phasing through walls without warning... their reactions are usually rather funny, when she's fishing for them.

but in this instance, Ava's not anticipating running into anyone at all. her mind is whirling with far too many what if scenarios of how her entire life is about to cave in on her to pay attention to her surroundings. so Bob's exclamation is met with a tiny yelp of surprise and couple flickering steps stumbled backward in return. and maybe it'd be a well deserved turning of the tables she could laugh off, if she weren't on the edge of panic.

she's a trained, hardened assassin, though. and she attempts to swallow it all down.] What? Oh. No, I- I mean yes, everything is fine. I'm fine. Wasn't paying attention. [she likes Bob, a lot, so lying to him feels... well, not great. especially since she's aware she isn't the most convincing liar either.]

For Yelena - After Ava leaves

[ricochetingbullets]

Just like that, she's gone without a word. She doesn't say goodbye, leave a note, not anything. It's been a long time since Dex has felt heartbreak but this can't be anything else up that. He'd felt like things were finally good between him and Ava again. They'd been happy together....hadn't they? And Ava had her issues just like Dex did but she'd known all too well what being abandoned constantly had done to him over the course of his life. She'd promised she wasn't going to leave, not like before. But she had. So Dex can only assume one thing.

Somehow, this has to be his fault. Clearly, he'd done something wrong, and that was what had made her leave. He doesn't understand or know what that could have been but he knows someone who will, so he asks Yelena if he can come up to her room.

Dex steals four bottles of vodka from the kitchen and opens one so he can start drinking even before he gets to her room. When she answers, he just comes in right away and hands over a bottle. "We're both going to need this."

presuming she doesn't know yet, lemme know if that needs changing

[white_widow]

"Oh - okay." That's not good, but he'd come to her, and that was a good thing that she didn't want to discourage or overwhelm him into regretting that, so Yelena accepts the bottle and tempers the concern that she allows into her expression.

She shuts the door behind him and, after a beat, locks it, before she turns back towards him. She crosses back over and sits down on her bed, settles back in and pats the spot next to her. "Come here. What's going on?"

👍

[ricochetingbullets]

Dex all but collapses into the spot next to her. There's no use in beating around the bush with something like this. It affects both of them after all. So he just rips off the bandaid. "Ava's gone," he tells her bluntly. "She just left without a word."

He takes a swig of vodka and feels it burn on the way down. Then he looks Yelena straight in the eye. "Did she tell you she was going to?" Maybe Yelena knows something that he doesn't, something that can shed light onto what was the reason Ava had left, what Dex had clearly done wrong to make her vanish (possibly quite literally) into thin air. He keeps rolling everything around in his head but he can't see anything he's done going through his memories that would have triggered this.

¿Por qué no los dos?

[white_widow]

It was a quiet afternoon in the Tower, for a change. Alexei had gone off to bother the marketing people about merchandising opportunities again, obsessed currently with making sure his action figure had at least as many weapons as the other super soldiers, Val had headed off to either plot the end of the world or meet up with her secret hook-up, and the other boys were...

Well, honestly, Yelena had no idea. She had been too busy focusing on her breakfast and watching a playlist of silly animal videos on her phone when they had been telling her where they were going. Bob had the brains to at least wait until the gap between one finishing and another starting, so she had caught that he was going to take a nap.

So when she finishes her late breakfast and wanders into the common area to find Ava reading, with no one around to catch or interrupt her making eyes or anything else at Ava, well, that is an opportunity she cannot pass up. She flops down on to the couch across from her, stretching out across it so her toes are just brushing Ava's thigh. She's about to come up with something off the wall as a greeting, already grinning, when she gets a better look at Ava's face, very much lost in thought that does not appear to be entirely pleasant, and not focused on the book she's holding at all. Yelena nudges her lightly with her foot, tilts her head. "What's going on in that pretty head of yours?"

[immaterialgirl]

John's off on some monitored visitation with his son, Ava recalls. She knows he's been downplaying the whole arrangement, some sort of delicate trial opportunity that he's afraid to screw up. She only knows because she caught him having a facetime conversation with his lawyer, but since he hasn't brought it up to anyone else (as far as she's aware) she minds her own business. She wouldn't even know what sort of advice to offer anyone with a kid anyway.

And Bucky and Dex are off on some sort of investigation into the police department with the whole ongoing mayor situation, which she knows is rather tense given Fisk's stance on 'their kind' and his history with Dex. But she is relieved that it's Bucky there with him, instead of herself, because she absolutely wouldn't hesitate to encourage offing the man again and being done with it finally. Which would lead to some annoying political scandal. And unlike all her other hitjobs that she could just easily vanish from and not worry about the fallout, being in the public eye now, an new AVENGER, comes with all sorts of annoying rules to maintain their whole 'hero' branding.

So she's glad to take advantage of the quiet to relax, intends to read to distract herself from the whole situation that's been plaguing her. Except as soon as all her distractions are gone, turns out that's exactly where her mind goes. The characters in the book just keep reminding her of them. Even if there really aren't much similarities at all. But every line of dialogue, she imagines from Yelena's mouth, or Dex playing the part of the main hero, the looks that they exchange with far more unspoken between them-

And there Yelena is, as if being summoned by her suppressed desire. The light nudge, being called pretty just adds to the distress, because both feel far nicer than she imagines they're intended from Yelena's end. Ava runs her thumb over the unread corner of the pages left, ruffling them nervously. "Not sure I like how this story is going, but I'm... already halfway through it. So." It's not really the story she's talking about at all, though.

[white_widow]

Hmm, okay. That's about as believable as most of Ava's little dodges - it doesn't seem accurate to call them lies, although Yelena still might out loud if she needed to be dramatic for some reason - but she'll play along. As covers go, it's a pretty decently useful one, for a little distance between Ava and whatever she was thinking about before Yelena sat down.

Yelena does make note of the title, though, for looking up later to confirm whether she's right or not. "What don't you like about it?"

group text: literally everybody edition

[white_widow]

[this is gonna be messy so this can be a catch-all and also a starter]

[justavoid]

[📸 In-This-Photo.png]

[white_widow]

Why don't you like it?

group text: no Vals allowed edition

[white_widow]

group text: triple dog dare you edition

[white_widow]

[aka: yelena inflicting memes on ava and dex]

[white_widow]

@ dex

what flavor milkshake is your favorite?

For Ava - Reunited (and it feels so good?)

[ricochetingbullets]

Dex is only just getting used to the idea of Ava being gone when she's tracked down in San Francisco. Of course. Where else would she have gone? That's when he gets the shock of his life. She left because she was pregnant! And suddenly he feels like an idiot because why didn't he realize? Shouldn't he have had some sort of.....intuition about this sort of thing? Isn't that what a good partner would have done? But in his defense, both he and Ava had thought she physically couldn't get pregnant.

Before he can even begin to process the news, she's back at the tower. There's a whirlwind of activity where Hank and Janet come for a few days, setting up a bunch of equipment, and he hears talk that Bill is possibly going to move in for the duration of her pregnancy. He feels very overwhelmed by everything, so Dex does what he does best: goes to find out hard facts about the subject instead of trying to parse out emotions that are always unreliable.

He buys the top ten best parenting guide books he can find and starts reading a bit every night. This is how he learns all sorts of fascinating things about pregnancy, learning when a baby's fingernails come in and how they will show emotion while still in the womb-- and also some terrifying ones like about how teeth can fall out. Of course, there's one big glaring fact he still has to face up to: he still hasn't seen Ava yet. He wants to but at the same time he's afraid she left because she just knew he wasn't going to be a good father, not with the way his mind is shaped by his BPD and ASPD.

He dithers about for a few more days until Yelena finally gives him the kick in the ass he needs to go see her. He thinks about what best sort of consolatory "I'm sorry I haven't come to see you while you're pregnant and emotional" gift one gives in this situation but the internet is less forthcoming on this. After researching the best meals for pregnancy, he gathers up the ingredients for steak fajitas with peppers and onions. He chases off Alexei when he comes around looking like a hungry bear, telling him he and John can have the leftovers only if Ava doesn't want a second helping.

Then he takes a plate up to her room. He knocks on the door, sounding emotionally flat as he normally does. "Can I come in?"

[immaterialgirl]

Some days Ava wants to crawl right out of her skin. It's all so overwhelming. The worrying and the attention. Of course she knows the checkups are necessary, she sought the Pyms out for a very good reason. Because up until recently, she didn't think any of this was possible. And then suddenly it was, and she's so unprepared for it. The physical changes alone are alarming, and given her case is 'unprecedented' she has no idea what's considered normal and what's not. Every little symptom she reports back to Bill... and now he's moving in to help alleviate some of the stress.

She hates feeling like a burden. Hates feeling so prone and vulnerable, with so little control over what's happening to her. Janet told her that stress isn't good for her, for the pregnancy. But Ava's not sure how she's meant to stop stressing when they tell her it's high risk, that more tests need to be run, that her condition is delicate and they... have no idea how the baby is even going to turn out.

But she can press her palms to her belly and feel it... feel her. She hasn't told anyone else the gender of the baby, doesn't feel right to before even the father knows. She isn't even sure the father wants to know, wants to be a father, wants anything to do with her at all after she up and bailed. Sometimes she's grateful for the fussing, all the visitors, because it does help distract from the fact Dex hasn't been by yet at all since she got settled back up in her room.

When he knocks, she glances up from her chair. It's one of those fancy ones with the foot rest that goes up, though she currently doesn't have it positioned in 'full relaxation mode' as Scott had put it. She's fiddling with the crocheting kit that Yelena had gifted her, when Ava had complained about feeling so bored about being 'sidelined.' Though they hadn't gone public about her pregnancy yet, she hasn't made any public appearances with the team lately. Mostly because she no longer fits her suit at all. She's ignored social media, the news, to see what's being speculated about that. She has enough to worry about already.

Like what to say to Dex. She swallows, and fiddles with the crochet needles some more. It was meant to be a scarf, or a blanket, or maybe a hat at some point, but mostly she's just made a bunch of connecting stitches that haven't formed into anything at all. Just keeping her hands busy. "Yeah," she replies, trying and failing to keep her own tone flat. "I'm not naked or anything." A joke, to distract from how nervous she is.

She insisted all the medical equipment be set up elsewhere. Down the hall. So her room doesn't look all too different from before. Except there's a few extra plants, and a fuzzy blanket, and she's wearing a rather loose and airy nightgown instead of her typical.

[ricochetingbullets]

Dex comes in with a plate of piping hot fajitas and for the first time he gets a look at Ava up close. Perhaps it's simply because he's always been a visual sort of person but it almost hadn't felt real until now despite logically knowing that Ava was pregnant, that she was carrying his child. Now, with the evidence in front of him, he freezes for a little while as his brain reorients itself to this new knowledge. There's a few small moments of emotions that run through him: shock, happiness, fear, and most of all love. But like always, none of them rise up to the surface.

Instead, he holds up the plate of food he's brought as a peace offering. "I thought you might be hungry." This is typical Dex behavior. Voicing his limited emotions aloud isn't really something he's capable of doing, so showing what he feels through actions is the next best thing. He's done this many times before, showing Ava and Yelena how much he cares about them by fixing them food, or ordering a soft blanket off the internet he thinks they might like, or turning on a movie he knows they'll enjoy, or just showing them an interesting rock he's found walking around outside. It's how his mind operates, always turning to logical ways to be kind and compassionate rather than relying on something as inconsistent and hard to predict as emotions.