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Ava wakes up to a strangely silent room and doesn’t bother opening her eyes. Her alarm hasn’t gone off yet, but her internal clock is fairly accurate, so Ava figures it should be about time to get up.
She rolls onto her side, intending to swing her feet over the edge of the bed and sit up, but then lets out a yelp when she abruptly runs out of mattress, instead falling and hitting the floor with a thump.
Dazed, she lies there and squints at the ceiling in confusion, wondering why it doesn’t look like her bedroom. Sara’s tousled head peeks over the edge of the bed, one hand rubbing her cheek as she blinks sleepily at Ava, and that’s when she remembers she’s on the Waverider.
“What are you doing, babe?”
Ava doesn’t answer, instead propping herself up and glancing down at herself, thinking it’s fairly obvious what she’s doing on the floor. A slow smile spreads across Sara’s face, lighting up her eyes in a way that makes it very hard for Ava to be annoyed with her, and Ava rolls her eyes.
Of course, Sara Lance is good at nothing if not being infuriating, and when she opens her mouth, Ava knows she’s quickly going to take care of that particular detail. “Aves, did you just fall out of bed? How old are you again? You know, I can probably get Gideon to fabricate a baby rail, if you need it.”
“Shut up,” Ava grumbles, rolling her eyes and pushing herself up, kicking off the trailing end of the blanket as she goes. “I usually sleep in the middle of the bed, I didn’t realize I was so close to the edge.”
Sara laughs, the sound so light and happy despite the hour that Ava can’t help but smile too, collapsing back onto the bed next to her.
“Come here,” Sara says, wrapping her arm around Ava’s waist and pulling her closer. “You should sleep closer to me, to avoid falling out of bed again,” she says matter-of-factly.
Ava raises an amused eyebrow but doesn’t argue, letting Sara pull her into her side. “Is that so?”
Sara nods sagely. “Yes. And look, we can even be extra careful.” She proceeds to wrap both arms around Ava, and then completes the koala cling by throwing a leg over hers as well. “Let’s see you get out of this one.”
Ava turns her head to press her cheek against the top of Sara’s head and laughs softly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
It’s the middle of the night when the Waverider is rocked by an explosion, and Ava doesn’t appreciate the rude awakening when the motion unbalances the ship, dumping her out of bed and gracelessly onto the floor. Sara has somehow avoided the same fate, already alert and sitting up, and Ava scowls at her.
“Gideon?” Sara calls out, throwing the blankets off and jumping to her feet. She holds out her hand to help Ava up and uses the other to snap open one of her staffs, though Ava has no idea where she got it from. “What’s going on?”
“I do believe Drs. Palmer and Heywood are testing a new feature of the hyperdrive.”
Sara rolls her eyes and refolds her bo staff, sharing an exasperated look with Ava. “So everything’s fine? Ship’s not under attack?”
“Indeed, Captain. And the bridge will soon be restored to its former state, as they are currently scrambling to clean up their mess before anyone becomes aware of it.”
“Thanks Gideon,” Sara says with a laugh. “Ava, you okay?” she asks, looking over her shoulder as she moves to stow her staff behind her nightstand.
Ava nods and stretches out her neck, exhaling dramatically as she moves back to the bed. “Not my favorite way to wake up, but I’m fine. Don’t think I can go back to sleep though.” The adrenaline had done a stellar job of waking her up, and a quick glance at the clock tells her that it’s way too early for either of them to be conscious.
“Well,” Sara murmurs, coming to stand in front of her, “I can think of a couple ways to pass the time then.”
“Is that so?” Ava leans back on her hands and tilts her head up to meet her eyes, “Care to share?”
Sara leans down and cups Ava’s face, her thumbs gently stroking over her cheeks as she approaches for a kiss. “With pleasure.”
Hours later, Ava lets her hand rest against Sara’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of her breathing. Sara sighs drowsily, the sound calm and quiet, and Ava’s heart swells. She snuggles deeper into the pillow with a sigh of contentment, feeling Sara do the same as she brings up a hand to stroke at Ava’s wrist, and that combined with the steady hum of the Waverider is enough to lull her to sleep. She shifts closer to Sara, moving her head on the pillow so she’s lying face to face with the other woman, and presses a final kiss to her lips before letting her eyes slide shut.
Suddenly, Sara’s door opens with a hiss and Amaya runs into the room, slightly out of breath. “Sara, we need you to – ”
Ava’s eyes fly open at the unexpected intrusion and she jerks backwards, pinwheeling her arms before overbalancing and falling right off the bed. She hears Amaya make a concerned noise as Sara guffaws, and drapes her arms over her face to hide her flush.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Sara tells Amaya with another laugh, and then wriggles over to Ava’s side of the bed. “Doing okay down there?”
Ava responds with a groan.
Ava’s dreaming about something unsettling, something dark and empty and heavy with a sense of unease, when she’s startled awake at the feeling of falling, moments before she hits the floor. She fully wakes with a gasp, taking a second before the now-familiar sight of Sara’s room cuts through the oncoming panic and calms her.
Sara is staring at her apologetically from the bed, one hand dangling down towards Ava. “I’m sorry, I tried to catch you,” she tells her, reaching out, “You okay? Must have been a hell of a dream.” Her tone is light, but her brow is pinched in concern.
“Just your standard nightmare,” Ava says, rubbing the back of her head where she’d hit the floor, “Don’t really… remember it. Anyways, why weren’t you asleep?”
“You kicked me like ten minutes ago, woke me up. I thought I got you to calm down, but apparently you weren’t done yet.” Sara helps her up and pulls the blanket back, waiting for Ava to get into bed before draping it over her. She has a concentrated look on her face as she arranges it properly, and Ava exhales, sinking back into the pillow.
There’s a knife discarded on the nightstand, as if it had just been tossed there without a care, and Ava distantly wonders where Sara pulled that from. She’s reasonably sure that she doesn’t keep it under her pillow – maybe the headboard?
“Question,” Ava says as she rolls over, tucking her hands under her head, “How many weapons do you have stashed around here, and by extension, what are the odds of me getting accidentally stabbed?”
Sara glances at the knife and then looks up, silently mouthing numbers as she counts in her head. When this goes on for a solid thirty seconds without any signs of her stopping, Ava groans and buries her head in the pillow.
“Never mind, I don’t want to know!”
Grinning, Sara wriggles closer and pushes some loose hair out of Ava’s face. “You good?” she asks, voice much softer than Ava expected, and Ava cracks an eye open.
“Yeah,” she tells her, turning onto her side and pulling the blanket up, “After all, what do I have to be afraid of? I’ve got you and all your pointy knives to protect me.”
Sara huffs, tilting her chin up proudly even as she snuggles into her. “You’re damn right.”
Ava wakes up slowly to the blaring of the alarm, groaning as she cracks her eyes open to see Sara’s room on the Waverider. Sara is still asleep next to her, not even stirring at the sound of the alarm, and Ava grumbles enviously, starting to untangle herself from Sara’s arms. She’s wrapped up in the blanket, perfectly warm and comfortable, and her movements are clumsy as she tries to push it off so she can get out of bed and turn off the goddamn alarm.
Unfortunately, in her half-asleep haze, she doesn’t actually manage to free herself as successfully as she’d thought, and doesn’t realize her legs aren’t clear. As a result, when she tries to get out of bed… she falls.
Blinking at the ceiling from her new position flat on the floor, she heaves a sigh. Above her, she hears Sara shift, burrowing deeper into her pillow. There are no other signs that she’s awake, and Ava thinks maybe she’s gotten away with it this time, that she can avoid Sara’s teasing for once.
However, just as she’s sitting up, Sara’s hand appears in her line of sight, giving her a thumbs up.
“You’re doing amazing, sweetie,” Sara mumbles sleepily, and Ava swats at her with a laugh, rolling her eyes.
+1
Ava smacks her face into something hard, blinking herself awake and instinctively rubbing her nose. She makes a disgruntled noise, reaching out to poke at whatever it is, and a giggle behind her tells her that Sara is awake too.
“Sara,” Ava starts as she stares at the foreign object in front of her face before turning over to see Sara watching her with an innocent smile on her face.
“Yes?”
“What is that?”
“Hm?”
Ava glares at her, gesturing behind her at the plastic thing she’s just smushed her face into, and Sara grins.
“Oh!” she says like it’s a surprise, as though she doesn’t know that Ava can see right through her, “Well, it’s a baby rail! Because, you know, we don’t want you to keep falling out of bed.”
Blinking, Ava presses her lips together. It definitely hadn’t been there when they’d gone to bed a few hours ago. “Seriously?”
Of course Sara would wake up in the middle of the night, sneak down to the fabricator room for a baby rail, and then install it while Ava was asleep. That’s exactly the type of thing Sara would do.
Sara’s side doesn’t have a baby rail, and Ava eyes it. “And I’m the only one who needs one? What if you fall?”
“Nuh-uh! Assassin training,” Sara says smugly, “I don’t fall out of bed.”
Ava raises an eyebrow at her, and after a moment’s consideration, surges forward to tackle Sara. Sara’s ready for it, because she’s always ready, and it turns into a grappling match, both of them rolling around with the covers getting hopelessly tangled around their legs. Eventually Sara pins her, both of them now lying horizontally across the bed with Ava’s head almost hanging off the edge of Sara’s side, and Ava strains to get free.
“Any last words?” Sara asks with a smirk, easily containing Ava’s struggles from her position on top of her. Ava lets out a huff, blowing at a clump of her loose hair lying messily in her face, and Sara grins cheekily and leans down to rub her nose against Ava’s before pulling back.
“Well then,” Sara shrugs and swings her leg over Ava’s body so she’s no longer straddling her, preparing to push her off, “Long live the king.”
Ava scoffs, ready to criticize her misuse of the Lion King reference, but Sara raises an eyebrow and releases her wrists so she can shove her off the bed. As she’s falling, Ava hastily twists and reaches out to loop her arms around Sara’s waist, yanking her with her as she slides towards the floor.
Sara gasps in surprise, and Ava lets out a triumphant laugh even as she makes sure she’s the one to hit the ground first and cushion Sara’s fall. The blanket gets dragged down with them, and Ava lets her head fall back with a light thump.
“Cheater,” Sara says, giving her an exaggerated look of offence even as she winds her arms around Ava’s waist, and Ava smiles.
“Do you want to get back in bed?” Ava asks, pointing, and Sara makes a noncommittal noise in response, already making herself comfortable where she’s lying sprawled out across Ava. “Sara?”
Sara only hums again and tucks her face into Ava’s neck. “Nah. I’m good here. You’d probably just fall out of bed again anyways.”
It’s not as uncomfortable on the floor as she would have imagined, and Ava gives half a shrug. “Alright. But Sara?”
“Hm?”
“Please shut up.”
“Aw, don’t be grumpy.”
“And you’re getting rid of the baby rail.”
“Whatever you say, Aves. Whatever you say.”