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"I'm not leaving you."
Ava knew that Bill meant it. He wouldn't abandon her now, even though his job technically was done. She threw her solid oh so solid arms around him, feeling for the first time in too many years the distantly-remembered sensation of unyielding, solid, flesh and clothing against her solid body. The hug was over too quickly, but the two of them had to run. The cops were coming, and they probably wouldn't be too pleased to see her suit.
"I parked the truck this way," Bill panted, pulling Ava around a tight corner that led to an alley. She could see it now, a dark red Ford truck. Bill joked that he had to keep this truck in good condition, since it was the vehicle he'd driven to Harvard in to attend a lecture by Dr. Helen Cho. To Ava, it seemed silly to be so proud of something like that, but she had to admit, the truck did drive very smoothly. Always a plus in her book.
They reached the Ford and got in, each slamming their door behind them. Bill handed her the sunglasses that had been hanging from the mirror and Ava put them on and they were solid and so was she. He drove at the speed limit, not wanting to draw attention to the two of them. Anyone who looked at the truck would just see a father and his daughter making their way downtown (walking fast faces pass and I'm homebound...What, the suit had speakers right next to her ears and some SHIELD goons had occasionally given in to her music requests).
"So, how's it feel?" Bill asked, as the truck came to a stop at a red light. He looked over at Ava and smiled. "Is it how you remember?"
She shook her head, also smiling, albeit a bit nervously. "Everything's so real," she said. "It's almost like hyper-reality. There's no pain dulling my senses anymore, Bill. I never knew your car seats were this scratchy."
He chuckled and turned to face the road once more as the truck continued to take them back home. "Keep in mind, this truck is almost forty years old. Now that you're cured, I might even let you drive it."
"Alright, just make sure I take lessons from someone that's not you."
This drew an exaggerated gasp out of him, followed by, "I'll have you know I passed my driver's test with flying colors. Ay-plus. Who would teach you, Hank Pym?"
She scoffed at the very idea. "No, I think I'll let him play with his Hot Wheels without us. I was thinking more on the lines of 'official, licensed driving instructor', you know?"
"Fine, but I want you to remember my perfect score when the instructor starts being difficult." As Bill said this, they pulled into the driveway.
Ava was out of the truck and on the doorstep before the keys were out of the ignition. She ran her hands up the doorframe, over the door handle, along the plates of glass in the small windows that were on either side of the door. Solid wood, solid metal, solid glass, solid stone. Solid Ava, touching them. Bill walked up behind her and tapped her on the shoulder. She saw that he was holding out the house key.
"You do the honors."
"Okay," she whispered. In reality, the key weighed so little, but to her, this wonderfully solid metal object carried the weight of twenty-two years worth of suffering and uncertainty. As Ghost, she had never opened doors. Her room at SHIELD had only had a door because the organization's pet scientists enjoyed treating Ava like a rare zoo animal.
What if she started phasing again?
Taking a deep breath, she turned the key in the lock until she heard a click.
Bill pushed the door open for her with a bow. “Welcome home, Ava.”
She stepped inside, one foot in front of the other. Her feet were the first thing she’d learned to keep solid, no matter what. If her feet were phasing, Ava sunk through the ground like it was water.
The house looked very much the same, except for the absence of her stabilization chamber. It was still in the Pym lab, and good riddance. They weren’t going to need it after today. Ava never wanted to see that thing again. Thinking about it made her realize something, though.
“Bill,” she said softy, “I don’t have a bedroom.” Tears came to her eyes; she blinked them away. “I don’t have a bedroom,” Ava repeated, hearing how weak her voice sounded and not caring. She stood in the empty space where the chamber had been, turning slowly in circles and repeating “I don’t have a bedroom,” over and over. Before, there had been no reason to give her a room full of solid objects that could be broken if she phased while she interacted with them. It had been a risk that neither she nor Bill had been willing to take.
Ava became aware of a solid hand on her right shoulder. Bill was saying something about how she could pick whatever room she wanted in the house for her own, but she wasn’t listening. Bill must have known that, but he kept talking anyways. The words held no meaning for her. Her heart was beating too fast and she didn't have a bedroom and her legs were shaking and she didn't have a bedroom. Bill was still talking but that didn't really matter because she didn't have a bedroom.
After a while, she began to understand some of what the man was saying. “It’s okay. [gibberish] Just breathe, Ava. [gibberish] I’m here.” Of course. When she had meltdowns and nightmares at SHIELD, Bill had been the one to sit with her and comfort her. Most of what he said was just nonsense that sounded comforting, and it did the job. She felt herself beginning to calm down.
Ava couldn’t remember sitting down, but the two of them were on the floor and she was hanging on to Bill’s arm like it was the most important thing in the universe. He was reassuringly solid in her grip.
"It's all right, Ava," Bill repeated. "Do you want to pick out your room now, or later?" Ava felt a tear slip down her solid cheek as she nodded, although he hadn't asked a yes or no question. Bill knew what she meant. He helped her up and let her lean on him because he was solid while they walked to the stairs. Ava had only been upstairs a few times, so she had no idea what most of the rooms looked like.
The first two rooms they looked inside were clearly meant to be used for entertainment or as storage spaces. Bill said that there was already a bed in the third room, so that was the room Ava picked. She ran her hands over the solid cotton sheets, the solid wood of the bed frame, and knew that this was going to be her room.
She and Bill vacuumed her bedroom that night so she would have a place to sleep, since the chamber wasn't an option. Even if it had been, Ava would have refused to sleep there now that she was solid.
It was close to midnight when they finished cleaning the room up. Bill went downstairs to sleep in his own room, which was on the ground floor because sometimes his knees couldn't handle the stairs. Ava flopped into her own solid bed and let herself fall asleep without worrying about phasing and falling for the first time in her adult life.
-
Ava didn't know where she was when she woke up. She couldn't feel the quantum energy from the chamber pulsing over and around her body. Her phasing body. She felt a thick comforter and cotton sheets surrounding her, trapping warmth close to her solid body.
She remembered the lab, Janet's fingers, fleeing back home with Bill. She lifted her arm up, half expecting it to simply pass through the solid blanket without resistance. Yesterday, it would have. But thanks to Janet Van Dyne, Ava's arm raised the layers of fabric with it. She tossed the covers back with a solid hand and stood up, making sure to solidify her feet first before remembering that she didn't have to do that any more. She couldn't phase, and she intended to keep it that way. She could wear solid clothing that wasn't designed to phase with her, interact with solid objects without using every ounce of her energy to keep from dropping them onto the solid ground. She could eat solid food that didn't reek of the quantum energy it was baked in to make it accessible for her to consume!
Ava decided that food was the broadest of horizons at the moment. She'd always wanted to try Starbucks, ever since the scientists that were going to 'cure' her came into the lab carrying solid coffee (and in one old man's case, tea) cups in their solid hands with that green woman on the logo. One of the interns had offered Ava a solid sugar cookie, but she phased halfway through taking a bite and it fell on the floor and broke. Nobody else offered her anything edible for years because it was 'too messy' and they thought being nice to her was a waste of time.
The man who played music during her missions had been the exception. The only exception, after Bill had been fired. And after a few years, the music man was fired as well. Maybe he died. Ava didn't know.
She didn't have any clothes other than what she wore under the suit, a quantum-polyester shirt and leggings that phased with her. Ava was going to make sure those hateful garments were destroyed, once she got her hands on some regular solid clothing. Bill undoubtedly had some of his ex-wife's solid things squirreled away somewhere in this house.
Okay.
- Downstairs
- get clothes
- get in the truck
- drive to Starbucks
- get coffee
- drive home.
It was a good, simple plan.
“Bill?" Ava called as she trotted down the stairs, wondering if he was awake yet. This was the first time in many years that she had been stable enough to think about anything other than keeping her feet relatively solid while she moved.
Bill didn't answer her. It was early in the morning; he probably just hadn't had coffee yet. The man was just barely coherent without caffeine. Ava had never had the occasion to drink coffee, since the beverage could only be held by solid cups and mugs. The cups, in turn, could only be held by someone with solid hands. By the time Ava was old enough to be allowed to drink coffee, she couldn't keep her hands solid long enough to actually perform the act of drinking.
-
Ava sipped her ridiculously simple cup of coffee and smiled. It tasted exactly like a pumpkin spice latte should have, in Ava’s mind. Bill smiled back at her and swallowed some of his own coffee.
Ava thought that Bill’s drink looked like death. It was all black and honestly looked like engine oil. Ava had tried a mouthful and almost spat it out right there in the Starbucks.
Well, she’d tried to phase her mouth so that the obnoxious liquid would simply fall out, but that hadn’t worked. Ava had swallowed the drink (with some difficulty) and told Bill that she would go back to phasing if it meant she never had to drink that stuff again.
Ava quickly forgot the taste of the offending drink because her own drink was so good. It tasted like something more important than a caffeinated liquid with some crushed leaves and frothed milk on top. It tasted like hope.