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"Oh oh oh! Running on the beach! That was a good one!" Ava beamed, grabbing the handle from Michael. It was easier up on the roof, with none of the nuns or angels or expectations waiting for them. She tilted the bottle back, enjoying the burn and flush that came as she swallowed it down. The roof wasn’t so different to the cold nights in Switzerland, hopping from bar to bar with a few of the regulars.
Michael stared at her from where his head rested on his knees. His brow furrowed as he pouted, his jaw working slightly as he squeezed his eyes shut thinking. After an eternity, he sat up and repeatedly slapped at her arm, his eyes alit. Ava tried not to think about the little flecks in his eyes that glowed blue when he leaned in close.
"Train hopping! I landed in Austria of all places, and I didn't exactly have any cash on me. So I hopped on a couple of trains for a bit until I hit Switzerland." He reached out for the bottle and took a sip himself, gagging only a little after. The first sip he'd taken tonight - the first sip he'd even had - he spit out immediately onto the roof as Ava folded over laughing. That had been an hour ago, and they'd gone through a third of the handle already.
“I don’t drink,” he’d said when she pressed the bottle into his hand.
“C’mon, you’re not gonna let a girl drink alone on her last night?” Ava smirked, feeling only a little bad that she had to play the dying card. But Michael buckled without much prodding, maybe realizing that it was his last time too.
Ava pressed both her hands back into the hard tiles behind her, enjoying the way they dug into her palms. The tile was cold, and if not for the halo making her run warm she'd regret not grabbing a jacket. She wondered if the divinium in Michael had the same effect, if the energy pulsing through his veins made him a space heater too. Beatrice never commented on it when they shared their apartment, but on some of the colder nights with the window open Ava noticed her move closer for warmth. Bea would curl in closer, wrapping an arm around her and Ava’s heart would sing.
She snatched the bottle out of Michael's hand at the memory. She'd remembered watching in movies people who used alcohol to clean surfaces and wounds, to help the healing process and burn away the things that hurt. She chugs from the bottle and hopes it'll do the same for her.
"Hey, you have to give something you did on your list for a drink like that!" Michael laughed, swatting at her lightly.
Right, their lists. The bucket lists they'd made when they'd been kids locked in rooms, locked in beds, locked in their own bodies. Ava curated hers over 11 years based on movies and tales from the other kids. Michael only had the inspiration from when he was six, but between an expensive catalog of movies and tech access and a decade in another plane of existence gave him time to come up with more. When Ava snuck into his room with the handle of vodka she'd raided from Jillian's kitchen, she hadn't planned for this conversation. She'd only thought about how between his inhuman strength and training and her levitation powers, it'd be easy to get onto the roof of the mcmansion and get away for a moment. But when they'd got up, Michael softly laughed and said that he'd always wanted to climb up the side of a building like Spiderman, and Ava felt a pang in her chest remembering the little boy who'd been alone in a room like her only two months ago. It was too much to think about the things he'd never done, or never seen, and would never be able to do after-
Well. She'd asked what he'd been able to do that he'd always wanted to, and he pried in return.
She rolled the memory of laying in bed imagining what she would do if she could get out of the orphanage in her mind. The travelling had been nice, even with the wraiths and being hunted down by the OCS and then Adriel for most of it.
"I hooked up with a guy, that definitely was on my list." She stated eventually, settling for something easy over something that would cause her to burst.
"Did that too actually." Michael said, drinking a bit more. Ava turned on him with an open mouth and a gasp.
"Holy shit for real?"
"A guy and a girl actually. Separately. Good Samaritans I met." His face turned beet red, but his grin grew.
"In two months? Dang, I guess other worldly training and muscles really help with picking up the guys and gals."
"I mean yeah, don't act like it hasn't for you."
"Definitely helped with tips at the bar."
Michael roared with laughter, throwing himself back a bit with his legs stretched out on the roof. He lost his balance and threw his arms out only to slam his back into the tile with a groan. Ava laughed in return before joining laying back, wiggling to find a position where the tiles didn't dig into her back too deeply.
The stars above then shone brightly. The Salvius mansion was far enough from the city that Ava could make out the shape of a few constellations that Beatrice had shown her. She turned to Michael, intent to point out a few and ask if he knew more, only to find him with his hand open outstretched to the sky. He was silent for a few minutes except for the steady sound of his breathing.
"Mom always decorated the bubble I was in. The most recent one was clouds, but when I was younger she set up LED lights to mimic the stars outside. When I-" he paused, sucking in deeply as if to pull the stars into himself for a moment. "There's no stars over there. It's a side effect of the parallel plane. It's not a true copy of our universe, it's something different. When I came back, I was in the middle of nowhere. I knew I had to start the mission Reya had given me. But I just appeared in the middle of nowhere and the stars were so bright and I just-"
Ava scooted closer as he swallowed hard. As she did, the divinium in his neck glowed more, making constellations of his own into his skin. She intertwined her fingers with his. When she'd regained feeling back in her body, she relished the sensation of touch, clinging onto everyone as much as she could. Being alone made you yearn for the contact of another, to have someone else there to be real and with you.
"If you could go back," Michael started, "If you could go back and stop yourself from getting the halo, would you?"
The halo hummed in her back as if waiting for the response. She thought about the loneliness of the orphanage, how Diego acted as the only spot of comfort in a sea of hatred and despair. The memory of death, the nothingness between her last breath before sleep and her first breath in Cat's cradle. The rush of the run on the beach, sand between her toes and in her hoodie and her hair, the wind rushing past and into her lungs to show her what breathing could be like. The sticky sweat of dancing and jumping in a mass of bodies without a care. The ache after a long day of training, relishing being able to feel every bit of her body as she flexed down to her toes and arched her back.
She thought of the sweets JC served after rescuing her from the pool, about the rush against him in Morocco ( his face when the Tarask appeared, how she just left him behind without any explanation ). She thought of empty churches filled with love and watching the sunrise and Mary's snark and devotion ( Mary disappearing under wraiths, and the months of hurting, waiting for any shred of hope ). She thought of Lilith's drive, her regret when she came back and how forming a relationship sometimes felt like learning to walk after being revived a sword through her hip, a mace smashing a face, hope shattering her apart ). She thought of Camila's faith and joy in the simple pleasures, laughing quietly at some of Ava's jokes during meetings ( Camila stuck with Adriel with who knows what happening to her, after Ava failed another mission ).
She thought of Beatrice correcting her form in training, a gentle but firm hand moving her arm. ( Beatrice scolding her for not paying attention ) Beatrice's soft and encouraging voice guiding her through stone, over water, through heartbreak and nightmares. ( Beatrice’s panicked face when Ava healed from failing out a building, her tears streaming down ). The flush that traveled over Bea’s face when she kissed her on the cheek or got too close. ( Beatrice tackling her to the ground as if she knew and now Ava was going to do it again). How soft her hair felt when she slept as Ava twirled it gently. Bea laughing at her puns. Bea letting her hair down and dancing with her at the bar. Bea curled up on the couch. ( Beatrice not wanting to run away with her as her heart bled out, as she opened herself to the want and the need she’d kept holding back in Switzerland, and now--)
“All I ever wanted to do was live,” Ava breathes out, hoping Michael can’t hear everything else she means, that the lump in her throat is her secret alone. In the waiting silence, she’s sure he knows.
“I started this.” He whispered quietly. She twisted quickly toward him, wincing slightly when her face slammed into the tile. His eyes were still up a the sky, but she watched the column of his neck as he swallowed. She squeezed their interjoined hands, but he didn’t turn to her.
“That was Adriel-“
“I made his plans, designed his portal, without me-“
“You were just a kid-“
“And if I’d never been a kid he wouldn’t have come back at all.”
“Stop it.” Ava yanked her hand back and stands up. A wave of nausea washed over her, only made worse by the drinks.
“Ava-“ Michael sat up, not able to get fully up before Ava wheeled on him.
“You’re just a kid! And before you start, I don’t give a fuck that you spent all those years on the other side! Those, those assholes have us fighting in their war and their conflict and you were just a kid his mom wanted to live! Fuck them! I know we have to do this, that there’s no other choice but its not our fault that they messed with our lives! They just wanted to use us for their missions, and we went out and went to the beach and looked at the stars and hopped trains and loved and,” she chokes on the word, almost loses her footing in the dizziness as another power outside her control tries to force her down. She steadies herself, and reaches out a hand to Michael who stares at her agape.
“Michael, if it wasn’t us it’d be someone else, and fuck everything but we deserve the time we got.”
He reached up and grabbed her hand, hauling himself to his feet. He rocked back, and Ava pulled power from the halo to keep them from tumbling over completely. Sweat glistened on his face a bit, the color faded from his face and neck. He smiled slightly, and Ava saw the six year old boy who lived in a lab, his mother driven in love to the point of invention.
And in the next second, his face dropped.He turned away quickly before retching out the contents of his stomach. She held him for a minute as he took short quick breaths. He finally turned to her, still reeling.
“Throwing up drinking wasn’t on my bucket list,” he said.
Ava threw her head back to the sky and laughed, loud and carefree. Michael grinned before following along with her, both of them laughing and clutching their sides until Michael tumbled over and started moving down the roof. Ava lunged to grab him, still cackling madly as they both tumbled over and over. She felt light and free, even when they fell over the edge and she activate the halo (carefully, certain not to send a pulse, certain to save and not explode and she tried to ignore how Michael winced in her arms)l. In this close contact, Michael’s neck was alight, his eyes shining blue to match the bioluminescent freckles that appeared. The balcony below them flooded with light, the halo and the divinium responding to Ava.
“Your mom should probably get someone up there to clean that tomorrow.” Ava beamed at him, and for a moment nothing hurt.
“What, you did this and you won’t even clean it?”
“If I recall, it was you who threw up. Besides, I bet your mom has people for that.”
He laughed again, and Ava realized, not for the first time, that people looked too hard for things to place their faith in. The people looked to the church, or to reason, or that asshat posing as an angel. But Ava found faith and purpose in feeling the water lapping against sun baked skin, in the easy smiles of the regulars of the bar who asked about her day, in the laughter of a boy who wanted to live, in the little gasps Bea made when Ava pushed a little past the rules she set for herself about being forward.
The glow around Ava began to fade as she lowered them down to the balcony. Michael stumbled and threw an arm around her to catch himself. He managed a good attempt of seeming sober, moving to stand up straight before freezing.
He leaned into her, whispering loudly, “I think we’re in trouble.”
Ava followed his gaze, and the warmth that went over her flowed into the halo casting the entire balcony in light. Because there was Beatrice, not in her habit or armor but in her matching pajama set that she’d bought at a thrift shop a few minutes away from the bar. For a moment she could pretend that they were still there, that she and Michael got drunk at the bar and she had stumbled her way home back to Bea, that the future just had her snuggling tightly against Bea because her control slipped and not a suicide plan tomorrow.
Ava sprinted out of Michael's arm (he quickly clutched the railing) and into Bea, who held her arms out at the last moment realizing what was happening. She buried her face in the crook of the nun's neck, savoring the tight hold and the surety that Bea would catch her. Only after a moment of holding her did Ava realize that the other girl didn't relax, still rigid and formal. She pulled her head away reluctantly until her eyes could study Bea's entire face. Her jaw was tense, scowling at her. Ava hadn't seen her upset like this since the one time her phone died while she was out late and she didn't notice until Bea marched into the bar and pulled her away to be scolded.
"It is one in the morning and we have a mission tomorrow. Now is not the time for you two to be screaming keeping everyone up."
"Hey, it was Ava's idea." Michael threw in from the railing, pointing unsteadily at her.
Ava scoffed, turning partially to face him but not leaving Bea’s arms. "Way to throw me under the bus, dude."
Beatrice sighed, and all Ava wanted to do was run her hands through the loose strands that came out when Bea went to sleep. So she did. She twirled her index finger around one of the loose strands, fixated on how the soft hair wrapped around it. The nun stiffed for a moment, and Ava felt the deep breath she took before her shoulders sagged. Her eyes were softer, not quite carefree but more like Ava was used to. There were minor bags under her eyes and Ava wondered if they hadn't woken Bea up at all, if Bea had been awake and restless just like Ava had been when she left her lonely bed to hunt down Michael in the first place.
"You need some sleep," Bea said, matter of fact, but no longer with the scolding teacher tone she used before. Ava nodded, pulling her hand from Bea's hair to cup her jaw. It'd be so easy to just lean in, to damn the vows and the rules and do the one item on her bucket list she really hoped she'd get to do someday, but seemed would elude her. (She'd let it slip out her fingers any day if it meant Bea got to live, that Bea didn't have to get more hurt by tomorrow than she had to, but Ava's resolve was crumbling under the weight of her selfishness and want).
"Okay, let's go to bed." Ava laced her free hand with one of Bea's, trying to memorize the feel of the callouses in the hold.
Tomorrow, Ava and Michael and the nuns would break into Adriel's temple. Tomorrow, the two of them would go off alone, and she'd have to detonate the divinium inside him, likely killing both of them. Tomorrow, she'd likely die alone, divinium shrapnel not as fast as an explosion tearing through skin. Tomorrow Ava would die so Bea could live.
But tonight. Tonight she and Bea (more begrudgingly) would lead Michael to his room before heading to Bea's. She'd slip under the covers, starting with minimal contact with Bea before her drunken stupor got the better of her and she slung an arm over the nun's stomach, buried her face against her neck to feel her pulse. Bea would run her hand against her back until Ava drifted to sleep. In the space where they fell asleep, Bea moving closer without an excuse of trying to be warm, and Ava could forget she even had to wake up.