Archive of Our Own

It was late in the day, the sun setting out of the large floor-to-ceiling windows of the common area of the tower.

Ava was sitting on the couch, curled up under a blanket, it was oddly chilly for early September, with a paperback book in her lap. Toni was laying down across from her. It was typical to find the two of them in the common room, and if they weren't napping, they were either out here with both of them reading, Toni was pretty much exclusively a nonfiction reader except when she was reading over Ava's shoulder and Ava was reading one of her fantasy or sci-fi novels, although Ava did read her fair share of nonfiction as well, or Toni was watching TV or playing a game while Ava read. Right now, it was the latter, Toni playing a handheld of Space Invaders, filling the room with little pew pew sound effects. At first Ava thought maybe Toni had already taken her cochlear sound processor and coil off for the day and didn't realize the sound on the game was even on, but when she looked over she realized she still had the processor and coil on- so Ava figured she just didn't want the uncomfortability of wearing headphones over her cochlear. Ava didn't mind the sound, she was used to background noise, growing up in labs and all, so she just let Toni game how she wanted.

The elevator dinged with the arrival of Yelena, who strode into the common room, dressed in a hoodie and sweatpants with a tote bag under her arm. She smelled faintly of her strawberry body wash and her hair was still a little wet, all signs she was just returning from her “office”. She had invited Ava to join her before, but that really wasn't her speed. Besides the fact that with the small, almost like a collar but with an opening at the front, device around her neck that kept her body in a sort of forcefield, keeping all her quantum energy stable and all of her cells that desperately wanted to split and tear themselves apart without her permission together so involuntarily phasing only happened on very, very rare occasions when she was under extreme duress, it wasn't a great idea for her to do any kind of swimming as submerging it fully could cause it to malfunction (it was somewhat waterproof so showers and rain were okay, but full submersion was a different story), she's just not the type for that kind of sauna, spa experience.

Granted, she's never tried it, but she's pretty sure it's not her thing.

Yelena sat down next to Ava, and with no other introduction, said, “It is your birthday soon.”

Ava didn't look up from her book to indicate it, but that did catch her a little off guard. She supposes it makes total sense that Yelena knows when her birthday is, she had been Yelena's target in the vault so Valentina had probably given her a file on her that included her birthdate, but Ava didn't really understand why she was bringing it up.

It wasn't necessarily something she was big on. Sure, when her parents were alive they did, but after that, in the orphanage birthdays were all celebrated together with everybody who had one that month celebrating as one, and everybody ignored Ava anyway, treating her as a freak. SHIELD could care less, although sometimes Bill would be able to sneak her a special treat like a mini cupcake or candy bar, and on rare occasions special presents. After SHIELD fell, she was lucky if she was in the right mind to even remember what day it was in the midst of her pain, everything from then kind of swirls together in a mix of agony and regret. She thinks she remembers Bill getting her some cupcakes and small presents during those years, as well. During the snap it was much of the same, just survival, for both her and Bill. Last year, he was too weak from his treatments to go out, but he insisted Ava buy herself a cupcake and candle and sang happy birthday to her in their small little apartment while Ava still had remnants of dirt on her from her last mission for Val, a necessarily evil for her to keep getting the quantum infusions and new collars that kept her alive.

So yes, they were celebrated, but that was by Bill's insistence. They really weren't that big of a deal to her.

Nevertheless, she pursed her lips together and answered Yelena. “Yes.”

Yelena was apparently not thrilled with Ava's lack of excitement. “That's it? You do not want to do anything?”

“Like what?” Ava flipped the page of her book, still unfazed. Toni was as well, giving zero attention to Yelena even entering the room or the conversation at hand.

“Like what.” Yelena repeated back in a mocking tone, as if it was the most ridiculous question of all time. “A party, for starters.”

“Ew.” Toni finally chimes in. “Not one of those…stupid galas Valentina throws.”

Yelena rolls her eyes. “Obviously not that kind of party.” She says it with the same contempt Toni had. They all hate those, and for good reason, it's nothing but snobby rich (and probably evil) people milling about while they're shoved in fancy, uncomfortable outfits that Valentina picked out for them while she shows them off like they're just her toys. It reminds Ava of SHIELD in a way, talking about her like a weapon instead of a person.

“I mean a fun party.” Yelena clarifies, and then her eyes sparkle like a lightbulb just went off in her head. “We can do a sleepover!” She nearly shouts, clapping her hands together.

“A what?” Toni turns off her game, looking over at Yelena like the word was completely new to her.

“A sleepover. Just the three of us, we make the boys go out and do something else, and we all wear fun pajamas and do each other's nails and order pizza.” Yelena explains, before her tone turns sorrowful. “Like we are kids again…since we did not get to have a sleepover as kids.”

Ava feels a pang of sadness gnaw at her chest, because it's the truth. None of them really had a childhood. Ava was so young when the accident happened, she barely remembers her parents, her life before, just faint memories of going to the market with her mom and vaguely the way certain candies and treats tasted, but that was about it, and even then she knows they were pretty sheltered, her dad being ashamed of his disgraced scientist status and not wanting her or her mom to go outside much, certainly not to the extent Ava had any friends her age. At the orphanage none of the other kids would play with her, most wouldn't even go near her, and if they did it was just to tease or bully her. Toni doesn't talk about her childhood much, Ava's not sure how much she remembers of her before either. They were around the same age when their life-altering incidents happened, but she knows she was sent away to boarding school at a young age and then after the explosion she was used solely as a weapon, so definitely no regular childhood or fun sleepovers happening there. She knows Yelena had a few years of a faux childhood, but she imagines even the good memories of that are tainted with the knowledge that it was all a ruse and by the trauma of what came after.

So yes, none of them really had a childhood, and she assumes none of them ever had a real sleepover, either, because Ava doesn't think Bill bending the rules and finding ways to stay with her in the makeshift lab bedrooms SHIELD had for her when the experiments and her affliction were too much and too painful and she was crying too hard to sleep so he would try and make somewhat of a bed on the floor with extra blankets and pillows for him to lay down in and then tell her stories and sing her songs to comfort her through the night counted as a real, fun childhood sleepover in the way Yelena was describing it, as nice as it was.

Ava hadn't thought about having…really any kind of birthday party, or doing much of anything for her birthday at all, but this sleepover thing, it sounded fine. It certainly sounded like something Yelena was excited about, so that alone would make it worth it.

“Sure.” Ava agreed. “Sleepover for my birthday.” Her focus on her book had waned by now from all the memories of her childhood coming back but she still didn't look up from it, giving the illusion she was still buried in the pages, not wanting them to realize how much this had affected her. She's not even sure why she still puts up these walls around them, especially Toni and Yelena, if anybody understood how she felt about losing her childhood and being experimented on, it was them (Yelena even understood complicated feelings towards a surrogate dad (and Yelena had a surrogate mom as well) for being somewhat complicit in said experimentation), but Ava has never been…open about her feelings before, needing to be stoic and cold just to survive. It's just a difficult thing to unlearn.

But Yelena's wide smile at Ava's approval was all Ava needed to know it was the right decision.

~~~~~~~~~

They scheduled it for a few days later, the night before Ava's birthday, so that once the clock struck midnight and the boys were back from whatever outing they had planned (Ava hadn't asked what exactly they were doing, but Yelena had told her they'd be out of the tower until midnight) it would be her actual birthday and they could all celebrate together with a cake and candles.

They were having the sleepover in Yelena's room, partly because Yelena was the one planning the whole thing (by her choice, she had been very excited to) and also because her room was by far the largest- it fit not only her full-sized bed that she slept on every night, which happened to be a trundle bed with a pull-out section, as well as a daybed, and Bolt the guinea pig's habitat that was nearly the size of a twin-sized bed (and also spanned two guinea pig-sized levels). Bob often ended up sleeping in Yelena's room, so the multiple extra bed options were mainly for his benefit, but it was useful tonight since there was room for all three of them to sleep.

When the night arrived, Ava wasn't given many instructions besides to be at Yelena's room by 7. Yelena had mentioned something about wearing pajamas when the idea to have a birthday sleepover had originally been brought up, so that's what Ava did, showing up to Yelena's room at the tower at 7pm on the dot in the nicest set of pajamas she had, a pale purple tank top with a heart on it and purple flannel pants, and some fuzzy pink socks with little flowers on them.

She wasn't sure what she was expecting from this whole birthday-sleepover thing, or what she expected when she stepped into the strangely open (her bedroom door was never open, none of theirs ever was, they liked their privacy, or at least the illusion of it, how much privacy did you really get when you lived with a bunch of spies) door of Yelena's room, but it certainly wasn't for Yelena to already be shoving a box wrapped in lilac paper with dalmatians on roller skates and skateboards and swirly texts declaring happy birthday! in bold lettering on it and topped off with a big, shiny pink bow in her face.

“For you.” Yelena says, and Ava's sure her expression is wide-eyed and probably looks a little terrified, but the reality is she's not sure what to think, because beyond Yelena she can see the rest of the room and how it's decorated, big, lavender and pale pink balloons that are floating up to the ceiling scattered about, pizza boxes stacked up high on the desk, a large nail polish kit set in the middle of the floor and Yelena's laptop nearby with a streaming service on and movies already queued up. The roll-out part of the trundle bed is already out and set up, and both it and the daybed have extra pillows and blankets set out on top of the mattresses.

Ava is just looking around, taking it all in, filled with a sort of confused, overwhelmed joy.

This is for her.

For her birthday.

She's never had anything like this before. She'd thought it wasn't her taste, a big party, and yes, it is a little much for her, but it's also making her heart burst with a happiness and a feeling of belonging she didn't even know was possible to feel.

She realizes, probably far too late for it to have already been awkward, that she's been standing staring at Yelena for a while now.

“Oh. Um. Thank you.” She takes the present, feeling her face go hot with embarrassment. Yelena, luckily, doesn't seem offended or anything by Ava's probably-wrong reaction to the gift or weird staring while she had her little emotional crisis. “Should I open this now?” She asks, and again the words come out feeling incredibly awkward. She's just terrible at social situations. Side effect of a childhood spent locked away in labs and being trained to be an assassin, she supposes.

Again, though, Yelena doesn't seem to notice, or, if she does, she doesn't seem to mind. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I have another present for you, since I also got Toni something similar to what's in there, just not wrapped, I already gave her hers and she's in her room right now putting-” Yelena suddenly stops herself mid-sentence. “-If I say anything else I will give away what's inside so just open it.” Yelena's talking fast, rambling quite a bit, the same way Ava has been told she does when she gets excited about something.

It's only now that Ava notices Yelena's outfit, a pink t-shirt with Minnie Mouse dressed as the Statue of Liberty and New York City in bubble letters, and light blue fleece pants with those pony characters she liked all over them. She also had on a pair of cozy socks, but hers were a light grey with a little guinea pig face at the top of them and two small little pom-poms attached right at the cuff to make the “ears”. It was all a bit of a mash-up of Yelena's favorite things, from all her touristy NYC stuff to the little ponies and of course her guinea pigs. None of the outfit really matched, but it was so distinctly Yelena that it just worked.

Ava unwrapped the present, carefully, trying her best to make the least rips in the wrapping paper possible. It was a cute print, maybe she could preserve or reuse some of it for later, either to wrap another present or for some other purpose. It was sort of ironic to think about, how she went around destroying things for missions a lot but was so worried about keeping this wrapping paper, something meant to be torn open to get to the “real” thing underneath, intact.

Nevertheless, with only some tiny tears, the wrapping paper was gone, revealing instead a white apparel box, and when she opened that, a pair of lilac, not too far off from the color of the wrapping paper, actually, pajamas, nestled in a bed of tissue paper, looked back at her.

She lifted the pajamas from the box, Yelena taking the packaging from her. It was a long-sleeve henley-style top and shorts, the fabric ribbed and a ruffle hem, but the design on it was what stood out- little cartoon ghosts and pumpkins printed all over. It was clearly a Halloween-themed piece, but picked by Yelena for her because of the Ghost moniker.

It wasn't a name she chose for herself. It wasn't really a name SHIELD chose for her, either, or at least, not one they created. It was something somebody on an early mission had called her, described the thing (because that's also how they talked about her, a thing) breaking into the facility to those frantically asking for any kind of info on his comm line as “some kind of ghost” and from there it had just stuck. From North America to Madripoor, weapons dealers and chemical labs were warned about the infamous ghost, the operative who could walk through walls, disappear without a trance, steal everything without the camera ever even catching a glimpse, without knowing that behind the mask she was just a terrified girl that wanted the pain to stop…and the years went by, and that terrified girl became a hardened, yet still equally scared woman who knew deep down that the pain was never-ending but still seeked the small bits of solace she got from what they gave her after a successful mission, until those treatments no longer worked either and she was left with nothing.

And then SHIELD fell, and it was just her and Bill and the knowledge that they weren't just fighting against her pain, but fighting for her life.

Never, in the span of all that, had she really had time to care about being called Ghost, a name given because of her phasing, something she had because of a traumatic event that killed her parents, something that still would cause her immense pain if done involuntarily, something where she had to wear a device at all times and do regular infusions to prevent those involuntary incidents that could be life threatening, something that could and maybe would still kill her, something that is the reason she's even still working under Valentina because she needs the access to her infusions and another device when the batteries on her current one run out…while she's sure many on the outside see it as a superpower, it's really a curse.

But now that her life is a bit more…stable, and she's in the public eye, feelings about the name are coming to light. She knows at this point it's not a name she's going to get away from, no matter how she feels about it.

So she might as well work on owning it.

And she will admit that a lot of the ghost decorations nowadays, including the ones on the pajamas, are pretty cute. She's seen some with little bows on their heads, those are adorable. She can see herself getting behind being that kind of ghost. Not the scary one. The ones with the pink bow and blush on their cheeks and a smile…those ones.

“Thank you.” Ava took the pajamas. “I'll go put this on.”

Yelena smiles at her again, and Ava really does think her smile could power an entire city with its light.

~~~~~~~~~

It's a little later, Ava already in her new pajamas, which are much softer than she'd initially thought and nice and breathable for the late summer going into fall weather, and she's going through the assortment of nail polish colors Yelena has laid out, when Toni comes into Yelena's room, dressed in a loose red lounge shirt with the Skittles logo repeated and black sweatpants with a Candy Land graphic with some of the characters from the board game on the left side. She's also wearing her Skittles slippers that Yelena had bought her one of the first few weeks she'd started living at the tower, but that was a usual part of her nighttime attire, the rest of the outfit seemed to be new.

“I am not wearing this.” Toni says matter-of-a-factly, staring at where Yelena was sitting on the rug in the middle of the room next to Ava, setting up all the things for the nail polish.

“What? You love Skittles and that board game.” Yelena counters. “You are not just wearing a black sweatshirt and sweatpants. That is not fun sleepover attire.”

In fairness, it's rare to see Toni wearing anything else. Even throughout the summer it was a black hoodie and sweatpants. Ava's not sure if it's an issue she has with having her scars or braces visible, she hasn't really asked, not wanting to prod. Dealing with those kinds of issues around your appearance and disability is a personal journey, one that takes time, Ava certainly knows it, Toni hasn't really had time to process it, much like Ava herself. But Ava, at the very least, had the support of Bill along the way, and while Ava's lack of time to process was because she was focused on survival, Toni's was because her mind wasn't her own. Now that it is, she's going through those emotions, and that isn't something that should be rushed. She needs her space, and Ava is trying to give her that, and hoping she's making a point wordlessly that she's here when Toni is ready to talk. Until then, they can just help each other in a sort of silent understanding.

The pants actually weren't far from what she usually wore, just had the addition of the Candy Land picture on the leg. The top was different, though, to the point this was only the third or fourth time Ava had seen Toni in short sleeves, the beige compression sleeve on her left arm and arm braces fully visible.

Despite her initial assertion against the outfit and a few more huffs, Toni didn't protest anymore, simply sitting down across from them on the rug with her arms crossed to make it clear she still was not happy about wearing the pajamas Yelena had picked out for her.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” Yelena stood up and went over to her dresser, getting a brown paper shopping bag and bringing it back to their little circle, sitting back down crossed-legged.

“I got these little fuzzy spa headbands.” Yelena explains as she takes them out of the bag one by one. “One is a red panda, one is a bunny, and one is a bear-”

“I want the bear.” Toni cuts Yelena off, claiming her headband straight away.

Yelena looks to Ava, as if asking if that's okay, like she was going to Ava pick first because she was the one who's birthday they were celebrating, but Ava was more than happy to let Toni get the bear if it's what she wanted.

Yelena hands the light brown, fluffy headband with little rounded bear ears and a pink plush bear head in the middle to Toni, then turns to Ava. “Red panda or bunny?”

“Hm.” Ava thought for a minute. The bunny one was pink with embroidered details to make it look like there were yellow, turquoise, and maroon sprinkles on the ears, while the red panda one was peach with a plush star. She thought the bunny one looked more birthday-like, with the sprinkles and all, so that seemed like a good choice. “Bunny.”

Yelena gave her the fleece headband, then put the red panda one on herself.

Ava placed the headband around the short high ponytail she had her curls up in, adjusting the little bunny ears to sit up as best they could. Toni was adjusting the way her own sat on her head, making sure it didn't cover the sound processor or microphone of her cochlear implant, instead having it sit higher on her head, over the coil, so the device would still work properly and she could hear.

With them all decked out in their pajamas and accessories now, they could get to the nails.

“Birthday girl first.” Yelena declared, picking up the big box of polishes Ava had already been looking through and handing it to her. “I will do your nails. Pick a color.”

Ava was already pretty set on getting some kind of purple to match the pajamas, but there were quite a few choices. She wasn't sure if the box was Yelena's personal collection or something she had bought just for the occasion, but there were a lot of options from each color of the rainbow, including ones with glitter, sparkles, and iridescent shimmer.

“I am getting upset.” Toni suddenly said as Ava was narrowing down her choices. She didn't say it in a mean way, just in her usual, matter-of-a-fact way of speaking. “Can I eat?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Yelena got the pizza boxes from the desk and set them down on the rug.

Toni didn't really get hunger signals, her nervous system impacted by her spinal cord injury, but when she started to feel angry or distressed out of the blue, that was usually a sign of it. Honestly, Ava wasn't sure the last time Toni ate, she usually had herself on a schedule, but the sleepover plans might've thrown that off. She kept little packs of Skittles in her pockets of her hoodie and sweatpants for the very reason of her missing hunger signals, but since she had changed into the pajamas, Ava is guessing she didn't have any on her right now.

“I got cheese, pepperoni, garlic knots, and breadsticks.” Yelena states, and Ava also noticed about fifteen packets of hot sauce sitting on top of the boxes as well. A bit overkill considering Yelena was probably going to be the only one using the hot sauce tonight, but they had an entire drawer in the kitchen just filled with said packets, so she probably just grabbed a handful without caring much about being exact. It's not like they were at risk of running out.

While Toni took a piece of the cheese pizza, Ava selected her polish- an orchid color with little metallic flakes embedded in it.

Yelena took the bottle, nodded, then picked up a little, rounded board from the fabric bag she'd brought out- a nail file, Ava recognized.

The thing is, Ava had never really had her nails done before, by herself or anybody else. Her whole life was a fight for survival, and her nails had always been so brittle they always broke when they grew past the fingertip (she wasn't sure if that was a molecular disequilibrium thing or the fact that crucial developmental years in SHIELD were spent in malnutrition or what), so it wasn't like she ever had to worry about them getting too long and needing to clip them. Even now, there's not much for Yelena to file down, all of her fingernails just stopping where her fingertips do.

Yelena, on the contrary, seemed to always have her nails done, even if that just meant having clear polish on. Ava's not sure she's ever seen her without, although today they are bare, likely in preparation to get them done during the sleepover.

Yelena offered out her hand, and it was then Ava had a bit of an internal panic as she truly realized what was about to happen.

Ava had never been good with physical touch. Most of the time, it hadn't even been possible, her body phasing in and out of tangibility, here one second and gone the next. Things fell through her fingers, Bill would try and hug her to comfort her but his arms just went through her and the comfort of being held was never felt.

But things are different now. She had her collar device on, she had an infusion of quantum energy just last week, her body should be stable enough to keep itself here and concrete.

Should, she thought. No guarantees. Her body always was fickle like that.

But she had agreed to do this. It's her birthday, after all, and she wants to do this.

She takes a long, deep breath, trying to ease her racing heart. She looks down at her hands, seeing that they're real, they're here, tangible.

Before she can talk herself out of it, she pushes her hands in Yelena's direction, and Yelena takes her left hand in her own and gets to work.

Ava can't look, at first, too afraid that she'll see Yelena’s hand going through her own, but then she realizes she can feel the touch, the gentle calluses of Yelena's hand on hers as she gently uses the nail file to round out Ava's nails, and so she chances a glance.

Her hand is…there. Not phasing, not even looking like it's about to, just…there.

It feels like a miracle, especially when Yelena moves on to do the same to her right hand and it stays just as stable, and Ava's shoulders relax a bit, releasing some tension she didn't know she'd been holding.

Yelena is extremely gentle with the file, to the point Ava is sure she noticed how brittle her nails were. She only does a little bit of shaping to the nails so they're all the same smooth, rounded shape.

Yelena shakes the polish bottle a few times before opening it up, and then very carefully begins applying it. Ava does twitch at the first bit of polish going on because it's a little cold and she didn't expect that. Luckily, it doesn't mess the manicure up, and Yelena even cracks a little smile because of it.

“Let it dry.” Yelena tells her, screwing the top back on the polish bottle. It's already opaque just from one coat, the little flakes glittering in the light, and Ava takes a moment to admire them.

Toni, having just finished her first slice of pizza, goes back for another, and Yelena takes one as well, grabbing a hot sauce packet and drizzling it all over her piece.

“Give me a garlic knot.” Ava motions her head towards the pizza boxes, not moving her hands, keeping them steady. She's nervous that even a slight quiver will somehow mess up the polish, or that she'll end up moving too much and somehow cause herself to phase and that'll impact the drying process as well, so she's trying to be as still as possible, but at the same time watching everybody else eat is making her hungry.

Toni sets her half-eaten slice down and opens the garlic knot box up, taking one and bringing it to Ava's lips, so she can eat it without using her hands.

She ate a few more like that before Yelena thought they could probably move on to the top coat, so Ava thanked Toni for her help and she noticed a slight upturn of her lips on her right side, like the start of a smile, before she buried her face back in the pizza.

Toni, however much she acted like a loner that didn't need or even like company, enjoyed it. Really, that was all of them, to a certain extent, so used to being on their own that they pretended it was what they preferred, maybe even convinced themselves, but having this…connection, that being on this team has brought them, was bringing out the truth. The truth that they enjoyed these little domestic things like sleepovers and doing each other's nails and sharing food.

Once Yelena had finished applying the clear top coat (and Ava had once again made it through with her hands staying tangible the whole time), all that was left was for Ava to let that dry, and then her nails were done.

She moved her fingers ever so slightly, watching as the metallic flakes sparkled, shifting with the light, reflecting off the surface. At certain angles, it reminds her of the few times she's seen her eyes when she phases, reflected in the Fresnel lens of her chamber, a dazzling glimmer before it disappears.

“Here, Toni.” Yelena handed her a bottle of jade green nail polish once the two of them had finished eating. “You can do my nails now.”

Toni took the bottle, staring blankly at it for a while, before saying, very slowly and uneasily, “I…do not know how?”

Yelena blinked, eyebrows drawn together and head tilted to the side in confusion, as if that answer was not something she ever expected to hear. Ava didn't really know how to either, and if asked to she would just extrapolate based on what Yelena had done to her.

It makes sense to Ava why Toni wouldn't know, though. She was young when the incident happened, young enough she might've never had her nails done, and even if she did she could've forgotten. After that, she wasn't treated as a human, just a weapon, so no need to teach her to paint nails. Everything Toni knew from that point on came from the chip in her neck, and the things programmed into her were for being an operative- combat, different languages, and survival skills. Ever since she got free she'd been dedicated to reading as much as possible, wanting to know everything rather than just some things cherry-picked for the sole purpose of being a weapon. Encyclopedias were a favorite of hers.

Yelena schooled her expression back, surprise and confusion fading, and instead pursed her lips together. “That is okay. I will show you how.”

Toni looked at her, hesitant, but nodded.

“Okay, so just take the brush…” Yelena opened the bottle and took the cap and attached brush in her left hand, focusing on the thumbnail of her right. “...and sweep it on the nail, until you cover the whole thing.”

Toni watched with rapt attention, eager to learn.

“Like a small knife slash.” Toni commented quietly, under her breath, as if she didn't mean to say it out loud.

Yelena raised an eyebrow, but gave a little nod. “Yeah. Kind of.” She offered the bottle and brush to Toni. “You want to try?”

Toni gave a slow, deliberate nod, taking the items and continuing where Yelena had left off.

Ava watched as Toni painted the polish on Yelena's nails, every movement precise, exact, never once getting any on Yelena's skin. Her left eye was locked onto Yelena's hand, mapping every inch of it, taking in information and using it to create a perfect, flawless manicure.

But it wasn't Toni doing it.

It was the chip in her neck, her programming.

Ava felt her stomach turn as Toni's words rang in her ears. ”Like a small knife slash”. Toni wasn't treating this like a fun sleepover activity, she was treating it like a mission, an order she'd been given, something she had to execute without mistake or there would be consequences.

Ava knew how it felt to feel that way, and she couldn't take watching Toni do it any longer, torment herself by forcing herself into that headspace for something that was supposed to be fun.

Toni had just finished painting Yelena's right pinky when Ava decided she had to put a stop to it, her own polish dry or not.

“Okay, let's-” Ava put her hand on Toni's own, and the reaction was immediate, her head snapping to stare directly at Ava, the look in her eye cold and unaware, boring into Ava as if she was a stranger.

She was completely out of it, focused on the mission.

Quickly, her eye softened, like everything came crashing back to her at once.

“Sorry.” Toni apologized promptly.

They sat in still silence for a moment. A drop of polish dripped from the brush, still in Toni's grasp, and landed on top of one of the pizza boxes.

Everybody was staring at Ava, waiting for her to speak. She had been the one to interrupt, after all, but she wasn't really sure what to say now. She knew she had to put a stop to it, the sick feeling in her stomach had told her that much, but now the idea of voicing her concerns felt like overstepping.

“I…um…” She swallowed thickly, fidgeting with her hands. The polish was indeed dry, as it wasn't getting messed up in any way by her doing so, so at least she wasn't ruining the perfect manicure Yelena had given her in her consternation.

“...Toni, maybe try doing it without….uh, thinking of it as a mission?” The words felt like they came out around a lump in her throat, nerves spiking as she wished she could take it back as soon as she said it.

Ava would have many believing she fears nothing. She kept an air about her, a front that nothing bothered her.

In reality, it couldn't be further than the truth. She fears a lot of things. She fears losing Bill. She fears losing the last few vague memories of her parents, the way her mom would take her to the markets on Sundays and they'd browse every stall, the way her dad would mumble about his work under his breath, the way they'd tuck her into bed.

She fears the unknown. She fears what comes after her body finally achieved what it's been trying to do for decades and tears itself apart permanently, cells never stitching themselves back together, and if what happens to her afterwards is what happens to everybody when they die or if molecular disequilibrium has doomed her to some unique fate that will only be known once it comes for her.

She fears other people's reactions to the things she does and says, because those are unknown until the moment they happen, and there's no way to know what they will be before she takes that leap.

But she has feared things before and conquered them, for the greater good. She feared the big, black void that took over New York, but still went into it, because there was a chance they could find and save Yelena. She feared running away after Janet gave her a second chance, thinking she didn't deserve it after what she had done, but she went anyway.

It was on a smaller scale, here, but she feared expressing her concern for Toni, but she did it anyway.

And now, she waits for the unknown.

Yelena is looking over at Toni with a sense of abject horror, seeming like she wants to ask if she had been treating it like a mission, opening her mouth to speak a few times but shutting it before any words come out.

Toni's expression, however, reads like she's not understanding what the problem is.

After much, much more silence, stretching so long Ava wants to scream just to fill the air with something, which is strange because silence is usually something she's fine with, something she welcomes, even, but waiting with the tension caused by her question is just too much, Toni finally answers. “I…guess?”

She cocks her head a little to the side, dips the brush back in the polish bottle, holding Yelena's left hand now, but something has undoubtedly changed. Toni's hands are shaking, and she's blinking rapidly, as if trying to get her field of vision right, face contorted in concentration as she attempts to paint Yelena's thumb, but unlike before, the polish gets all over her cuticle and some all the way down her knuckle as Toni's hand trembles.

“I am sorry.” She apologizes, voice catching in her throat. Yelena's nail is painted, but so is a lot of the skin around it. “I am very sorry-”

“It's alright.” Yelena tells her, no anger or annoyance in her tone.

“No. It looks terrible.” Toni's face scrunches up, a rare physical expression of emotion of her, something besides stoicism, and Ava moves her own body to be closer to her, pushing Yelena's laptop out of the way so she can be right next to Toni.

“It's better for it to be you-” She tells the other woman, placing an arm around her shoulder and hugging her close, the same way they sometimes end up doing the nights both of them can't sleep and they cuddle up on the common room couch together watching T.V. “-not your programming.”

Nobody says anything for…a while, but Yelena joins the little cuddle pile, laying down a bit and placing her head on Toni's leg. She cleans up the polish that got on her skin on her thumb and finishes the rest of her nails, while Ava just listens to Toni's breathing and heart, both assisted by mechanical devices and keeping nice, steady paces. Toni has never been good with processing her emotions, understandably, really none of them are, so she just needs some time to calm down from what had happened. They were giving her that.

Eventually, Toni reached over for the pizza boxes and took another slice, so it seemed that she was feeling better.

Yelena got up from where she was laying down and put the green polish she'd been using back in the box, skipping her fingers over the tops of the other bottles. “Ava, you want to do Toni's?”

Ava chuckled nervously. Her dexterity wasn't very good unless she had the adrenaline of a fight running through her veins and a knife or gun in her hands, plus her suit to supplement her stability in terms of her molecular disequilibrium, so she doubted her attempt at doing nails would turn out much better than Toni's. “I'm…not sure how they would turn out.”

“On the plus side…there is only the one hand…to do.” Toni said with a shrug as she finished her pizza. With the scarring from her burns, there were only fingernails on her left hand.

“Okay.” Ava agreed, although she was still a little nervous. “Can I eat first?”

“Yeah, I will do the filing.” Yelena took Toni's hand and the nail file and went to work, showing Toni the box of nail polish. Before Ava could even reach over for the pizza boxes, Toni had found the matte black polish and took it out.

Ava had a few breadsticks and a slice of pepperoni pizza before getting to work, Yelena's impeccable filing work giving her a perfect canvas.

All she had to do was get her hands to cooperate.

But things were…off. Like when the cursor of a computer mouse has an offset, no matter how hard she tried to get the brush to glide onto the nail, and only the nail, just like Yelena had done to hers earlier, some polish still gets onto the cuticle.

It was frustrating. She was a perfect shot in the field, never missed, but this fine precision work of painting nails was throwing her for a loop? She knows it's hypocritical to judge herself after telling Toni it didn't matter how it looked, just that it was done with love, but she can't help but feel like a failure, having the thought that nothing but perfection was unacceptable drilled into her since she was a child by SHIELD.

She was focusing so hard, putting her all into trying to get it flawless, that, when she was almost done with Toni's pinky, it was extra terrifying to feel her heart skip a beat followed by the rush of pain as she watched her hand fade from vision.

A phase.

An involuntarily phase.

The brush fell from her hand, landing on her knee from where she was sitting cross-legged. The joints in her left arm, from her fingers all the way up to her shoulder, were suddenly burning in agony, a familiar but no less painful ache.

She'd been so focused, so worried about getting it perfect...had she somehow triggered this?

Yelena and Toni seemed to understand what happened, if they didn't see it. Ava's hand was only intangible for a millisecond at most, but that alone was enough to cause the soreness to settle in her muscles.

“Ava, can I…” Yelena's voice was nearly a whisper as she tilted her head in the direction of Ava's leg, where the brush was still sitting, some of the polish that was on it when it got dropped smeared on her skin. Yelena had a small cotton pad with some of the polish remover at the ready.

Ava nodded, not quite feeling up to talking yet.

Yelena picked up the brush and gently wiped away the excess polish. Ava winced a little at how cold the remover was, her body already at heightened sensitivity from the involuntary phase, but Yelena was quick with it.

Ava laid her head back against the daybed, head positioned just where the softness of the mattresses and cotton sheets met the hard wood of the bedframe, taking deep breaths, eyes closing, coming back to herself. She can't even remember the last time she phased involuntarily.

Actually, she can.

It was over a year ago.

Bill's doctor had said the treatment wasn't working, and he said he wasn't going to try anything else, and she had gotten mad at him. Said she had tried everything when she was dying, they had tried everything when she was dying, and she wasn't going to let him give up. That argument ended with her having multiple full-body phases that left her unable to stand, reminiscent of those couple hours before Janet gave her that life-saving infusion.

In the end, hours later, after she was stable again and under a pile of blankets with a cup of tea in hand, she had told him it was wrong for her to make that decision for him. She knew what it was like to be in pain, and if he wanted to stop treatment, that was his decision. But he'd gone with another one, something more experimental, but it had worked, and he'd gotten better.

She misses him. It's been months since she's seen him, well before The Vault even. They've been in contact, but now that he's in remission and better able to take care of himself, he says he wants her to go out and live her life, don't worry about him. While she's glad he's doing better to the point he can tell her that rather than be so sick even he has to admit he needs help, she wishes she could get an excuse to fly across the country and see him.

By the time she got out of her thoughts, she was feeling a little bit better, the ache in her joints still there (and it probably would be for a while, she knew how her affliction was and how an involuntary phase went, it would be at least 12 hours until the pain ceased, if not longer), but her breathing had evened out and she felt okay enough to open her eyes again and join back in with Yelena and Toni.

She moved away from where she was right up against the daybed and went back towards the middle of the room, where Toni was eating while Yelena made some loose twin braids in her hair, gentle where her scalp was burned and the hair was thin. Toni's nails had been cleaned up and looked to have been finished up with the top coat as well.

“Hey.” Yelena spoke quietly as she completed the second braid. “You want to watch a movie?”

Ava shrugged as she tried to stretch out her legs, trying to soothe the aches. “Sure.” She didn't mind much what they did now, but a movie sounded nice.

“You ever seen Anastasia?” Yelena asked as she pulled her laptop closer to them and started it back up, sometime the night it had gotten shut off.

When Ava shook her head as she did some little arm stretches, Yelena explained, “It's animated, about a Russian Grand Duchess. James showed it to me, said my sister showed it to him, it deals with amnesia and orphaning so could be a little triggering…Toni said she is okay to try it, but if you are not that is okay.”

Ava thought about it. “It's a kid's movie?”

“It's animated, rated G. Meant for kids. I was okay with it, James was too, even though it has a train crash scene, but I can find something else?” Yelena offered.

“No, that's okay.” Ava liked animated movies, especially royal and princess ones, The Little Mermaid was her favorite as a kid when Bill managed to sneak a VHS copy into SHIELD and play it for her. Even when he got other movies in for her (again, usually princess ones) if they had time she would ask him if they could watch Ariel afterwards.

“Just stop it at any time if you want.” Yelena said as she pressed play on the movie, not just to Ava, but to Toni too.

As the opening scene played, small scratching sounds began to echo from behind them. For a moment, Ava almost thought they were part of the background music of the movie.

“Oh, Bolt's awake.” Yelena rose from the ground and went over to the guinea pig's habitat in the corner of the room.

While she was gone, Toni opened one of the pizza boxes. “Here.” She said, passing it over the laptop to where Ava was. “I saved the last few…garlic knots for you.”

Ava took the box with a small smile. “Thanks.” It was nice of Toni to keep them for her, and part of Ava thought maybe it was a ‘thank you’ for Ava noticing her slipping into her programming earlier, or maybe for doing her nails. Maybe it was a bit of both.

Yelena came back over and sat between them, with Bolt now in her arms. “Here, sleepy guy. The sun set an hour ago and he is just now waking up, he has slept in!” She exclaimed as the small, black and light brown piggie wiggled in her grasp as she tucked her legs in to sit crossed-legged, and then sat him on her lap. “You want to watch the movie, little guy?”

“I think he wants to eat your pants’ string.” Ava pointed out as his nose twitched, interested in the little pink satin ribbon.

“No, Bolt.” Yelena took him back into her hands and made it so he was facing the laptop screen. “You will watch the joys of Anya learning who she is.”

Ava stifled a laugh as she watched the piggie, not unlike the three of them, having been experimented on and now sitting here watching a movie, and thought that even with the aches and pains of the night, this was far from the worst idea for her birthday.

~~~~~~~~~

It was midnight by the time they finished the movie (which was good, Ava especially enjoyed the scene of her clothes transforming into her dress), so Yelena said they should move to the dining room to do cake since the boys would be back soon, if they weren't already. Ava didn't even realize they had a cake, so she really just followed Yelena's lead.

Bolt had gone back to his habitat about 30 minutes into the movie. After Yelena had said they should do his nails he was no longer happy being cuddled up in her arms, and for the rest of the movie he was playing with the hay in his habitat, burrowing under it, throwing it around, sometimes snacking on it. Yelena said most of his awake time was spent doing that.

When they got to the dining room, the boys were already there. Alexei and John were arguing about something off to the side, while Bucky and Bob were seated at the table. Bob had his head down and resting on his arms that were laid out in front of him to form a bit of a makeshift pillow, while Bucky had an arm around his shoulder, comforting him. There were presents at the center of the table, and more balloons, more elaborate ones, some that were clear with confetti inside and some that were gold.

“How was bowling?” Yelena asked as they all entered the room, pulling out the chair at the head of the table and then motioning for Ava to sit, which she did hesitantly. She never sat at the head of the table, usually Alexei did just because he got there first and thought he should, but apparently because it was her birthday it was for her today.

“It was good, just loud.” Bucky answered as Bob lifted his head back up. He looked a bit tired, but not like the outing had upset him, which was good. He didn't leave the Tower much, he didn't really say why, at least not to Ava, but she could guess that he was probably scared of being triggered into The Void again, so she's glad he was able to go and do something. She knows how it feels to isolate yourself out of fear, and it doesn't help anything.

“Happy birthday, Ava.” Bucky added as John and Alexei decided to continue whatever argument they were having later and came to sit down, with Alexei predictably taking the other end of the table.

With him saying it, everybody joined in, a chorus of “happy birthdays” erupting from the table.

“And I won at bowling, in your honor!” Alexei stuck on the end of his.

“He didn't win.” John rolled his eyes. “I won.”

“Neither of you won, you both got disqualified for pushing each other which is unsportsmanlike conduct and also almost got us banned from the bowling alley.” Bucky told them with a stern look, clearly not the first time he's said this. “Bob won.”

“And you got last, so you suck.” John snapped back.

“Really nice birthday conversation here, really loving it.” Yelena called from the kitchen as she put candles on the cake. “Now if you could cool it for two minutes? Dad, John?”

“I did not do anything!” Alexei argued.

“If you want cake, you did.” Yelena counters.

That's all the motivation Alexei needs. “I am sorry.” He locks eyes with John and says, in a completely serious and slightly unnerving tone.

John just grumbles out a “...sorry.”

The argument would be annoying if it wasn't something Ava was just used to. Putting Alexei and John together was a recipe for some kind of fight to happen, as long as it didn't get physical while they were having cake it was a win in Ava's book.

“Okay, perfect, happy family.” Yelena brings the cake over, a lighter in hand, and sets it in front of Ava. “Happy birthday, Ava.”

When Ava looks down at the cake, she's taken aback.

It's a sheet cake, turquoise-colored icing with some beige at the bottom, and then piped details all around the edges, some green made to look like seaweed, others purple for coral, and then little pink flowers. On the top is more of those same details arranged in a circle, on the corners there's white swirl decorations, and then sitting on the edge of the circle of icing decorations on top is an Ariel figurine. Inside the circle, in purple icing, reads Happy Birthday, Ava! and there are four candles around it.

A Little Mermaid cake.

Like one she'd get to have a child, if she'd ever gotten to have a real birthday party as a child.

She swallowed thickly, trying to will away the tears.

The thoughtfulness…she'd only made one, maybe two mentions of The Little Mermaid being her favorite to Yelena, and yet Yelena remembered. Yelena had planned this whole sleepover birthday party around how she'd never gotten to have one as a kid, and now she's getting it, cake and all.

She looks up at Yelena, who's still standing there, ready to light the candles, with what she's sure are eyes filled with tears, if her blurry vision is any indication, and says, voice embarrassingly quiet and a little squeaky from holding back her tears, “Thank you.”

“No problem.” Yelena places a comforting hand on her shoulder, then starts lighting the candles as they sing happy birthday around the table.

She can't say what her wish is as she blows out the candles, but this time next year she has exactly this, then she knows birthday magic is real.

~~~~~~~~~

After they have cake and Ava has opened her presents (A gardening book from Bob, a small planter of Chip from Beauty and The Beast from Toni, a birthday cake candle from John, a ‘New Avengers’ mug from Alexei, which he insisted was a great gift when Yelena scolded him for it, a mini light that clips onto books from Bucky, and despite her insistence that Yelena had already gotten her plenty by planning this entire thing and getting her the pajamas and spa headband, Ava still, at Yelena's demand she accepted her gift of sunflower-themed hair clips), Ava leaned against the kitchen counter, cup of tea warming her hands, looking through to the common area and out the window into the night sky.

She wondered if Bill was still awake. She wondered if he remembered it was her birthday. She wondered if he was looking out at the sky too, thinking about how she could be looking out at the same stars, just as she was thinking the same about him.

She heard Bucky fussing with the coffee maker behind her. Everybody else had gone to bed, but he was still up. He was trying to make himself a hot chocolate, she had just shown him how, but it seemed like he was having trouble again.

She turned back around and immediately saw the problem- somehow the machine was set to ground instead of capsule. Easy fix.

“Here.” Ava took back control of the machine and clicked the appropriate button. With it properly set, the hot chocolate began dispensing.

“Thanks.” He said, a little sheepishly. “I don't know how to work this thing.”

“Yeah, then I don't recommend trying the espresso machine.” She motioned her head towards the bar, where they now stored various drink machines and sodas rather than alcohol.

“Trust me, nothing with caffeine is happening.” He shook his head as he took the now-finished hot chocolate mug from the coffee machine. “My brain can't handle that stuff.”

She held up her own mug, the tea inside a decaf lavender blend. If stress makes involuntary phasing worse, she can't imagine what caffeine would do. “Trust me, I get it.”

She went back to looking out the window, mind wandering back to Bill, because he's the one that introduced her to this tea, really he's the one that introduced her to tea at all, and Bucky noticed that her mind was elsewhere.

“What're you thinking about?” He asked, not really prodding. He said in a gentle way, like she could not answer or say anything at all and it'd be fine.

“Nothing, I just…” She sighed.

She missed him.

He would try so hard to never miss her birthday, even with how SHIELD restricted access to her, kept her buried like the horrible secret she was, a child they were experimenting on. He would do anything, break every rule if he had to, just to bring her a cupcake or candy and, if he could, a present.

He did whatever he could to see her.

She's going to do whatever she can to see him.

“Do you think we could take the jet to San Francisco?” She asks.

She's expecting him to either straight out say no, or say they have to run it by Val, or ask a million questions about why, but instead he just takes another sip of his hot chocolate and says, “Leave in the morning?”

She nodded, then quickly covered her mouth with her mug to hide how much she was smiling.

~~~~~~~~~

It's dinnertime by the time she arrives at the small house, duffel bag over her shoulder, walking up the path to the front door. Bucky had flown to San Francisco with her, but he said he had other things he could do here, which was good, because she would rather do this just the two of them.

She'd stopped by the grocery store on the way, picked up a cupcake, just a simple one from the bakery, just like the ones he used to bring her.

She hadn't told him she was coming. She didn't want him to tell her it was okay, that she didn't need to come, because she wanted to. Maybe it was selfish, leaving the team just to fly across the country to see him, but she found she didn't care. It was her birthday, and this was Bill. After everything, this was special to her. To them.

If Val got mad at her for taking off or taking the jet without permission, screw her. Plus, Bucky told her on the ride over he'd take the heat, which was pretty cool. Ava understood why people lied about it being their birthday now, beyond just the free dessert at restaurants, although Bucky was just usually that nice. He'd probably do that even if it wasn't her birthday.

She's stalling now, because she's at the door and nerves are suddenly kicking in. Even though they've texted since, Ava can't help but fear that her now publicly working for Val might've…changed things, between them. Good and evil are rather abstract concepts for somebody who's been through what she has, but even she can recognize Val falls far more on the “bad” side of things. Still, Bill knows, this is how she survives. It's not…it's not like she's doing things he disapproves of. She's not crossing the line…not like when she had been in the worst pain of her life, desperate, and had done one of the worst things she'd ever done, had suggested involving Cassie, a child-

She knocks, if only just to pull herself out of her thoughts. For a minute she thinks about turning back, calling Bucky, saying he wasn't home (which she knows he is because his car is in the driveway), fleeing back to New York saying oh well, I tried, and here's this store-bought cupcake that I'll eat on the jet to drown my sorrows in, but then…

The door opens.

Bill is there.

He looks a bit different. He's put on more weight since the last time she saw him, the bags under his eyes are much less, and he's standing up without any assistance, no cane or walker.

He looks better.

“Ava.” He says, a little disbelieving, but just hearing his voice puts her at ease.

“Hi.” She greets, finding now that she sees him, she's not afraid anymore. He just has that effect on her, soothing all her nerves. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, of course.” He steps aside so she can walk through the doorway. She notices he is holding onto the doorframe to steady himself, so he still needs some help standing and moving around, but it's still much better than he was before in the middle of treatment when he could barely walk at all.

The house hasn't changed much. Bill still has his big, comfy chair in the living room, pointed straight at the T.V. Bookshelves still line nearly every free wall. There's still pictures of them on the fridge.

But what is new is that the IV pole is in the corner of the living room collecting dust, instead of right by Bill's chair.

And newspaper clippings of ‘New Avengers’ work that features Ava are hanging on the fridge right besides all those pictures of her and Bill together.

“I missed you, sweetie.” Bill tells her, coming up and placing an arm around her shoulder, hugging her. “Happy birthday.”

All those worries Ava had melted away in Bill's embrace.

It's a little while later that Ava sits at the kitchen island while Bill cuts the cupcake into two pieces, at Ava's insistence that he has some too. It's a rather small cupcake, so doing so leaves them only a few bites each, which they laugh about as they pick up their “piece”.

They both finish pretty quickly because of that, and while Ava is licking the icing off her fingers, Bill suddenly slides a white box with a little ribbon wrapped around it across the island.

“What's this?” Ava questions, looking at it suspiciously. At first she thinks maybe he finished his new book much earlier than planned, but when she picks the box up, it's much too light to be any of the scientific texts Bill writes.

“A gift.” He says with a smirk, like he's hiding something. She supposes he is, hiding whatever is inside the present. “I was secretly hoping you'd come for your birthday, so I got you something.”

She smiles at that, knowing she wasn't the only one missing being together. “You could've asked me to come.”

“You're so busy with your Avengers business.” Bill shrugged. “I didn't want to intrude.”

“Oh, please do.” It comes out with a hint of a joking tone, but Ava really means it. He means so much to her, she'd fly across the country every day for him if she had to.

Carefully, she undoes the ribbon on the box, takes the top off, and sees…

A teddy bear.

But not just any teddy bear.

The teddy bear.

The one Bill had given her when they first met, when he'd found her at the orphanage.

She takes the bear out of the box, his white fur and little green scarf and stitched nose and smile just like she remembered.

She doesn't remember when, exactly, she'd lost him. She'd had the bear in SHIELD for a bit, but at some point, some facility transport, he'd been lost. She'd cried for days, but nothing had happened. He'd just been lost.

And now he was here.

“How did you…” She asked Bill, still holding the bear in her hands, carefully as if any sudden movement would cause him to shatter.

“I got it secondhand. People sell anything online nowadays.” He dismissed, as if it was no big deal.

To Ava, it was nothing short of a miracle.

She hopped off the barstool she was sitting on and went over to hug him, teddy bear still firmly in her grasp.

“I love him.” Tears began to spring from the corners of her eyes. “I love you.”

Bill wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly, just like he did when she was a kid, like he could protect her from the world. “I love you too, Ava. Happy birthday.”