Of Apologies and Explanations
Also, also, also
I MADE AN AVA REFERENCE
this is not perfect, but its roughly what i imagine she looks like.
and because im a lovely person, enjoy this cinnamon roll table i made (:
“Do we have to do this?”
“It was your idea in the first place,” pointed out Cooper, with his stupid logic.
“Yeah but that was yesterday,” grumbled the blonde, digging her bony chin into his shoulder, “I wasn’t thinking of the reaper- repercussions then.”
“Sounds like a you problem,” reasoned the boy, unfairly chipper.
Why was he so happy?
He should at least be nervous.
And instead, he was standing there, Mr Cool, in the lobby of Stark Towers, waiting for Peter, Ned and, urgh, MJ to turn up.
Not that she was nervous. Of course not.
She was Octavia Raelyn Kingsley. She helped fight an alien army. She was practically a SHIELD agent. She taught Steve Rogers the macarena.
She didn’t get nervous.
“Peter! We’re over here!”
“You know what I think I’ve got a head-”
“Coward.”
“-ache, but I’m sure I’ll be fine in a bit.”
“How fortunate.”
“I hate you.”
“No you don’t.”
Fortunately, Ava was saved by the arrival of Peter and Ned, who were looking around wide-eyed.
Was it too late to -
“Ava!”
She froze slightly as Peter threw his arms around her, patting him awkwardly on the shoulder as he squeezed her tightly.
“We were worried about you yesterday! You disappeared! And then Cooper called us, and said we needed to talk, and that we should meet you at your house, but the directions were to Stark Tower! And then I called him back, because I didn’t think you actually lived in Stark Tower.”He took a breath.
“But Cooper explained that you did, and that your mum and your brother-uh, sister Luka, were actually Avengers, and that the reason you got so upset yesterday and was mean to MJ was that stuff with your dad is really complicated, and you got reminded of it by her, and also that you were really worried we weren’t going to be friends anymore, and I’m babbling, aren’t-”
Ava threw her arms back around the boy, saying nothing, but conveying everything.
When she pulled away, Cooper had a smug little grin on his face that she would’ve done something about, if Ned hadn’t immediately grabbed her, pulling her into a second hug, warm and soft.
“Am I interrupting something?”
Ava immediately tensed, pulling away from her friend. Her fingers twitched towards the knives she had strapped underneath the hoodie she was wearing.
Cooper slapped them away.
“Hi MJ” he said brightly, waving at the girl, “Don’t worry, you’re fine. Do you guys want to come up?”
The girl raised an eyebrow, “I kinda figured you were lying when you said you lived in Stark Tower. We’re not going to be kicked out, right?”
“Nope. Pretty much everyone round here knows us. By voice if not sight.” his voice dropped, and shifted slightly towards the girl, “Ava can be a bit loud.”
“Hey!”
“Point in case.”
“It’s case in point,” Ava rolled her eyes, digging out the handful of badges Cooper had thrown at her earlier. Ordinarily she would’ve stuck them in her pocket dimension (which while far, far smaller than Loki’s, was still pretty damn useful. It might only be the size of a minifridge right now, but it was a minifridge with eight knives, three hand grenades and a bunch of snacks), but considering her current company, she wasn’t exactly raring to show all her secrets.
“Keep these on at all times,” she instructed, “They’re what allows you to move around in the tower without JARVIS setting off an alert.”
“Whose Jarvis?”
“JARVIS.Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. Or as he’s better known, Tony’s AI. Jay runs the entire building - he’s everywhere at once. Avengers and Tower residents, like us, have our biometrics on system - which is basically our faces and the way we walk and stuff - so we don’t have to wear them. You guys, however, have to keep them visible at all times, otherwise he sends up an alert.”
“What do the different colours and numbers mean?” asked Ned curiously.
“Oh, the colours are basically what your job is. Like security have black ones, the R&D departments have red, Finance has blue, and so on. White is for casual visitors, but gold is for people visiting the Avenger’s levels, which is where we’re going.”
“And the numbers?” asked MJ, curious despite herself.
“The numbers are basically how much of the tower you’re allowed to access. They go from 1 to 10. 1 is generally for reporters and stuff, so they can’t go anywhere without someone above level 5. They go upwards from there, each number has subsections, which tells you where they could go.
“Like Dr Hardy, who runs the R&D departments, is an 8, which means he can access all of the R&D levels, and most of the other labs, but he couldn’t step foot in the legal department without one of them accompanying him. Cooper and I have level 9, but it's specifically tailored to us. Most rooms we can go in freely, some we need accompaniment, and some we can’t go in at all, even if we had someone with us. Most of the Avengers have Level 9 complete access, which means there is literally like maybe 10 rooms total they can’t access. Level 10 is reserved for Tony, Pepper and Goose.``
“Whose Goose?”
“My cat.”
“And what do you mean most Avengers?”
Ava and Cooper shared a grin.
“My dad’s banned from most of the rest of the tower, due to a prank war he and Aunt Nat held a while back.”
“So is she banned as well?”
“Nope. Can’t ban what you can’t catch. And Uncle Clint just uses the vents anyway.”
“Oh so- wait what!”
Ava and Cooper shared a slightly less amused look.
“Uh, we should probably do this upstairs. Uh, come on. I promise we’ll explain everything in a bit.”
Grimacing at their slip ups, Cooper and Ava led the way through the lobby, a shell-shocked Peter and Ned, and a slightly less composed than normal MJ just behind them. The elevator ride up was awkward to say the least - though thankfully since they were using the Avengers only one, no one else joined them.
“Where should we set base?” murmured Cooper in Ava’s ear.
“The nest? No one really goes up there, so we shouldn’t be interrupted.”
“Sounds good.”
“What the nest?” Ava jumped - she’d forgotten how sound echoed within the lift.
“Oh, it’s kinda our… well nest, really. The Avenger’s section of the Tower is the top five floors, and on each floor, there’s these sensory room things? Different ones have different stuff in them - like some are full of cushions, others have like obstacles and stuff. Pretty much everyone has a favourite, and the nest is mine and Cooper’s. It's basically - urgh, it's kinda hard to explain. It’ll be easier to show you.”
Finally, after an age (two minutes), the lift dinged, announcing they had reached their floor.
“Thank Jay!” called Cooper as they left, receiving a, “You’re very welcome Cooper,” from the ceiling, causing the three outsiders to jump.
“This way,” said Ava shortly, navigating the virtual maze of the Tower with ease - it was deliberately designed to be confusing, every corridor looked very similar, even with the same pictures on the walls sometimes, and it wasn’t uncommon for people to wander off and go in circles for hours.
If Ava hadn’t been used to SHIELD offices, where they did the exact same but even worse, she maybe would’ve understood why some people found it creepy. As it was, she was well trained in remembering her surroundings, and after a full year living there, was able to differentiate with ease between the different rooms.
“Why does… Why does it look like this?” asked Peter, cringing slightly into Ava’s side.
She pulled him in, taking satisfaction at the way the boy looked to her for protection, “Oh, don’t worry, this is pretty much just to mess with people. It’s only really this floor, and the two below that are like this - the top two are much better. Don’t worry Peter, we won’t lose you.”
She laughed lightly, missing the sharp look MJ gave her, just relishing the contact as Cooper pushed open one of the seemingly identical doors.
“How do you tell them apart?” asked Ned, “When they all look the same?”
Cooper grinned, “There’s signs. Not big ones, but they’re there if you look. I think the hardest floor to navigate is probably the lowest Avenger’s one - where the training rooms are. All the walls are basically smooth opaque glass, including the floors, not even with the decorations to tell them apart. You can’t even tell where the doors are - you have to know, and press the right panels. Ava and I got lost, the first time we went down alone. Goose had to come get us.”
“Goose the cat?”
“Yup. Now come on, are you gonna stand there all day?” Grabbing onto Peter’s hand, Ava pushed past Cooper in the door, playfully butting shoulders as she did so, and letting the little group into the nest.
She heard the gasp they made and grinned silently - there was a reason it was her favourite room.
The room itself couldn’t really be classed as a singular room, given that it stretched three entire floors.
They were standing on a wide ledge of sorts, with plenty of room for them all to stand, but below them was a drop into the abyss, spanned only by thousands of stretchy belts.
The belts criss-crossed the room like webs, placed in strategic layers, so that, with a bit of effort, a person could clamber up and down.
Although there were too many layers to see clearly, at the bottom was a massive trampoline, so that if you were brave enough (or rubbish at climbing), you could slip through one of the holes and land safely.
All through the layers were little pockets of space, some big enough to fit three or four adults comfortably, and some so small that only Lila could wedge herself in. Not for lack of trying from Uncle Clint.
At the very top though, was their goal - the nest.
The nest was the pocket of space right at the top, basically the area of the entire room, although half the usual height. Unlike the other two floors, which had doors coming in from the corridor, the nest could only be accessed by scrambling up a floor and a half worth of netting, pulling yourself up in a slightly undignified manner.
But once you were up there, it was well worth the climb.
The lighting was adjustable, and they usually had it set quite low, so they could lie there for hours, watching movies, and occasionally bribing Lila with access, if she brought them snacks.
Ned peered fearfully over the edge, “How- how far down is that?”
Ava giggled, “Don’t worry Ned, it’s really not far, and there's a massive trampoline and a bunch of cushions down there anyway. It’s not as hard as it looks, we just need to climb up to the top. You see that solid layer up there? That’s the nest. It’ll take five minutes max.”
It did not take five minutes.
Okay, Ava may have slightly underestimated the difficulty of the climbing frame to children not raised in a literal spy organisation.
Much to her frustration, of the three, MJ seemed to find it easiest, struggling slightly, but making it within the ten minute mark. Next came Ned, who was just under the fifteen minute mark, mainly due to him making the mistake of looking down halfway through, and freezing in place for a good seven minutes, before Ava could convince him it was safe.
And Peter?
Well, it wasn’t really Peter’s fault it took so long - he kinda just managed to slip near the top, and fell almost all the way down, Ned shrieking more than he did. Ava had descended rapidly after him, worried, but he’d been fine, laughing uncontrollably the entire time.
From there, it had taken a further ten minutes to climb the ropes back up, but eventually they were all there, arranged in various positions around the nest, taking full advantage of the hundreds of cushions, blankets and beanbags scattered around the area.
“So, are you gonna explain all this now?” questioned MJ, sat cross legged near the exit, “Or just make more vague references and snarky comments.”
“Explain it.”
“Snarky comments.”
“Ava.”
“Cooper.”
Cooper sighed, “As I was saying, we’re gonna explain it. So, you guys want to start?”
“Who are your parents?”
“Did you really call Black Widow your Aunt?”
“What's the deal with Ava’s father?”
“Uh, before we say anything, you have to promise us something,” said Cooper, very seriously, “Your parents will be sent NDA’s tonight, which basically say that you can’t tell anyone outside this room anything we’re about to say. It took a lot of convincing for Grandpa Nick and Tony to let us bring you here, and it’s all very important stuff. So you have to promise. Or you and your parents will get in a lot of trouble.”
“We promise,” said Peter earnestly, “Don’t we Ned?”
“Of course we do! We’re the best secret keepers ever!”
“Yeah sure, not like I have anyone to tell anyway.”
“Should I go first?” asked Ava, looking to Cooper for confirmation.
“Yeah, you go, and we’ll take turns.”
“Alright. Okay, well the first thing you need to know is that, well, before our parents were Avengers, they were spies.”
A scoff in the corner, “Spies? What CIA?”
“No, they belong to an organisation called SHIELD.” said Cooper, with a look at the curly haired girl, “Which stands for Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement Logistics Division. They are the biggest intelligence agency in the world, with agents on every continent. Both Black Widow and Hawkeye were originally SHIELD agents, as well as Ava’s mom.”
“I thought there was only one girl in the Avengers?” asked Ned curiously.
“Officially there is, my mom is known as Wildcard, she’s not in the public eye because she was working behind the scenes during the invasion, and still does spy stuff sometimes.”
“My parents, on the other hand,” grinned Cooper, “are- well, dad is at least, an official Avenger. As you probably guessed earlier, my dad’s Hawkeye. Mom retired from SHIELD a while back, and we lived up in Minnesota for most of my life, with my little sister Lila. Ava and I have always been best friends, even though we lived so far apart, because my dad, her mom and Aunt Nat are best friends - which is why we call her Aunt Nat, Ned.”
“Cooper moved here about a year ago just after the battle, so we could go to school together after- after the thing.”
“The thing?”
Ava sighed, “It’s a long story, and not a particularly believable one. If I tell you, you have to promise to believe me. Okay, it’s like this. What do you know about Norse Mythology?”
“Other than the fact that it's apparently mostly real?”
“Other than that, yeah. Peter, do you remember during the Stark Expo, when you first met Luka?”
“Uh yeah?”
“And we ran away, and I made a slip-up on his name?”
Peter scrunched his nose. “You called him… Loki? I think? Yeah why?”
She waited, eyebrow raised, mimicking the face Nat used so often during training exercises. Waiting until she got it.
“No.” Ava smirked slightly at MJ, whose eyes had lit up with disbelief.
“Yup.”
“He isn’t.”
“He is. And sometimes she is, as well.”
Peter and Ned looked back and forth like it was a tennis match. Cooper just felt glad that they seemed to be getting on, rather than trying to murder each other every ten seconds.
“And he’s your sibling?”
“Eh, godparent officially. Mom kinda… summoned him? By accident, of course. And then he just kinda stuck around.”
“Uh- what are you guys talking about?” asked Peter, looking utterly lost.
“Luka. Loki. The fact that Norse Mythology actually exists.”
“Wait. Your not saying-”
“That Luka is actually Loki, Norse God of mischief? Yup. That’s exactly what we’re saying.”
There was a moment of silence, then, “YOU MEAN AN ACTUAL GOD KNOWS MY NAME? OH MY GOD! THIS IS THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE!” whooped Ned, bouncing up and down excitedly, almost knocking Peter over.
Cooper snickered, “Pretty much all the Avengers do as well,” he said, “We talk about you pretty often.”
Ned let out an honest to Thor shriek, and stood up, barely missing hitting his head on the ceiling as he did an excited dance.
“I can’t believe it!” he said, “Not only do you live with the Avengers, your parents are spies, and you have a super cool base, your godparent is a literal god!”
Ava laughed, “Yeah, I guess it’s pretty cool. I’ve never really thought much of it - Loki’s just always kinda been there, it’s never really seemed that impressive to me.”
If Ava hadn’t had slightly enhanced hearing from her magic, she would’ve entirely missed the muttered “Rich girl,” from the corner. As it was, she ignored the comment very maturely. Mainly because no one else seemed to have heard it.
“What was it like growing up in a spy agency?”
“Pretty epic,” she grinned, “Even though I kinda took it for granted, it’s hard to not be impressed by a bunch of normal people doing amazing things. They don’t need magic, or enhancements, or a shiny suit, it’s just them.”
They sat in silence for a brief moment, before MJ directed the conversation back.
“You still haven’t explained about your dad,” she said bluntly.
Ava scowled slightly at the mention of Michael - she remembered enough of the man to really understand what kind of person he’d been.
“What has Coop told you already?”
“Just that it’s complicated.” said Peter, sensing her mood shift.
Ava swallowed a moment, and then opened her mouth again. “My dad was… not the nicest person. He and mom married when they were quite young - she had me at twenty-two, and he was only a year older. I don’t remember much about him-”
“I’m so sorry, Ava, I didn’t realise he was-”
“So he’s not in the picture?”
Peter and MJ asked with completely different expressions - the former concerned, and the latter suspicious and confused.
“No, no, he’s not dead, as far as we’re aware of. But he might as well be. From what mom says, there were ‘red flags’, whatever that means, from the start. He- he wasn’t very nice to her. Even though he acted nice, deep down he wasn’t. I guess it got worse when Loki started to visit more often, as I grew up more. I remember bits of that time - I’m more attuned to emotions and stuff because-” she stuttered slightly over the words, “because of the whole SHIELD thing, and I remember how he used to just feel… off. Like it just felt really bad to be around him.!
“The last time I saw him I was five. He-” she swallowed, “He hit my mom. Like, really hard. And so she hit him back harder, and kicked him out the apartment. They got a divorce within the month - apparently having connections speeds this type of thing up. And then he just disappeared. He’s never tried to get in contact or anything… and I don’t really want him to. So yeah. That’s my dad.”
Even MJ seemed slightly taken aback, the girl deep in thought.
“Oh, Aves, I’m so sorry,” said Peter, clambering over the piles of cushions to tackle the blonde into a big hug.
Ava couldn’t help but giggle as they rolled around, Cooper, and then Ned joining in what was quickly dissolving into a pillow fight.
As they ducked and weaved, Ava felt a pang of something in her chest. Urgh. She hated having urges to do something good. Biting her lip, she turned around to the girl in the corner, an impish grin on her face as she ducked away from the boys, who had somehow found swimming pool noodles somewhere and were now bashing each other.
“Team?” she asked, reaching a hand across the chasm between them.
“Why?”
She paused a moment, before finally answering, “Because I haven’t been fair. I know how I act, and I know that I’m not the… nicest of people. But I crossed a line yesterday. Cooper helped me see that. And I’m sorry. I shouldn't have said what I said. It was out of order.”
The girl didn’t quite meet her eyes, “It was true, though.”
“And it didn’t need to be said. And I’m sorry for that. I… I think I want to be friends. If you want that. I’m not really good at the whole friends thing - as you probably guessed, but I want to try. So… truce?”
An inscrutable look came over the girl's face for a moment and then, “How do we want to play this?”
“How good are you at pushing people out of nests?”