Night to Day
The rest of the day was fun. Ava loved the new environment she was in and felt like she could be herself with her newly-made friends unlike how she was at home. For dinner, Tony ordered Chinese for everyone and it was some of the best food she’s ever eaten.
“Here,” Tony says and hands Ava something after they cleaned up the Chinese mess. She takes it and tilts her head at him in confusion. “It’s a credit card,” He tells her.
“I know what a credit card is, but why are you giving it to me?” She asks.
“Everyone gets one around here. Especially the kids. Spend as much as you like and if you need anything, just ask Jarvis.”
“Wow, thank you, Mr. Stark,” She says and then hugs him. He awkwardly hugs her back.
“Not much of a hugger,” He says. “And you can just call me Tony.”
“Okay, Tony,” It felt weird for her to say his actual name after calling him Mr. Stark for the last week and a half.
“Head back up to your floor. We have an early day tomorrow,” He says. She scrunches her face up, but nods, walking toward the elevator.
“Hey, kid,” Tony says. She turns back around, waiting for him to talk. He opens his mouth to talk and then shuts it, simply muttering, “Night.”
She smiles and waves a little. “G’night.” She makes her way into the elevator and lets out a breath, feeling at home with everyone. She did miss her dad, but Tony was like a father figure to her so far. She makes a mental note to text her dad before she goes to bed. Knowing him, he’s probably watching TV, and getting ready for bed because of work.
Once the elevator dings, she was bombarded by hugs from all her new friends. Yelena didn’t join the hug as she awkwardly avoids looking over at the group. She felt a little left out, frowning slightly, but she didn’t like a lot of affection due to the way she grew up.
“You took forever. We were about to start playing Fortnite without you,” Peter says, making his way back onto the couch to play, and then laughs at Ava’s reaction. She let out an offended gasp at what he said. Everyone had sat back down. Wanda was on the floor in front of the couch, leaning her head back to look at Ava, admiring her. The girl was leaning against the back of the couch with a faux-offended expression
“You wouldn’t dare,” Ava says, narrowing her eyes at the boy. He shrugs, making a face as he does. He hands her a controller, offering her to go first. She shakes her head, handing it back.
“I have to do something first, but I want next game, okay?” She tells them. Wanda watches her as she leaves the room, entering her own. Kate nudges her with a smirk.
“Wanda has a crush,” She says lowly and Wanda’s eyes go wide, a blush forming on her face. She shakes her head no repeatedly
“I do not,” She defends, glaring at the older girl.
“No, you definitely do, сестра (sister),” Pietro says, agreeing with Kate. “It’s pretty obvious. In the little time that we’ve known her, you’ve been obsessing over her. I’ve noticed the little glances and the not-so-subtle ones,” He says, amused. The brunette was sitting there with an unreadable expression. She gets up and goes to her room, trying to calm her nerves down so she doesn’t have an episode.
Meanwhile, Ava was in her room trying to stop herself from crying. As much as she loved it here, she missed home. She missed her dogs and her family. Mainly her dad and sister though. She wasn’t as close with her mom as she used to be. She did love her brothers from her mom, but she was always with her dad and sister. They were her best friends.
She shakenly takes her phone out, dialing her dad’s number. He picks up a couple of seconds after.
“What’s up, Av? I was about to go to sleep,” He says and she puts her phone on speaker, tossing it beside her on the bed.
“I miss home,” She admits, laying down on her bed.
“We miss you too,” He says and she swallows a sob.
“How’s Liv?” She asks, wanting to know how her sister has been holding up since she left.
“She misses you, but you know how she is. She’s always on her game,” He says and she lets out a soft chuckle, the tears still forming in her eyes.
“And Lee? How’s he?”
“He thinks you’re staying with your mom, but I told him you’re with the Avengers and he didn’t believe me.”
“I’ll send you a picture of me with Peter so you can show him then,” She replies. “Speaking of Peter. I was supposed to be playing Fortnite with him and Pietro, but I just missed you all so much.”
“He’d be so jealous and well if you need anything just call me or grandma. Keep me updated on everything though, okay?” She nods and then realizes he can’t see her, rolling her eyes at herself.
“I just nodded instead of replying,” She says. He laughs loudly and she can hear her sister in the background asking him why he was laughing.
“Your sister’s on the phone and she just nodded to herself instead of answering. She’s just being herself,” He tells her. The younger girl laughs now too.
“She’s an idiot. Tell her I miss her and to send me pictures of her with the Avengers so I can brag to my friends,”
“I can hear you,” Ava says, shaking her head at her sister’s words.
“All right well I’m going to get off here. I have work in the morning,” Her dad says.
“Okay, night, love you.”
“Love you too.”
She hangs up and wipes the tears from her eyes. She can do this. It’s only been almost a day since she’s seen them. She’s got this. She can be on her own for a little while. It’s not going to be forever. They can come to visit and she can visit them whenever.
She walks out of her room and back into the living room.
“Took you long enough,” Peter jokes.
She looks around at everyone. Kate was laying on the couch, her feet in Yelena’s lap. Peter and Pietro were sitting at the other end of the couch, but someone was missing. “Where did Wanda go?”
“To her room,” Yelena answers, a little annoyed. She kind of hated all the attention the new girl was getting from her friends. Ava nods, turning to walk to Wanda’s room.
“Hey, where are you going? You were supposed to play,” Peter says, confused.
“Maybe tomorrow? It’s getting late and I’m exhausted,” Ava says and then yawns which causes Pietro to yawn. He groans and turns away, not looking at her anymore so he doesn’t see her yawn again, and causes himself to yawn too.
She slowly walks away, walking backward, before turning and heading to Wanda’s room. She knocks twice, waiting for an answer.
“Who is it?” Wanda asks, her voice sounding small.
“It’s Ava, can I come in?” The door opens and Wanda was standing there, picking at her fingers which were connected in front of her. Wanda moves to the side to let the other girl in. Ava walks into the room, admiring the little things from Wanda’s personality that were scattered throughout the room. Wanda closes the door, walks over to her bed, and takes a seat. She watches Ava with curiosity as she picks up some of the knick-knacks that were sat on her desk.
“Are you okay?” Ava asks her after a couple of minutes of silence, turning to her. The other girl nods, giving her a smile that was half-fake.
“They were just teasing me and I got upset,” Wanda answers, avoiding the real reason she was upset. Wanda has never had a crush on anyone and she’s never felt like this around anyone before. Her heart felt like it was going to explode whenever she was around Ava. Her whole life she was running away from foster homes until Hydra had gotten to her and her brother. She snaps back to reality once she hears Ava’s voice.
“What’s goin’ on in that pretty little head of yours?” She says, knocking on the girl’s head softly in a jokingly way. Wanda tries to hide her smile, but can’t. She had called her pretty. Sure, she’s been called pretty by her brother and parental figures (Natasha and Steve), but no one outside of her family has called her that.
“I don’t know, just thinking about stuff,” Wanda says, pushing her hand away with a little laugh. Ava takes a seat next to her.
“I’ve been thinking about stuff too,” She admits, after letting out a sigh.
“Yeah?” Wanda asks, looking over at her. Ava nods.
“I know it sounds stupid since it hasn’t even been 24 hours since I’ve seen them, but I miss my family. I miss the stupid arguments we would get into. The random dirty jokes we would say out of nowhere. When my dad would take us to the movies whenever something we really wanted to see comes out. I just miss everything,” She says, trying not to let out a sob.
“I understand. When Pietro and I first came here, it was the first time in a long time that we’ve had somewhere to call home and people to call family. It was all confusing, but Natasha and Steve took us in and became our legal guardians. We had left the only place we knew as home and came to a foreign place. We barely knew English. Natasha taught us how to hide our accents to sound American and trained me while Steve trained Pietro,” She was looking at her hands again with a reminiscing expression.
They sit in silence for a few minutes, not knowing what else to say.
“Did you have many friends before you came here?” Wanda asks. Ava nods a little, a smile making its way onto her face.
“I had a few good ones and a few toxic ones,” She says.
“Can you tell me a bit about yourself and also your friends?” Wanda asks and softly pats the spot next to her once she adjusts herself on her bed. Ava scoots up a bit, awkwardly keeping a little distance from the other girl out of respect.
“I had two friends that have been with me my whole life. They both turned toxic as we grew up and came into high school, but Mia lived right up the hill from me until my house burnt down out of some stupid drama I’m not going to get into right now. We did everything together. We used to play school and she had a chalkboard wall in her room because we played so much. Charlie was my other friend that’s been with me forever it seems, but she took the higher-level classes and I chose the regular ones because I needed a break, and we drifted. They both wanted to talk to boys. I just never could. It was awkward for me to even be around boys,” She says. Wanda nods, understanding the feeling. She was comfortable around Peter, but she’s been around him for years.
“After a while of questioning my sexuality, I realized that I’m a lesbian and - oh God, are you homophobic? It didn’t seem like it,” Ava rambles, worriedly as Wanda’s face scrunched up a little when she said her sexuality.
“No! No! I’m not homophobic, I promise. I was just wondering about something. It wasn’t anything bad though,” Wanda swears. Ava lets out a breath of relief and then laughs, causing Wanda to laugh too. “Please continue. I want to get to know you more.”
“Okay. I have another friend that I had the biggest crush on. Her name’s Kaia. She’s one of the best people I know and she has some dark humor, but we all do, don’t we?”
“I met Maya and Lily before I had to leave, they were such good friends to me. They cared about my feelings and didn’t make everything about themselves. They texted me earlier at dinner and asked me how I was doing. They think I’m on an internship with Tony because I didn’t tell anyone other than my family about my powers.”
They continue talking about their past and Wanda knows that she might have a teensy tiny little crush on the girl, but ignores it for the sake of their new friendship. She didn’t want to just blurt out her feelings on the first day of their meeting. Even though they’ve been talking about their lives with each other for a while now.
Ava was more open with the brunette. She felt safe with her. For as long as Wanda was there, she could be herself, and she liked that. She didn’t want to hide anymore. She opened the door to everything she’s been holding onto for so long.
By the time they fell asleep, dry tears were stained on their cheeks, faces a little puffy.
Click. The sound of a phone camera goes off. That’s what Ava hears when she wakes up. She opens her eyes, noticing the number of people surrounding her was large.
She groans and pulls the blanket over her head, not wanting the attention of so many people. Suddenly feeling embarrassed when she hears Wanda mumbling, still asleep. She fell asleep next to Wanda last night. Her cheeks were back to normal and weren’t puffy anymore, but she had fallen asleep next to Wanda freaking Maximoff. She thought she got up and went to her room after Wanda fell asleep. She was so tired that she must’ve just dreamt that.
“You missed breakfast,” Pietro says, ripping the covers off the girls. Wanda wakes up now, flipping Pietro off. She grabs the blankets back and lays on her side, trying to fall back asleep. They stayed up a late so she was probably just tired.
“Wands,” Natasha says, trying to hide her laugh. Steve does not look impressed.
“What?” The girl says, hiding her face into her pillow.
“It’s time for training,” Natasha says, walking over to the girl and stroking some hair from her face.
“не хочу, мама (don’t want to, mama),” Wanda speaks in Russian instead of English or her native language. It was close enough and she know it was Natasha’s native language so she’d understand better.
Natasha sighs and motions for everyone to get out of the room. Ava takes the covers off of her to leave, saying goodbye to Wanda quickly before she left, going after Steve to show her the training room.
“Что не так? Ты никогда не захочешь говорить по-русски, если тебе нехорошо, детка. (What's wrong? You never want to talk in Russian unless you're not feeling good, baby.),” Natasha says to her. Wanda sits up now, a frown sitting on her face.
“Missin’ home,” She mumbles. Natasha wraps her up in a hug.
“You don’t wanna train today?” Natasha guesses.
“No, I still wanna watch though. It’s Ava’s first day of training and she’s becoming one of my best friends. Can I sit out though?”
“Of course. I’ll talk to Steve. Get ready, and go eat something before you go to the training room, all right? You didn’t eat a whole lot at dinner last night,” Natasha says, kissing her on the forehead before leaving her to get dressed. Wanda walks sluggishly over to her closet, choosing a pair of sweatpants and a long sleeve shirt. She looks at herself in the full-length body mirror next to her door. She wants to stay in bed, but she forces herself to go get something to eat.
“You have to swing with your right and be open to blocking with your left - again,” Natasha says, making Ava repeat the process for the 5th time it seemed. Wanda sat just outside the boxing ring, a bag of chips in her lap. Natasha hadn’t said what she was supposed to eat, and chips were her comfort food.
“Little sister, hasn’t anyone told you chips aren’t a healthy breakfast?” Pietro teases as he walks by to get to the treadmills.
“I’m 12 minutes younger than you,” Wanda says and ignores the other part of his sentence, not caring. He laughs, reaching his destination as Wanda focuses her attention back on Ava and Natasha. Ava was on the ground now, groaning.
“You can use your powers this time, but don’t rely on them. They can be tiring when you use them for too long,” Natasha says and takes a swing at the girl. Ava uses her telekinetic powers to stop her arm. She freezes time and walks behind Natasha, unfreezing it to tap her on the shoulder, getting her attention. Wanda watches in amusement, being the only one to watch her do that.
Natasha turns around, confused. “You were just in front of me… Can you teleport?” She asks. Ava shakes her head no, holding back a laugh. “Then how did you do that?”
“I can control time, remember?” Ava simply says, shrugging it off like it was nothing. Natasha had forgotten that from yesterday.
“Well, no more of that for now, all right?” She asks. Ava nods and Natasha sighs. “Let’s go back to hand combat. You need the most training there.”
“I’m so tired,” Ava whines, walking out of the elevator. It was almost time for lunch and she really wanted a nap. Peter laughs from beside her, pushing her slightly for her to walk faster. She pushes his hand off her and everyone goes their separate ways to take a shower in their own bathroom because they were all sweaty and gross after hours of training. It was a Saturday and you’d think they would cut them some slack, but they wouldn’t.
Wanda didn’t train today, so she was setting the table and avoiding the topic she was upset about. She was quietly humming a song that was stuck in her head, but Steve could faintly hear it, wondering what song it was.
“What song is that?” Steve asks, bringing more plates in while she sat down the utensils.
“Something you wouldn’t like,” Wanda states.
“It sounded familiar,” He tells her.
“You really want to know?” Wanda asks.
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
“It’s My Tears Ricochet by Taylor Swift. It’s one of my favorite songs right now."
“It’s a good song,” Another voice interrupted. It was Natasha.
“You hate Taylor Swift,” Wanda says, narrowing her eyes at the redhead.
“No, I don’t,” Natasha defends, laughing.
“You said her music is too mushy and romantic for you,” Wanda deadpans.
“I only said that because we were in the car with Tony, but don’t tell anyone else, got it?” She asks with a raise of an eyebrow.
Wanda nods, grinning. “Want to go to one of her upcoming concerts?”
“If I’m not busy, I’ll take you,” She agrees.
They finish setting the table and wait for everyone to come down, talking amongst each other.
“I’m starving,” Pietro says, sitting down at his spot, his mouth watering at the sight of the different sandwiches and sides that were on the table.
“Me too,” Yelena agrees, taking a seat next to Kate. A tired-looking Ava walks in along with Peter who was trying to tell her a few jokes. They both sit down. No one waited for everyone to get here to start eating. They weren’t those types of people.
“Hey, kiddos, rough day?” Tony asks, taking his sunglasses off and putting them in his suit pocket.
“I haven’t worked out like that in a long time,” Ava says after putting her sandwich back down.
“Gonna have to get used to it,” Pietro tells her. “That’s how it is every day unless you’re sick or are having a mental health day.” She grimaces at his words.
They all go back to their own conversations. Peter, Pietro, and Kate arguing over a game, Yelena and Natasha talking about doing something on Sunday after training, Wanda and Ava asking each other how their day was, and talking about a tv show they both watch, and everyone else talking about upcoming missions or something boring.
“So we can both agree that Nancy is a total badass, right?” Ava asks, talking about Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things.
“Of course, who wouldn’t agree with that?” Wanda asks herself.
Ava makes a bunch of hand gestures out of excitement. “Right! And Robin and Nancy are the best Nancy ship.”
“No, they’re like second best. Nancy and Jonathan are really cute.”
“They’re second best for me. I just feel like they are drifting because of the long distance. In my experience, long-distance does not work at all,” Ava states matter-of-factly.
“True, but I still love them more than Robin and Nancy.”
“You wound me, woman.” They both laugh.
“What are you guys talking about?” Peter asks.
“Nancy’s best ships. Wait, Peter. Nancy-Robin, or Nancy-Jonathan?”
“Nancy-Jonathan, sorry Ava. They have so much chemistry,” He says and Ava looks offended.
“Y’all just don’t have the same gaydar as me. They’re gonna happen,” She swears.
“Whatever you say,” Wanda laughs.
“You guys obviously don’t see the sexual tension between Nancy and Steve,” Kate says. Ava, Peter, and Wanda make a face.
“No, they need to move on from them. They were so long ago!” Wanda exclaimed.
“Yeah, they’re over. Eddie and Steve though,” Ava says with a weird face at the end, loving her gay ships.
“You just ship them because it’s gay,” Pietro chuckles.
“Well, duh. Look whom you’re looking at, Pietro,” Ava says with a choked laugh.
Yelena sat there, zoned out, and not contributing to their conversation. Natasha had noticed and stopped her conversation with Steve to talk to her.
“What’s up, Lena?”
“She’s taking all my friends away,” Yelena grumbled, not looking at the redhead.
“Yelena,” Natasha says softly. “I know you think she’s taking them away, but she’s really just trying to get to know them, and fit in. Like how everyone else did when they came here.”
“She doesn’t want to make friends with me.”
“She probably thinks you don’t like her and is keeping her distance out of respect. You just have to talk and get to know her like they’re doing.”
Yelena looks over at her friends and Ava who are laughing and still arguing over Stranger Things ships.
“Just start talking out of nowhere like they did. You’ll forget you were ever upset with her, trust me,” Natasha says.
“Do you guys ship Max and Eleven?” Yelena asks, a little shakily, taking Natasha’s advice.
“Yesss! Oh my God. I love them so much. You’re my new favorite person,” Ava says, half-joking.
“Hey! I thought I was your favorite person!” Wanda says, scrunching her nose up.
“Well, Yelena probably ships Robin and Nancy too, right?”
“They’re cute,” Yelena shrugs, agreeing with her.
Ava beams at the blonde. “See!”
Maybe Ava wasn’t too bad, the blonde thought.