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I.
S.H.I.E.L.D. has more secrets than there are stars in the sky; and most of them are his.
*
“I’m sorry, but I want her,” Alexander Pierce says to his Russian friends. They balk, they speak quickly and in honeyed words. A sweetness that works, ultimately.
Makes him agree: “Fine,” he says, “Your man will take the lead.” In the end, he thinks, there’s a weakness inside of him for the asset. A weakness for a known quantity; a weakness for his utter, utter submission.
But she-- she can work true wonders.
*
He watches her with some interest. She moves through walls, shifts her hand to touch a man’s heart and tears it out, and he-- he feels the old lust for life in watching her in action. Something he hasn’t felt in years, not since he saw the Winter Soldier program in action the first time.
He won’t let anyone in HYDRA touch her; she’s different from the asset. Something to be cared for; something precious.
*
Once, she works in tandem with the asset and Alexander reads the status reports as if it’s the great American novel; his heart beating in his chest at every twist and turn. They work well together; the soldier’s savage brutality and her ephemeral lightness. Unbeatable.
They lay out an army together, and the intel they bring home changes the direction of a war.
Alexander devours what footage exists; he watches her eyes follow the asset, watches a real softness in her gaze. Competence is a seduction of sorts.
“He’s good,” her report says. “I want him on my six.”
He turns his head, closes his eyes. Breathes in. Denies all requests for the Winter Soldier to be matched with her again.
*
The medics inform him that she’s fertile, and he considers it. Considers what would happen if he willed-- if he allowed--
Her powers are due to an accident; the asset, all HYDRA. She might not carry to term, and there’s no promise of a transference of her considerable power.
“No,” he tells them. “Request denied.”
*
She spies for him. Opens her mouth and tells him so many secrets, so many things he never thought were possible. He listens to her, his eyes on her lips as she speaks. Surprised yet again how easily she got into impossible places. Heard impossible things.
“You’re an angel,” he tells his ghost.
*
She kills for him. Shoves her hand into the reality of men’s bodies, twists those fingers. In the sound of a snap, she’s ended a life and moved on to the next: ruined them too.
There’s no denying her this: she’s more efficient than the asset at close range. There's no denying this: she doesn’t look back after a man has crumbled to his feet.
Her powers are due to an accident, but HYDRA brought the child up. Taught her everything she knows.
*
Foster begs to see her and Alexander denies him. “She’s on a mission,” he says every time. Sometimes while watching her sleep in her bunk.
*
She’s a woman when she offers herself up to him. “Sir,” she says.
It’s tempting, it’s easily within his grasp. He’s fucked the asset, of course. More than once, but mostly a couple of decades ago when Alexander looked-- when he looked like a different blond man. Made the dance more entertaining that way.
It’s tempting. She’s old enough to make her own decisions, and he’s all she’s had in this life. This was inevitable.
It’s tempting. His hand reaches for her, grips her face. Watches her fealty flicker in her eyes along with the ferocity of a young woman’s desire.
And he lets her go. “No,” he says.
*
Shortly after.
It happens outside his watch, it happens outside his knowledge.
The asset finds her, an oddly conflicted mission between the Russians and HYDRA. They stare at each other, uneasy. Knowing what would happen should he raise his arm, should she raise her hand.
Knowing they are two sides of the same coin.
Instead, she takes the first step, a dangerous one, and reaches for him like a woman drowning. Her loneliness acute. What inevitably follows: she finds solace in the heat of his skin, in the indifference of passion, in the desire for something that is simply her own; not an order to follow, not an action required.
He’s easily dealt with, her hand swift at his dick; but he takes his time between her legs. Takes his time tasting her. It’s hard, with her phasing, but he’s a patient man.
She’s never been happy, not since--
She’s never been happy and so this-- this intimacy is hard for her to stomach. Hard to understand it afterwards.
If she scuttles the mission, it’s forgiven. Her track record is so solid, she’s allowed a moment’s weakness.
*
He smells the asset on her, after. Knows what it’s like to be under those watchful eyes; fucked by fingers, tongue, and metal.
Reneges on his decision.
*
Alexander sends her into the heat of the war he’s waging for the next few years; get her lost in it. Snapping necks and relaying key facts; all the while, shifting through flesh and iron.
He sends her away.
*
He sent her away and he’s now faced with an asset who is failing, failing, failing. He’s faced with the endgame, he’s faced with an insatiable hero, faced with Steve Rogers.
He sent her away and he’s bleeding to death in the Triskelion.
II.
He’s dead and she’s alive.
Bill says: I’ve got you.
Bill says: Come with me.
Bill says: Trust me.
Ava hasn’t lived long enough to trust anyone; nevermind a man offering help, offering absolution. But his eyes are kind, and that’s something-- something new.
She never trusted Alexander Pierce; no matter what he did, no matter what he said. No matter what she did for him.
So she takes Bill’s hand. And wonders if this feeling in her chest is hope.
III.
She barely survives Thanos, but that’s another story.
IV.
Bucky finds her, thanks to Lang; he finds her and watches her carefully as she doesn’t phase. Doesn’t disappear into the wall, away from him. This is new.
Bucky finds her and she holds her chin up, recognition in her eyes. “We survived him,” she says.
He’s sometimes not sure; he’s sometimes not sure.
*
They go on a mission together; the good guys now.
She phases, he fires; her hand reaches, his fist slams. Information gathered, enemies neutralized. It’s an intricate dance; a beautiful thing.
“We’re good, like this,” he says. “You and me.”
“He taught us to be good,” she says; her expression doesn’t change when he flinches.
*
After, he watches as Lang gives her another dose from the quantum realm. Watches her flutter in and out of reality. “Thank you,” she breathes, color returning to her face, and Lang grips her shoulder, like a friend.
She almost killed him once, he knows. Her fingers almost twisted against his heart. Once.
*
He made us something to fear, he thinks.
*
“I never thought about what would happen to me after I was--”
“Cured?”
“After what was broken inside of me was fixed. I never thought--”
*
It’s late, and he’s in his room, just putting down his toothbrush when she phases through the door. “Bucky,” she says, the name new on her lips. “I--” she starts.
And he’s pulling off his clothes as she stutters to a silence, her eyes dark. He’s removing his clothes and she’s staring at him like a sentinel. He keeps his distance.
She’s against the door, her frame against wood. Unmoving. “I don’t know what I want,” she admits.
He nods. He knows what it is to have autonomy after a lifetime of--
She says: “I can still taste him in my mouth.”
Rage is an old friend these days, and he swallows it down. Shudders. “You’ll taste him in mine,” he says quietly.
It’s a kaleidoscope of color as she phases across the room, so close now that he can feel her body heat. “Then let’s be rid of him,” she says, her lips inches from his own.
He’s unwilling to close the distance, unwilling for this to be his choice, not hers.
Ava stares up at him, and he sees her sadness shift. “You okay?” she whispers, a moment before--
--a moment before he nods, and her lips crash against his.
*
If they dream, it’s only of the stars.
THE END