Growing Steady | Ava Starr x Reader
(One. Two. Three.)
➜ PLOT: Not being able to sleep, Ava finds Bob in the pantry for whatever reason. Peaches are eaten, feelings are shared, and Ava learns that it's about time she stopped running and started addressing her feelings for you head-on.
➜ WARNINGS: Not Proofread, No Use of Y/n, Cursing, 3 AM Talks, Bob and Ava Talk... A Lot, Reader Mentioned
⊱ ─── [ Enjoy! ] ─── ⊰
This was getting ridiculous. Bob couldn't stand it.
The stolen glances from you and Ava, her purposefully avoiding you, and putting a scowl on her face when you were paired together for assignments—missions—just to show you that she was annoyed.
She wasn't annoyed. She never was, and in fact, when you were paired together, her fragile and barely stitched back together heart skipped in excitement.
She could hide it all she wanted, but Bob saw through her acts. Bob saw the hidden smirks she did when you did something she liked, she saw how she would put a protective hand behind your back when everyone checked up on each other after being tossed around like ragdolls.
Bob saw that she cared, and to him, she did a pathetic job at hiding it.
Bob didn't mean to spill his thoughts about this to Yelena—it just happened.
They were having their weekly emotional debriefing about whatever stressed them out that week or how their mental state was when he spilled the beans.
"Yeah, and it felt suffocating, y'know?" he confessed to Yelena in the dimly lit corner of his room. "Like I was putting on a face to conceal my happiness like Ava does with—" he cut himself off, but Bob was too late. Yelena was already grinning with her arms wrapped around her knees.
"No, no," the Russian woman's grin only grew, "continue. Continue with what you were saying."
Lips pressed tight, Bob rapidly shook his head and pushed himself from the ground. He wasn't going to hear the end of this, not from Yelena and definitely not from Ava if she ever found out.
So, the following morning, Bob made Yelena swear not to relay what he almost told. Well, "made" as in profusely begging and offering to do something for Yelena in exchange for keeping her mouth shut.
She was going to regardless, already aware of the oogly eyes Ava and you make at each other, but getting Bob to do some extra things for her in the meantime never hurt.
And that's how Bob found himself organizing all different kinds of hot sauce and sugary cereals in the New Avengerz pantry at three AM. Prime time.
"What in the world are you doing?" questioned Ava, phasing out of the wall just beside the pantry. Bob yelped, almost losing his balance on the step ladder in the process. Ava shushed him.
With his balance regained, Bob moved to catch her gaze. "Wh-What does it look like I'm doing?" the startled boy gestured to the shelves of food. "I'm organizing."
Ava sighed and pulled a jar of peaches from beside him, reaching around his legs. Bob scolded her for almost making him lose his balance again but she ignored him and opened the jar. "No, shit, Robert. I meant why are you doing this at 3 am? You got another exisential crisis?"
Bob scoffed as Ava grabbed a plastic utensil. "No." Bob fiddled with the box of cereal in his hand, his eyes suddenly finding interest in the colorful bubble letters of the title. "I reserve those for Wednesdays."
"Healthy," she commented with a snort, taking a bite of the peach she stabbed with her fork.
"Yeah," he scoffed, "just like that peach you're eating."
Ava glanced down at the glass jar held protectively under her arm. The syrup of the peaches was thick and sweet, laced with both natural sugars from the fruit and artificial sugars from the preserving liquid. Biting into the peach was like biting into an oversized, soft piece of candy that gushed out its flavor with each bite. "Touche."
Bob took pride in her comment, an invisible point added to his scoreboard with a chuckle. "Thanks. Why are you up? Adding sugar to your already anxiety-ridden diet."
A sigh only to be described as deep, overwhelming, and probably residing deep within Ava's body poured out of her. With a blink, Bob found her slumped against the only bare wall in the pantry with her peaches still under her possession. "You're one to talk."
He shrugged. "Maybe. You seem like you're one who needs to talk, though. You know, if you want. I'm not gonna push you or anything. That's rude and totally against my character." He gave a lighthearted and awkward chuckle, but her smile resumed as it had been before: nonexistent.
And so, Bob returned to his chore of organizing and alphabetizing. Not that he needed to alphabetize, he just wanted to. Why not?
Ava remained on the floor, occasionally munching on her peach. If he were anyone else, Ava would've left the pantry altogether once she saw someone was inside, but that someone was Bob. Someone who often sat in her company with you in the common room.
She watched Bob work diligently in silence, well, besides the occasional and totally embarrassing slurp of her peach. Despite her chews and eased sighs, he continued working and rearranging the cereal by height and thickness. Then watched as he moved the same type of hot sauce bottles over and over.
Because they were all the same brand, they were all the same size. She easily assumed he was organizing by their "sell-by" date. Otherwise, what was the point of organizing something and its twin?
Ava groaned to herself. Was she really conspiring about his organizing methods?
She should leave. Let him continue to work while she moved to eat her peach in her room, where she didn't have to worry about looking like a toddler with peach syrup dripping down the sides of her mouth, but for some reason, she didn't care. She didn't have that fleeting feeling in her chest.
Bob climbed down the ladder, a short but satisfied smile on his face. He gave Ava another glance, acknowledging her presence as he folded up the stepladder and put it in its spot. And right before he left the pantry, she called out to him.
He whipped around at the sound of his name, his expression clear of his previously eased smile and replaced with something more attentive, something that said he was still holding onto a tether even after she told him to let go.
"I couldn't sleep."
Bob nodded, his fingers tapping on the doorframe. "Yeah, I figured. Sorry, was it me? Was it my pantry digging?"
She blew breath past her sticky lips, avoiding his gaze and instead taking notice of the cut of her sweats. "Partly." She could hear the deflation of his shoulders. "No," she added swiftly. "No, actually. Not at all."
"Oh." Bob peered closer to her, his steps barely making a sound on the floor. He didn't want their closer proximity to scare her off. Bob learned you had to treat Ava like a wild bear. Well, really, anyone on the team like a bear.
They shouldn't really be approached, but if you do, your steps should be quiet and calculated. If you want to know more of the bear, you shouldn't ask probing questions right away. You need to approach questions creatively and skip around, flat-out asking. You need to make them answer a question they didn't know they were answering.
Or, if your bear was smarter than average, and let's be honest, they all were, you needed to let the bear confess first. Give them the platform and space to be vulnerable.
The silence from Bob told Ava she should continue. Even though that voice in her head said she should do anything but. "I have insomnia, shocker. But I couldn't sleep, and I heard someone in the pantry, so I wanted to see who it was. I was hoping it was you."
"Yeah?" Bob was sat across from her now, legs stretched in front of him. "Any particular reason?"
A sideways glare from Ava typically meant "shut up", "you're stupid", or that you were crossing a line, depending on the context, but this glare? This glare was saying, "you know me too well and as much as I don't want to admit it, I'm glad you do." That's what Bob got anyway.
"You know, it won't kill you if you actually liked our company. If you found even the slightest bit of comfort from us," Bob teased with a gentle smile. Her glare didn't break but he could see the twinkle in her eye she wasn't trying to hide. "Even admitting that wouldn't send a lightning bolt down from Zeus himself to strike you."
A sigh escaped her lips but it wasn't as heavy as her previous. There was a hint of playfulness, Bob could feel it and see it in the corner of her mouth, tilting her head back to hide a smile.
"Look," he scooted forward so their bodies were parallel with each other. "My name is Bob, and I like your company, Ava." She snickered in response.
"I'm not admitting that."
"You don't have to but as you can see," he spread his arms out with a proud smile. "I said it and I didn't die." Ava used her foot to push at his arm, stifling her laughter but failing to do so. "See?" Bob pointed at her smile. "It's okay to let yourself smile, Ava."
She guessed it was technically to smile now. Things are getting better despite how much she hates the new attention she gets as a superheroine. She didn't even feel like she could call herself that yet. She wasn't doing anything that wasn't assigned to her.
She wasn't extraordinary. She was just her.
"I guess," she began her confession, "I was hoping it'd be you because you're easy to be around. There," she gave a lazy attempt to spread her arms like he previously did, but she ended up looking like the half-assed version of the shrug emoji instead. "I said it."
He grinned triumphantly. "That wasn't too bad, was it?"
"It was hell."
Bob snickered. "I'm sure it was. Regardless, I'm happy to be that rock for you. To be that space of comfort in a less than comforting world. You and ___ do that for me, too. Especially whern we're sitting around in silence, doing nothing but reading. Or when we watch TV on low and you're trying not to fall asleep but we all know its a lost cause."
Ava pulled at the sleeve of her shirt and chewed on her bottom lip, peaches forgotten by her side, yet the taste remained on her mouth. She didn't realize how much you two paid attention to her during your time together.
She would purposefully turn her body away from you both, pull a blanket so far over her head that you couldn't see her face. All these efforts to hide, to shield herself away from you two, and despite her efforts, you still saw her. The her she tried so desperately to hide.
"I-I'm sorry," Bob held out his hands, his fingers trembling. "Did I say something? I overstepped. I'm sorry—"
"—You don't have to apologize, Bob." Her light eyes found his.
For the first time tonight, Bob couldn't see any sense of her hidden self within them. She was finally breaking down her walls, letting herself be seen by him in a tender moment.
Ava figured, in this moment, what was the point of hiding everything? Hiding from Bob when he sees everything, ergo hiding from you, the person she's terrified to show everything to, yet longs for it anyway.
Bob was right. Letting the team know how much she liked them wasn't going to kill her. Especially if she started with you.
"Thank you," she resumed. Bob, face ridden with gentle confusion, tilted his head. She spoke before he could question. "You didn't overstep. In fact, you've helped me. I don't feel as anxious anymore and knowing that you're still around, wanting to talk to me even after seeing what I don't want you to... I don't know. I found comfort in that."
Gentle, Bob reached a hand for her knee. He kept his eyes locked on hers, nonverbally asking for permission, and when it was granted with a nod, he carefully grabbed the bone and gave it an affirming shake. "I know this is going to be hard to believe, and it's ironic coming from me, but you don't have to hide anymore or carry things on your own. The world might be scary, and putting your life on the line every day isn't exactly ideal, even if you get good karma from it now," they both shared a quiet laugh, "but you're safe within these walls. And us? Your team? We got you. And we're going to support you in any way you'll let us."
Ava opened her mouth to thank him, but just like she did before, he cut her off. "You just have to let us in first."
"I know." She returned the squeeze to his knee. "I can't guarantee I'm going to do it all the time and definitely not all at once, but I'm going to try."
"Good." Bob gestured for the jar of peaches, which she gracefully handed over. "Can I suggest starting with the person you stare at all the time?"
She scoffed, kicking his hand off her knee. "I do not stare."
"You do. And it's always at them. They stare too. Not that you two catch each other to ever notice it." Bob's comment was casual, like a shrug of the shoulders or swat of his hand, but it hit Ava like a truck.
She did notice your staring. Maybe it was about time she let you know that.
To Be Continued. | WC: 2,267
(૮ ྀིᴗ͈ . ᴗ͈ ྀིა: Sorry! There's going to be another part added to this fic. The chapter was getting too long and I felt Ava needed to go through an emotional transformation/awakening before anything would happen with the reader. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!)
