This is from a ghostwalker fic I'm working on. I decided to post a tiny snippet here because their tag is kinda dry rn and I need to hold myself accountable to finish this, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. Be warned: It's still very much a rough cut, but any feedback is appreciated. Hope you enjoy! (Also if you saw the other snippet from this that I posted and then deleted, no you didn't)
“How’d you end up alone anyway? Before...this?” He gestured between them.
Ava’s head tilted playfully. She mimicked his gesture. “This?”
John rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Friends—” she raised an eyebrow. “Teammates, whatever.”
The brunette laughed softly at her ability to get a rise out of him. He’d have to stop letting her and Yelena do that so easily.
“You’re deflecting.” He argued. It was easy enough to recognize, even if giving him a hard time was entirely in character for her.
She shrugged nonchalantly. “I’ve told you, I spent most of my life in a lab. Not many opportunities to make meaningful connections.”
John could smell bullshit. Ava certainly wasn’t the most well adjusted person he’d ever met. Far from it, actually. But she also didn’t act like you would expect a lifelong shut in who—as she had once put it—was only let out to spy, steal, and kill to behave. There had to be more history there. Someone in her life at some point who helped her turn out semi-normal. Albeit still kind of an asshole.
“Not one? Not even one of the scientists or shield agents or something?”
Her eyes narrowed skeptically. “You mean one of the scientists who held me captive and performed tests on me? Or the Shield agents who turned me into a weapon with the promise of curing me that they never kept?”
It was the perfect response to shut him down, unless he wanted to make himself look like even more of an ass.
“Fair enough.” he muttered, raising his hands in surrender.
The tension that had dissipated found its way back into the air between them. Suddenly the silence was uncomfortable again.
Ava stared down at her boots with a clenched jaw. Apparently he’d gotten under her skin, although he didn’t really know how. She usually brushed off comments from him like that. He found himself gaining sudden interest in the stitching on his pants, picking at it awkwardly. He was never good at handling fragile emotions. His ex-wife would confirm that in a heartbeat, even back when they first started dating in high school. In fact, especially back then. As outlandish as it might sound to some, he had matured since he was sixteen.
But he wasn’t famous for listening to his better conscience.
“They uh…they lied about curing you?” he asked into his lap. John knew the question might get him a glare at best and the silent treatment for the rest of the night at worst, but he didn’t really think it was fair that he was the only one offering up his problems for discussion so far.
When he got the courage to glance up at her, Ava was watching him carefully, as if to decide whether or not to entertain their conversation any further. Eventually, she relented with a nod.
“Of course.” she muttered bitterly. “Why else would I sell my soul to them?”
“Because you found a passion for espionage as a child?” he offered sarcastically.
Ava gave him the glare he’d been waiting for earlier.
“Why’d you want to become the new Captain America?” she turned the interrogation back on him.
“Anyone with an iota of humility?”
John nearly rolled his eyes for the dozenth time, but he decided not to give her the satisfaction again. “Well you should’ve seen the perks. Who needs humility when you can have your face on a beach towel?”
That got a chuckle out of Ava. It was short, but genuine, and the first one in his memory that wasn’t the result of a joke made at his expense. He decided that her smile was much more charming when he wasn’t being mocked by it. John noticed a sudden urge to try to make her laugh again, but dismissed it. Why would he care about making her laugh?
He considered her question instead. Why did he want to be Captain America? It wasn’t really like he actually wanted all that fame and attention that came with it. If he did, he’d act a lot more like Alexei. The self-obsessed Russian super soldier had tried hanging some of his old Red Guardian memorabilia in the watchtower’s communal living spaces as soon as they moved in, but Yelena thankfully put a stop to that. John could only imagine what his bedroom looked like though.
So no, it certainly wasn’t to bask in the glory. In fact, with foresight, the amount of pressure he eventually collapsed under should’ve been easy to see coming. Add to that the level of backlash and criticism he was inevitably going to receive, even without his major fuck up, and it wasn’t an appealing proposition in the slightest.
Honestly, John struggled to remember his thought process when he first accepted the offer. All he could recall was a sense of responsibility, and the weight of what he knew was a rare opportunity settling on his shoulders the day he got the call.
“I wanted to do good, I guess,” he admitted quietly. “Real good. Not just blindly follow orders from people who see me as an expendable pawn.”
He scoffed, throwing his hands up and looking around the abandoned rooftop they were camped out on, waiting to do the bidding of a woman who’d tried to incinerate him with the rest of her dirty laundry less than two months ago.
“Look at me now.” He shook his head.
“Finally disillusioned with the institution, are you?” Ava asked.
John looked away, out at the small town around them. He exhaled heavily and lifted a hand to massage his brow. A habit of his when he was deep in thought, as had been pointed out to him by multiple people.
“I think I was a long time ago. I just didn’t want to admit it because they’d give me a shiny medal and a new title…didn’t keep them from stripping them away from me at the end of it all.”
God, he was really just laying it all out on the table, wasn’t he? He’d already worked through more shit with his smart mouthed teammate in fifteen minutes than in four sessions with the therapist Olivia made him see after his first tour. He gave up on it by the fifth week because the man kept pestering him to open up more, and wouldn’t stop scribbling hidden notes every time he finally did, which just resulted in pissing John off more than anything.
Maybe it was the memories of overnight missions with Lamar that was lulling him into a false sense of camaraderie. Why else would he be spilling his guts when Ava had offered up hardly anything in return? Why would he be talking at all? Maybe he should just shut up and let them sit in silence for the next three hours. He’d certainly end up looking like less of an idiot by the end of the night.
“There was one scientist.” Ava’s sudden confession interrupted John’s spiraling thoughts. "His name was Bill."
TBC! Hopefully the first chapter of this will be posted soon on ao3, so keep an eye out if you're interested. Thanks for reading!
