InsaneJournal

Diego made it a point to try and never deliberately underestimate an opponent, but Ava had played coy during their bout, starting off with only the basics and gradually showing him that she was far more skilled at boxing than she'd initially let on. He was actually having fun with it, until she punched him and her fist went right through him.

"What the…" he started to say, looking down to prove to himself he wasn't seeing things or losing his mind. He wasn't. However, he was suddenly exposed and she chose that moment to hit him with an uppercut to the jaw.

"Oh, that's cheating," he said, lifting his eyes back up to her and shaking his head, taking a step back as he rubbed his glove against his jaw. Yeah, that one was going to sting.

It wasn’t often, if ever, anyone had expressed much interest in her, outside of her abilities and how to exploit them. Which made Diego’s tactics to meet her all the more suspicious. Especially since he felt awkwardly bad at the whole friendly welcome thing. And gym rat definitely felt more like a cover for somebody who clearly had more extensive training. Ava knew the type, had gone through similar enough training, and could spot an agent out of a crowd. She’d been on the run enough. Whether he was more the SHIELD or HYDRA type was a bit more difficult to determine, although the lines between those were blurred these days.

But if he was on to her, maybe it was better to confront the situation head on. She held back long enough to finally get a feel of his strength and fighting style, waiting to see if he perhaps had any special abilities of his own before she decided she finally had enough and got straight to the point by punching through him.

She huffed a laugh at his accusation of cheating. “Hardly,” she wiped her forearm across her brow, still even in a defensive stance even though the fight was likely over. Ava didn’t trust easily. “So who sent you after me?”

"Oh I think it is," he said, confirming her suspicions as he took off his gloves. But she'd sparked his curiosity all the same, both in that punch and her question.

"Who do you think?" he asked. Seemed like it could be relevant, even if he doubted she'd answer. So he did. "You did, if you can call that post sending me after you."

A pause. "So how the hell did you do that?"

“Sounds like something a sore loser would say,” Ava remarked, watching him take off the gloves before pulling off her own, letting them drop to the ground. “Do what?” she asked boredly, flexing her fingers, knowing exactly what he was referring to, but not all that interested in elaborating about her abilities. Not when he wasn’t clearly answering her own question. Because she didn’t quite buy it, and her narrowed eyes made that quite clear as she looked him up and down again.

“You have the right build. But you make a terrible undercover op.” Unless that was the tactic, lulling her into false security.

"Yeah, I didn't even make it through the police academy, so I definitely didn't get through whatever you're talking about," Diego replied. He looked at her a moment, sizing her up properly, before shaking his head. "Don't know you. Sorry?" She sure seemed to expect that he'd recognize her, somehow. "But I thought we were headed to lunch after this? Since you cheated, we didn't even break a sweat, really."

She considered for a moment that perhaps he was telling the truth, and knew she wasn’t going to get much further without threatening him. Besides, she was a bit hungry and her suspicions of his intentions were already dwindling. Maybe people here were just weird. Maybe all he wanted with her after all was a fight. “Not cheating,” she crossed her arms, amused. But he didn’t seem to be taking the loss all that hard, or else she’d reconsider on lunch altogether. She nodded at the mention of it, not sure what around here was even worth going to, but she sure as hell wasn’t picky.

“And good, because I don’t like cops.”

"I liked one," Diego replied with a shrug, having no desire to explain that further. "Turns out it's easier to work outside the system."

A few minutes later they were outside, and he was explaining he'd only been there a couple of days himself and no idea what was around either. But the weather was nice, and neither of them seemed to be too particular about where they'd end up, so he wasn't concerned.

"By the way, the only organization I've ever been part of was the Umbrella Academy," he told Ava. "And considering my dad ran it and he's dead, there's no way he sent me after you." Well technically, it would have been possible but he didn't really think Klaus was going to pass along Reginald Hargreeves' orders from beyond the grave.

“One whole cop,” she laughed, briefly wondering if it was whoever inspired him into joining in the first place. She knew Bill was the reason she made the mistake of trusting SHIELD at all, even when they had dragged her off far too young. But admittedly Ava wasn’t actively listening to Diego, still a bit wary of being out openly in public, after so long being on the run. Her eyes scanned the people they passed, and she wasn’t particularly subtle about checking behind them either.

But she quietly switched sides with Diego when she noticed herself flickering slightly, really not wanting to draw too much attention. He said something about umbrellas? Ava glanced up at the sky, frowned. “Doesn’t look like it’s gonna rain.”

Diego glanced over at Ava as she mentioned the weather, working out that she hadn't paid him any attention, but he had noticed she seemed nervous. "So did you actually do something worth tracking you down over?" he asked her. He still wanted to know about that punch, but it didn't seem like she was too keen on explaining it to him and he wasn't going to keep asking. The flickering thing was new to him too, but he was starting to expect weirdness.

And well, his family was weird too.

There was a restaurant up ahead and he pointed it out. "That doesn't look too offensive." It didn't look like anything special either, but that was a point in its favor. "Will that work?"

“Not a thing,” she evaded, because the subject really wasn’t something she opened up all that easily about. And she frowned, tracking back to his previous statements. “Sorry about your dad,” she sighed, “unless he was an ass. Then sorry about that too.” Ava wasn’t all that skilled at this small talk thing, shoved her hands in her pockets to keep her fingers from twitching too much. Diego seemed fine. Kinda normal. Kinda not. She wasn’t the greatest judge of character. But she knew she probably came off weird.

“Hey um, maybe you can just order something to go,” she suggested, glancing through the window and seeing far more people in there than she wanted to deal with. Sitting casually in a restaurant really wasn’t her thing after having spent so much time as a shut in. Even if she had to accept maybe nobody was actually after her here. “Please?” Except she didn’t really have an alternative suggestion for where they take the food. Maybe this was a bad idea.

"He was an ass," Diego nodded. Maybe she'd been paying attention after all. He shrugged, not one to elaborate on the finer details of his life.

When she suggested they get take out, he looked inside, and then back at her, brow raised. "You gonna be out here when I get back?" he asked. There wasn't a menu posted, so he asked her if she had any sort of food preferences that he could work with. If she was really being tracked, or at least had been afraid of that prior to her arrival, he could see why she wouldn't want to eat in public. And none of this was really all that off-putting, so he was willing to go along with it.

“If I was trying to ditch you, I’d have already left,” Ava promised, although the thought had crossed her mind. Not so much because of him. But he was at least going along with it, and even though he was asking questions, he wasn’t pressuring too hard. Not like that dragon hippie. “Sorry, not trying to be difficult,” she ran a hand through her hair, knew it probably looked more a mess than usual after their match. Not like she cared.

“Just don’t get me a salad,” she warned, and then waited off to the side of the building while Diego went in to order, feeling a bit ridiculous literally hiding in the shadows. Ava grit her teeth in frustration, trying to work out what she was meant to do from here. The entire circumstances of being pulled into some parallel universe was weird enough, and it wasn’t like she had some great life back home she was missing or scrambling to get back to... although Bill not being around certainly didn’t help. Or the Pyms. Basically anyone capable of helping her. Not quite having her bearings on the situation wasn’t helping her paranoia either.

As he ordered, and then waited, Diego considered Ava. She was odd, and he didn't know what her deal was which was a warning flag. People would be hiding for a multitude of reasons and he was trusting his instincts that hers were not of ill-intent. There was the flickering, and that punch. It reminded him somewhat of Five, if she had less control than he did. She certainly wasn't forthcoming, but he didn't fault her on that. Trust was something that was earned, and he didn't grant it easily himself. Not with anything of consequence.

Emerging from the building fifteen minutes later with food, he found Ava and waved her over, then started walking back to the gym. "I only have water," he cautioned. "If you wanna stop and pick up something else."

“Water’s fine,” she responded with a noncommittal shrug, even less picky about that than the food. But she tried to sneak a peek at what he ordered, reaching over to poke at the bag. Whatever it was, it smelled good. “Sorry if I’ve been...” Ava hated that she was apologizing again, didn’t really like coming off that way. “Odd, I guess,” she looked over at Diego, to see if he’d try denying it. She hoped not, she preferred people to be a bit more sincere than spare her feelings.

“It just seemed suspicious somebody wanted to spend time with me.” Because that was definitely new, but then again she had never ventured into any sort of social media that wasn’t completely anonymous. “But I suppose you’re just new too and trying to... get settled in.” Ava picked up the pace a bit when she saw the gym, definitely wanting back inside. “And normal sorta people make friends. So maybe that’s not actually suspicious.”

In response to her apology, Diego just cocked his head at her, a half-formed smile on his lips. It didn't bother him that she was odd, but she was definitely odd. They made it back to the gym, and he nodded at her to follow him to the back and down the hall, where he checked to see that nothing had been disturbed before holding the door open for her.

"You're not so odd that I'd want to keep away," he informed her, unpacking the bag which had two containers in it. "Take your pick." He left her with that decision, grabbing two waters from the fridge, handing one over.

Ava opened both containers of food to inspect them, wondering if there was meant to be a wrong or right choice in her decision. Except Diego didn’t seem to be the type setting her up for anything, and goddamn constantly being under observation and treated like a science experiment made her read into stuff way more than she should. But recognizing that at least made it a bit easier to relax and take the noodles, even if they were bound to be the messier of the options. She dug around the bag for a fork, unwrapping it while watching him, still studying the way he moved. He definitely had more training than just a failed attempt at the police academy or punching things at a gym, but she definitely didn’t understand the bit he was going on about with the umbrellas.

Making a grab for the water, her hand passed through it, and she faltered, eyes narrowed slightly in concentration to snatch it a bit more forcefully away from him than she intended. “It used to be worse,” she offered without further explanation.

"Yeah?" he asked. "So like a superpower you don't necessarily want? Couple of my brothers were like that." He didn't really know Klaus's current stance but if he was staying sober, he was dealing better than before. And he had no idea what Vanya wanted anymore to include her one way or the other.

"My power…" he offered, not saying anything further. He just picked up a knife and threw it forward, then watched as it curved around and embedded itself in the dresser. Then he picked up the second container and carried it off to a chair, figuring she'd follow suit.

She watched the trajectory of the knife, slightly intrigued by the clear bending of the laws of physics. Hawkeye was known to be an absurdly good shot, but this was something else entirely. And then she finally smiled before hiding it behind a swig of the water because he was a bit less normal than she first thought, which made her feel slightly less of a freak in comparison. “Bet you’ve pissed people off playing darts.”

She followed to sit, placing the food in her lap and took some time winding the noodles around her fork in thought, thankful to have a meal she hadn’t stolen for once. “Definitely never asked for it,” she knew some of the Avengers were the result of their own consent in whatever fucked up experimentations they underwent. Some didn’t have powers so much as built their own abilities. And then whatever the hell Vision was supposed to be. She shoved the food in her mouth, already picking up on the fact they were from quite different universes. Maybe the Avengers weren’t even a thing where he was from. Maybe SHIELD wasn’t either.

“I was taken by a government agency as a child. Trained and weaponized.” She speared a chunk of meat, sighed because she already regretted her next words. “That’s who I’ve been running from.”

Her comments about darts got a full smile out of him, as well as a slight laugh, but he neither confirmed or denied the accuracy of her statement. Instead he observed and listened because he didn't think she was going to repeat any of this later on.

"Fuck," he said, because being turned into a weapon by the government seemed even worse than his own childhood. "My dad bought me as an infant then raised me and my siblings as a child superhero fighting force. The Umbrella Academy."

It was nice getting a laugh out of somebody, showed she wasn’t a completely miserable excuse for company and helped cut the tension a bit. By how tightly she was gripping the plastic fork, Ava realized she was a bit tense waiting for his reaction. Because wannabe cop might not have been the most sympathetic to being on the run from the law.

Except that line of thinking immediately screeched to a halt and she nearly choked on a bite of noodle. “Bought?” Ava coughed, stared, waiting for some sort of punchline that obviously wasn’t coming. He was serious. “Did you come out throwing knives?” Because how would they know a baby was anything special? And then, “Why the fuck umbrellas?”

Again, Diego laughed, amusement at her reaction mixed with the bitterness he still held toward his father. "It's this thing. There were 43 of us born the same day, same time, to mothers who weren't pregnant when the day began. My father started a collection and got seven. Couldn't tell you what happened to the rest."

He set his fork down and pushed his sleeve back, holding up his arm to reveal the Umbrella Academy tattoo. "Branded us, even. But I don't know why umbrellas. If he ever told us, I didn't pay attention."

He resumed eating with a shrug. "My sister wrote a book, if you're ever curious. I read it and then used it as kindling."

Well that was beyond weird as far as origin stories went. Ava wondered if they ever did paternity tests to reveal if there was some greater pattern. Because clearly he couldn’t be a clone of his mother, and something would have influenced a chain of supernatural pregnancies. But while Ava was curious she wasn’t much of a scientist herself, only spent too much time around them, and didn’t want to subject him to the same clinical scrutiny that she was sick of herself.

And the how wasn’t really the point so much as all the shit that happened afterward, and she frowned while looking at the tattoo. She wondered how young they were when they got started, how old he might have been for his first kill and if it had haunted him the same way hers did. Ava looked down at her food, hesitating before another bite. There was no point in wasting it.

“Some great scandalous tell all, or just promotional stunt?” Ava wasn’t really so sure she wanted to read about somebody else’s life, wasn’t sure if he actually wanted her to or if there was more behind Diego’s comment if he suggested burning it. “There was a superhero team in my world too, but I wasn’t exactly invited to join it. We were working for the same people. I just got to do the things they didn’t want the public knowing about.” Though Ava was more than happy to not get mixed up in all the Accords nonsense that happened after, was happier to be out of the public eye and scrutiny. Even if isolation was the consequence.

"Something like that," Diego replied, not really answering the question. "Book would be terribly out of date now, anyway."

He'd noticed her frown, noticed the way she'd hesitated to turn back to her food. So when she mentioned her role, he debated asking more about it then or waiting for later, but curiosity got the best of him. "Yeah? Like what?"

He was done with his food anyway, so he set the container aside and then opened his bottle of water and drank a quarter of it in one go.

Ava winced at the question pushing for elaboration, and she flickered rather noticeably in a sudden desire to get away. There’d been only one other time she shared this story and it had been at her lowest point. Ava bit her tongue sharply, didn’t want to snap at Diego when this was one of her few interactions since then, and it was going so well enough. And she’d been the one that brought it up. She wondered briefly if perhaps she misjudged his situation. Maybe the type of child heroics he was doing was the saving kittens from trees types of stunts. But knife throwing had led her to suspect otherwise, it seemed a skill that seemed most suited to killing. Or was that just where her own mind went, the kind of person she was?

“What do you think?” she sounded slightly more defeated than annoyed, it wasn’t his fault she had become a murderer on behalf of an agency that practically kidnapped her. Sure she had been impressionable, without much alternative, and she had protested at first. But she had done it all the same, and that’s what stuck with her. “Started small. Spying, stealing. And then before long assassinations. They assured me it was deserved, the first few times. That they were bad people.” Ava shrugged, never really had any full details on her targets. “Eventually I just stopped asking questions.”

Her answer didn't really surprise him, even if it went far beyond the boundaries of what he personally knew. He just watched her, nodding in silent acceptance when she finished talking, taking another long drink of water before he said anything in reply. "You're not the only assassin I know," he told her, though he didn't mention that the other one was one of his brothers. "And not the first one to be cornered into it. But you stopped, and were on the run from that organization."

That told him what he needed to know, no further judgment necessary if she was telling the truth. His instincts told him she was, and he was inclined to trust those more than he'd trust another person.

"Or still are, I guess." If any of the people looking for her were actually here.

“It’s not just them,” she admitted, not sure how much she wanted to get into about the infiltration by HYDRA, the file leaks and the exposure, putting her files out there for anyone to read if they managed to dig through the massive file dump and knew what they were searching for. What she had done on behalf of them made her a threat to other government agencies, who had decided if she was no longer operating as an asset, her being out of their control made her a dangerous liability to put down instead. And other governments looking for revenge hits after some rather high profile assassinations now on her name.

“After what I’ve done, it’s not like I expected to be able to live a normal life. That’s always been out of the question, since the accident.” After another small bite, Ava determined she was done even with most of the meal left. She could save it for leftovers, at least, and she looked slightly apologetic as she put the lid back on the container. “I knew better, I had always known better. I found new ways to justify it to myself. But they promised me a cure, and... I wanted so badly to be fixed. To stop hurting so much. So I was stupid and believed them.” Ava’s laugh was short and bitter.

“Look, Diego. I’m kinda fucked up. And you seem nice.” She held up the container slightly to illustrate the point, kinda hoping he’d draw the unspoken conclusion himself, that she wasn’t the type of girl to get mixed up with.

He ignored Ava's last statement, more focused on another. "It hurts?" Diego asked her quietly. There was so much more to unpack in what she'd just told him, but he zeroed in on that.

“Not as much as it used to, but my condition isn’t exactly stabilized,” she hesitantly admitted, because ignoring the pain made it easier to deal with, and talking about it made her more aware of the burning of her nerves. She rubbed her arm uncomfortably. “I almost killed the woman who helped me, the wife of the scientist who-“ Ava cut herself off, had promised herself she was finished blaming the Pyms for everything that had gone wrong in her life. Even if it had been his research that set it all off. Hank hadn’t been the one that used her, and they had been the only people outside of Bill that ever followed through with helping her. Until...

“Until she disappeared. Along with half the damn universe. And at that point I had nobody, pretended I was gone too. Took the opportunity to go completely underground.” Ava looked away, fidgeting slightly with the fork she still held. “So I’m really not sure to do with all... this.”

All this was a lot. A lot for her to deal with and a lot for him to take in. But at the same time, he wasn't actually running from it. Or her. "Well, just so you know, fucked up doesn't bother me." Who wasn't at least a little bit fucked up anyway? And with his family, they were all too familiar with the concept.

"And I'm not as nice as you think."

It’d be easier if he recognized all this as a deal breaker, spared them both the frustrations she knew she’d put him through. Because Ava knew she wasn’t exactly the most stable person, even when she was trying to make a solid effort at it. And eventually he’d figure that out the hard way. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” she sighed, because she really didn’t want to push all that much harder and get him to actually agree. Because bad idea or not, she knew she was lonely and could at least use some sort of ally in this place if she was meant to figure out how to get by.

Which felt horribly selfish of her. What she couldn’t understand was what Diego possibly got out if it. She debated asking, but it felt a bit too combative, accusatory. And there was no point circling back around to that already. “Oh?” she simply followed up instead, chin in her hand, giving him a chance to follow up on that statement but not really expecting him to.

She had a way of drawing an amused smile out of him, and that's how he met her prompting. "Yeah, ask any one of my siblings. Especially Vanya, the one with the book."

He decided to elaborate, explaining how Vanya got excluded due to being ordinary. "I got so mad at her when these two assholes…" The word wasn't really strong enough, but Diego wasn't going there wth this conversation. "These two assholes came after my brother, who wasn't even in the house, and Vanya didn't take the chance to escape. So not only did we have to fight them off, we had to keep her from getting hurt."

He shrugged. "Turns out she did have powers, and we did a really shitty job of stopping her from blowing up the moon and destroying the earth. Here, she hasn't quite lived through that yet, but if you do ever read her book you'll note she's not my biggest fan. And I"m not hers, either, really."

But maybe they were working on civility. "The manor's here. My entire family that's here lives there, except me."

So he didn’t get along well with his siblings, which wasn’t much of a surprise given the circumstances. Sounded like the resentments ran deep all around. Or maybe it was just him, if the rest were living together without issue. For however long before he just showed up. How awkward. Either way, she didn’t blame him much. “Mm,” she raised her eyebrows at the moon blowing up, moved her hand to her mouth to try and stifle a bit of a laugh. Because damn, the world really was fucked somehow or another no matter the universe. And here they were in another, that would probably find another dramatic way to end.

“Don’t know much about family issues. Mine’s dead, and this curse is all my father left me with.” Because yeah, she had finally accepted the mistakes as his own without it taking away from the tragedy of the situation. “He was a scientist. Got sloppy. Boom,” it was a rather simplistic version of the events, but detailing it wasn’t exactly what she was in the mood for. “Where’re you staying then?” And maybe that was a bit forward. She snapped at the other guy for having asked her the same.

"Damn, Ava." Diego hadn't been expecting that story, and it showed on his face as she told it. For as much as he tried to maintain a stoic facade, she'd just broken through it. But it was one thing added on top of the other with her. He didn't say anything else for a moment, trying to process all of it.

But then he shook his head, sensing she didn't want to dwell on the topic. "Oh. Sorry. Didn't exactly give you the tour, did I? So this is my place. Bed, kitchen, bath… Living space." He pointed out each space helpfully. With the exception of the bathroom, it was all one open area. "Came with me from home."

He gestured to the cross stitch on the wall that his mother had made to illustrate that point. Other than the knife collection and a few wall decorations it was rather spartan. The way he liked it.

He set his empty water bottle down as he looked at her, everything she'd told him kicking around in his mind. He wasn't the most apt at handling his emotions, much less someone else's but he couldn't help but wonder what she was thinking right then. "You good?"

Ava took a look around, and she had noticed things in the room before, casually thinking it was perhaps a back area for staff or whatever, but with the revelation that it was where he was now living and had been living before he even got here, she took it all in with a new understanding. “Oh,” she wasn’t sure what to make of that. “It’s... cozy?” Her eyes lingered on the cross stitch as he indicated toward it, wondering who made it. Probably not the sister he was having troubles with.

Yet this seemed more stable than her own living situation had been, though now she had some empty apartment that was entirely unfamiliar to her. But it was a roof over her head and a place to sleep for the meantime, and she still wasn’t overly eager to invite anyone over. “I guess I didn’t really have anything to bring here with me,” she admitted, finding it all strange still how even their housing could show up. Was all this space empty before?

“Me? Yeah,” she responded automatically, because there wasn’t exactly anything wrong in the moment. She stared at him, trying to figure out what was going on, what was expected from here. They sparred, had finished eating. That was the premise of this meeting. Was she supposed to go now? What would be the signs that he wanted her to leave, or if maybe she could stay a bit longer? Did she want to stay? Ava really didn’t have other plans, elsewhere to go. She wanted to wait til night to go exploring, when her condition might be less noticeable. Should she invite Diego out for that? He was new too, maybe he also needed to get out and see the town they’d been dumped in. Or maybe that was too much for one day. She found herself not minding the thought so much, Diego wasn’t exhausting to be around for her twitchy introverted tendencies. Even if she had liked Scott, there definitely was only so much she could take of him before she needed to retreat. But this…

Ava stood, the sudden realization of what was happening, glad her complexion mostly disguised the sudden heat she felt in her cheeks. Oh no. “I should probably get going.”

Not being privileged to Ava's inner monologue, Diego was caught off guard by her declaration, but if it showed, he didn't ask her. "Yeah, alright," he nodded. "We should spar again sometime. Now that I know what you're capable of, you won't catch me so off guard."

He found it equally easy to be around her, and he wasn't really a fan of most people. They always wanted things from him, or expected him to behave or act a certain way. All Ava had required was that he didn't walk out of the restaurant with a salad. And maybe it was her quirks, or the way she kept a lookout the entire time they were out in public. He tended to keep an eye on what was going on around him, and often got teased for it, but if his time in the Umbrella Academy had taught him anything, it was that you couldn't ever be too prepared. So even if she had vastly different reasons for doing so, it was nice not being the only one keeping an eye out.

But he wasn't going to try and keep her there if she was ready to go. "See you around, then?"

Ava huffed a bit in amusement at the invitation for a rematch, and she wasn’t sure if it was more of a chance to regain his pride or if he was asking to see her again. She turned on her heel, an afterimage of her lingering to keep staring before it too spun around to catch up with the rest of her tangible body, leaving a blurred streak behind as she stalked to the door. “Um. Yeah,” she answered, and she cringed because what sort of answer was that supposed to be. Was she trying to sabotage herself? Well, she reasoned, it seemed easier than setting herself up for worse.

But damn, one of the first people she was managing to get along with in so long, and she was already running away like a coward. Ava hesitated. “I’d like that,” she agreed, just loud enough with her back still turned for it to maybe be audible. She didn’t want to wait and find out, strolling right through the wall instead of taking the door like any normal person might, her mind reeling. Crushes were childish. Silly. She’d be over it in a few days, she figured.