Klaus Hargreeves (numberfour) wrote in thedisplaced, @ 2020-03-15 03:19:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, ava starr / ghost (mcu), klaus hargreeves |
WHO: Ava & Klaus
WHERE: Food….place?
WHEN: March 9th before Diego/Ava
WHAT: Getting cake b/c reasons
WARNINGS: Mostly just emotions, talk of Ava’s problems and Klaus’s addictions
STATUS: Complete
It was a few days into the cruise and that hopefully meant things had settled some from the initial rush of activity. She hadn’t bothered to leave her cramped room since she found it, not after her attempt to phase through the door had left her with a bloodied and bruised nose. The food quietly left by her roommate meant that her behavior was bordering on concerning and she wanted to avoid that becoming An Issue. Which meant that it’d probably be better to get out and prove she was still a functional human being, even if she didn’t feel like one most days. Even before she got thrown into space against her will. As surprising as Klaus’ invitation to go out after the absolute mess she had made of their conversation, Ava was more surprised that she agreed to go. But she needed something small and easy to start off with, and a straightforward task like going to find cake didn’t feel like something that could become too stressful. Because she wasn’t so invested in the cake itself, just the getting out. She banged loudly at Klaus’ door, had never met him in person even after awkwardly stumbling through interactions on the network with varying degrees of failure, because she was pathetically bad at socializing and he’d been more than willing to call her out for it. Which somehow had him still willing to meet her, and she hoped she somehow gave a better impression in person. Except she doubted it, knew her own track record well enough. Ava quietly fidgeted with the hems of her sleeves as she waited, staring at the number on the door, hoping that she got it right. That Klaus gave her the right one. That he was actually there. That this wasn’t some weird set up. Klaus wasn’t really lacking in people that didn’t know how to socialize. He wasn’t even sure he could claim to be amazing. His wardrobe and his general nonsense was enough to throw most people off. Today’s ensemble was pants that were potentially too tight, a see through shirt, and -until he went out, anyway - a very eccentric bathrobe. He didn’t really worry too much about what people thought. Or maybe he did. Only when it came to his siblings and Gwen, though. The banging at the door made him wonder if Diego hadn’t shown up again. He sighed, dragging himself off of his bed and to the door, to open it. “Oh. Hello, there.” This must be Ava. He looked her over. An interesting choice for Diego, but he didn’t disapprove of it. “Klaus Hargreeves. Let me just…” he shrugged the bathrobe off, flinging it in the direction of the bed. “Ready to search for cake?” If Ava hadn’t already stumbled through the awkwardness of accidentally discovering that Klaus and Diego were brothers, she definitely wouldn’t have guessed after this short impression alone. Even knowing that they were adopted. Bought. Whatever. The two weren’t much alike at all in demeanor. Or maybe that was how it was, having so many siblings. A need to differentiate from each other. Ava didn’t know. She didn’t have family. She smiled awkwardly, trying to ignore the fact that Klaus proudly had his nipples on display in an outfit that definitely attracted far more attention than she was comfortable with. But at least that meant people would be more likely to look his way than hers, dressed in drab shades of grey. “Uh,” she laughed, finding his ridiculousness distracting enough to ease her own nerves. “I’m Ava.” She glanced down the hallway, then the other direction, the quick turn of her head leaving a flickering blur that lingered even after she turned to face him again with a small shrug. “Not sure which way to go,” she admitted. Klaus was fairly certain that his differences made him all the more appealing and interesting. It was sad to see someone in such sad clothing, but not everyone could be as loud as he was when it came to clothes. Or personality. Just about everything he did was loud. “I figured you were.” Her and Diego could be a whole monochrome kingdom. He shrugged. She seemed all right anyway. It was a little strange to see that she didn’t seem exactly entirely put together. But he was trying not to stare at the blur. She did mention her fist went through Diego. “I don’t think the way matters entirely. We’ll find it eventually.” He stepped out of the room, letting the door shut behind them. “Let’s go…” He glanced both ways before starting toward the right. “This way. Maybe, if we’re lucky, they’ll also have ice cream.” “Yeah,” she agreed with no real conviction one way or another to ice cream, hands shoved into her jacket pockets so she’d stop messing with them. It was a bad habit. Gave away when she was anxious. And she followed after as Klaus took off down the hallway, trying to keep her own pace casual instead of her habit of stalking through public as if she were on a mission to murder somebody. Which for most of her life had been largely the extent of her time spent outside of the SHIELD facilities they transferred her between. But luckily it wasn’t so busy in the hallways. “So uh,” she realized her voice came out a bit softer than she intended, pausing to see if Klaus actually heard her. And then rethought what she wanted to say, scrambling to think of a new topic before the pause became painfully long, the seconds stretching out inside her mind, and Ava winced as it passed the point of obvious. “Nevermind.” Klaus had heard her. He was used to the whispers, slowly turning from white noise to actual, formed words and it wasn’t ever easy to tune out. He’d always needed help. He paused for a moment, turning to look at Ava. He gave her his most pointed look before going back to walking. He considered bringing up some stupid Diego facts to lighten the mood, some of his most embarrassing moments, but she’d reacted strangely to it the last time. He’d have to consider something else. “Do you think there are ghosts in space? Like Space Ghost? Lol. But that’s a cartoon. I looked up space ghosts and that came up. Can you believe it?” He sighed dramatically. “If only I had thought to download more content to amuse myself in this space-level boredom. At least until something starts trying to kill us. Last cruise it was dinosaur-people. Ben and I managed to kill a bunch of dinosaurs with his bellybutton kraken, though. Eldritch horror thingy.” He gestured vaguely. Maybe if he filled up the space with nonsense, she’d latch onto something and feel less awkward about it. “Did you just…” Ava’s eyebrows drew together, trying to make sense of everything he just spouted off when she was still stuck at the beginning. “Say lol?” But she shook it off, knew the only way to keep up was to roll with it. Because nothing he was saying was actually important, so much as filling the silence that she’d been unable, distracting her from her own self-consciousness. Which she felt slightly grateful for, whether or not it was for her benefit. “Nah. Space is fairly vast and overwhelmingly empty,” she decided to take the offer, as absurd a topic it was. “There are infinitely more stars out there than there are hypothetically ghosts floating about. And stars are significantly bigger. Yet we’re hardly close to any of them. So your odds of actually encountering a ghost, if they’re even out there, are… well, astronomically small. Literally.” She paused, then smiled widely. “So. The dinosaurs. Did they have feathers?” He looked over at Ava and shrugged. “All the kids are doing it.” But he wasn’t concerned about it. Really...everything here was as ridiculous as anywhere else. Plus, it seemed to get her to talk without seeming like it was a painfully uncomfortable experience. He’d have to work her out of that habit. At least around him. He couldn’t do anything for it around other people. And he didn’t really care that much about their abilities to get Ava to talk anyway. “So sad. They lied to me about space all my life.” Klaus put the back of his hand up to his forehead like he might faint from the idea of it, but luckily the vapors passed him and he was able to keep moving. “And Space Ghost will never interview me about my amazing life. Tragedy.” But he was going to be glad not to have any ghosts. Unless Ben showed up again. But he didn’t consider himself lucky enough for that. It was probably a sign of the general terribleness that was himself and his life that Ben was still gone after being brought back to life. “You know...I didn’t even pay attention to that part. I was trying not to die while using Ben’s bellybutton kraken to kill things. And then I got hurt a second time and no one was happy with me about it.” “There are a lot of misconceptions about space. And dinosaurs,” Ava shrugged, “Probably because the truth is less cinematographic.” As they turned a corner, Ava almost bumped into Klaus by taking the turn too sharply, her elbow and shoulder phasing into his side briefly out of habit to avoid collision. It was a normal enough occurrence for her, something she hardly blinked at, but she knew from experience that not everyone took it so well. She didn’t even really know how it felt to other people, just a numb static to her at this point. She didn’t like to ask. Didn’t really like feedback about how others personally felt about a condition that she was the one suffering from. “Sorry,” she muttered, because that at least felt like the polite thing to do when not-running into other people. “My handlers never really liked it when I got hurt either. Apparently sewing stitches into this is frustrating.” At least Ava got to avoid being injured most of the time. She was pretty certain she’d be dead a hundred times over from her missions otherwise. But there were a few times she’d gotten sloppy, caught up, distracted. Ugh, she really needed that cake. Ava carefully studied their surroundings as they passed by various areas of the ship, searching for exits as they went, places to hide, things to use as weapons. It was hard to let herself relax, and she felt her fists clench every time they passed by someone, sizing them up. “The truest misfortune. I feel so lied to.” He felt something, but he didn’t really understand what happened until he glanced down and noted her elbow seemingly coming out of his side. It was a little weird, but he wasn’t too bothered by it. He hung out with ghosts, after all. It was just another thing. She seemed to be concerned about it, though. “Eh. Not the first time someone’s walked through me. And that was a full body walk through.” He shrugged it off, stretching his arms over his head. “I mean, I’m not great at staying out of trouble. I’ve overdosed a couple times and I’ve been in and out of rehab. Then I show up here and keep hurting myself. Diego had it worse, though. Like not this version of Diego, but the one that was here then. Dropped from the sky by a flying dinosaur thingy. Was in a coma, lost an eye. But I guess it might get hard if you phase while they’re trying to work. But whatever.” He smiled at her, casual as you like. “I guess you better be careful here. The doctors are pretty chill, though.” Ava had been guilty of fully walking through people plenty of times, sometimes accidentally, often as an intimidation tactic. But Klaus seemed luckily unfazed by it, and she frowned curiously, wondering who else shared her abilities for him to have encountered it before (or was she overthinking it and he meant actual ghosts.) And the mention of doctors... She hadn’t even managed to make herself reach out to Jane Foster, even after Romanoff had gone through the effort of finding somebody willing to take on her case. Which made it difficult to contact Romanoff again, afraid her failing to hold up her end of the favor would have her on rocky terms with the woman that still intimidated her. Who seemed to have far more important things to do than put up with her bullshit in addition. Ava sighed, resigned. “I can’t control it very well,” she admitted. “It just gets worse. And one day I’ll simply just... fade away is a nice way to put it.” Except this wasn’t what she wanted to talk about right now. After half the damn world had turned to dust, how could she even complain? People that definitely deserved to continue existing more than she did had vanished. After everything she had done in desperation to cling on. But the bit about Diego was enough to distract her for a moment, had Ava wondering how much she should even ask as a follow up. Klaus seemed very open about divulging information that seemed otherwise sensitive. Except Ava was the type of person that thought most personal details were best left hidden, including what she even ate for breakfast (she hadn’t.) It was one thing to threaten information out of people, the work she had done for SHIELD, and another to pry into the business of somebody she maybe sorta cared about behind their backs. Which was why she was trying to avoid the topic of his brother with Klaus, didn’t want to overstep boundaries. So she’d keep the questions more general. “Is that a thing that... happens here a lot?” she asked, still trying to figure out this portal situation. Diego being in a coma, even if that was all before, made her... worried? Somehow more than the entire moon exploding nonsense. But Diego definitely still had both eyes, and hadn’t mentioned being here before, and that was difficult to wrap her head around, and she imagined it was even weirder for Klaus. If Klaus was capable of thinking anything was weird. “People coming back without remembering anything?” She’d listened to plenty of Bill’s theories on the multiverse and time travel and all that other quantum theory crap she knew she should care more about being a product of and all, but she couldn’t pretend she understood how it all actually worked. She was mostly of the opinion that shit was something people shouldn’t mess with. Because messing around too much led to freaks like her. “But he was okay though, right?” she asked quietly, didn’t know what difference it really made. He was fine now, except she was faced with the possibility he’d just run off and get into the same sort of trouble. People didn’t really change, did they. God, she hated heroes. Klaus studied her for a bit. “It happens occasionally, but sometimes they remember. Bucky left and never came back, but I doubt he’d remember me even if he did. But yay. Diego came back. He still remembers me, though. That’s my secret superpower.” He winked, trying to distract from the stuff with Diego. Mostly cause he’d realized late in the game that she and Diego liked each other and mentioning Diego’s idiotic bullshit was perhaps not the best idea. He could make jokes. “Oh yeah. He was totally fine. But you know. Went home, came back. Now he’s all better. Yay, Diego!” He grinned. “But you know. At least it wasn’t getting drunk during the zombie apocalypse and falling down the stairs. I dislocated my shoulder.” Another wink. “Everyone was very impressed, naturally. I am so amazing.” He could make it seem funny, light-hearted, like he was a ridiculous adult. All shine and distraction. He moved around a corner. “It really adds to my aesthetic. Gives me that sexy ‘just been kidnapped’ look.” Okay, so maybe he had no idea what he was saying now. He was just saying things. “What kind of cake do you like?” He saw the shops very close by. Maybe if he was eating cake, he would stop talking. Right. He knew the Winter Soldier, on a first name basis. She wondered if the man even would remember or recognize her, though for entirely different reasons. But it didn’t really matter. “Yay Diego,” she agreed flatly, though not without a small quirk of her lips. “But you,” and this time Ava kept her elbow solid enough to jab Klaus playfully in the side, and damn he was bony, “Are a mess.” But she at least sounded more endeared by it than judgmental. She gave him a once over. He certainly had an... aesthetic. Between the tattoos and the tight pants, she was sure he appealed to somebody. “Never thought anyone I kidnapped was all that sexy,” she had thought Scott Lang was a bit cute, in an awkward earnest dad way. But her brief crush had far more to do with the fact he’d hacked and robbed his former employer for the money they’d been stealing. Turns out he was a bit more lame in person. But that amusement was short-lived as they finally approached the busier part of the ship, and she stepped closer to Klaus, trying not to show how nervous she was. She needed to get over it. It was just getting food. Nobody here cared she was less stable than the damn holograms. “Um,” she frowned, trying to remember the last time she actually had a cake. Usually she stuck to foods she could get for delivery. “I guess... chocolate?” It seemed like a basic enough answer. Klaus feigned a very serious injury when she elbowed him, lamenting his pain and grabbing hold of the nearest thing like he was going to need to hold onto it not to fall over. “Yeah. I know that.” He grinned, walking forward. “Why do you think I’m not currently drinking? I mean, I want to be. I’d like to be a lot of different things right now, but I’m not.” Most of those things were drunk or high. He’d been doing fairly well on the drug side of things. Almost a year now without doing any, but there were moments when the urge to get high overrode his urge to stay sober and the lingering desire never really went away. It just curled tighter around him until he figured out a way to get away from it. Usually that meant texting Jess. He considered this meant he might need to contact her. Or tell Diego to punch him if he forgot himself. But probably Jess was a better idea. “That’s because you didn’t kidnap the right person. I’m so much fun to torture. Or...well, no. I’m no fun to torture. But that’s probably cause I enjoy it too much. If you’re looking for a scared ‘oh no, not me’ reaction, it’s not very...likely. They strangled me and then they realized that had the opposite reaction they were looking for, so...they stopped. And I was so close…” He sighed at that moment, not really considering that some people preferred less details. He noticed the shift in body language and wrapped an arm around her shoulder, casually, trying to make it seem like the usual ‘Klaus doesn’t know what personal boundaries are’ sort of thing. No one ever questioned him. “So we should get cake and then after cake or maybe during, you can explain this whole fading away thing and I’ll tell you about whatever you want to know. Ask about it and you’ll get an answer.” Ava rolled her eyes at his antics, but hid a chuckle behind her hand after glancing around to make sure they weren’t drawing too much attention. If this was how Klaus was sober, it was difficult to imagine him under the influence of alcohol or anything else. And she was grateful he wasn’t, wasn’t sure she could manage to be responsible for somebody else’s binging. But she nodded, made note to steer them clear of the bars. Which wouldn’t be hard. She wasn’t much of a drinker anyway and the bar environment seemed the furthest thing from what she was comfortable with. “That’s…” Ava wrinkled her nose when she realized what he meant by close, not sure why she was still surprised by anything that came out of his mouth. She realized maybe she’d need to be more careful what she said to him, if he repeated things so shamelessly. “Not usually how my interrogations have gone, no.” Getting off on pain wasn’t quite her thing, not when she was constantly experiencing it to some degree. But she knew enough that she wasn’t most people’s thing either, with the whole not being quite tangible, so she wasn’t going to knock anyone else’s kinks. The arm around her wasn’t exactly unwelcome, and she could piece together that it was a reaction to her own discomfort, despite how Klaus tried to make it appear. Which… was oddly sweet, and enough for her to not immediately push him away. That made two whole people she’d let touch her, which felt like too many, but also some sort of progress in the scheme of things. “Oh,” so he had heard all that, the part where she casually dropped in that she was more or less dying. “Yeah, cake first.” It’d probably take a bit for her to figure out what quite to ask of him, anyway. So much of Klaus was an act that he sometimes didn’t know what was him and what was the drugs. Except when it was late at night and he couldn’t sleep because he couldn’t stop thinking about all the things he didn’t want to think about. It was ridiculous and stupid. But he didn’t want to worry about it. He wanted to not worry about it. At least his efforts distracted her from a lot of things, however. He felt like he was a very skilled person in the art of distractions. It was the way you distracted your family from all your failings and made them focus on some stupid shit you’d said until they forgot what they were pissed off about in the first place because inevitably he’d stolen something or gotten himself into some kind of trouble. The only one it didn’t seem to work on was their dad. He could always see straight through the bullshit and had a very keen way of making you feel small and even stupider than you did before you started talking. “Not everyone can be me. It’s a tall order and no one’s quite that tall.” Klaus would have let go if she’d told him to, but since she hadn’t, he didn’t. Instead he made a beeline toward the cake. He was going to get chocolate on chocolate. He groaned as he thought about the fact that he was probably going to need to work some of his cake off eventually. Working out was just so sad. Maybe Diego would help him keep up with his knife skills. “You want to come up or stay here and I’ll bring the cake? Do you want a drink?” There was a lot of food, Ava observed. Exactly what she’d expect of some sort of luxury vacation, and she felt skeptical of how all of this was even being paid for. A weird abundance of it splayed out that seemed weirdly wasteful and indulgent. All sorts of desserts she couldn’t identify by name. And Ava realized then that she was a lot hungrier than she had thought, and sure, maybe overly sweet cakes weren’t ideal on an empty stomach. But cake was what she was going to have. It’d been decided. Klaus’ offer to go get it was thoughtful, reminded her a bit of her request for Diego to go into the restaurant alone the first day they’d met. But if they were willing to deal with her being fidgety about stupid things, Ava would gladly accept. “Coffee. Cream, no sugar,” she requested, figured it wasn’t too fussy. She’d have preferred hot tea, but didn’t want to ask him to go through the hassle. “I’ll grab a table?” Ava was predictable by nature, found a seat in a corner somewhere, farther away from other diners, her back to the wall. And she casually tested the wall, made sure her hand could slip through it before folding it into her lap, waiting. Klaus nodded at the order. He would have gotten the tea if she’d wanted it, but since he didn’t know, he just went ahead and got two slices of chocolate cake and the two coffees, paid, and came back once he had everything. He was glad he had a tray. It had taken a moment to find her and he wasn’t really looking forward to trying to figure out how to keep from dropping everything probably would have sucked a lot. Sitting down, he set the tray between them. “You have fun while I was away?” His tone was teasing and he gave her a quick wink. It took Ava three attempts to pick up one of the forks from the tray, and she bit down the frustration, didn’t really want to call more attention to it. “Yes, thrilling,” she smiled, eyes wandering more over his shoulder than at Klaus directly as she kept a watch out. She hated being on such high alert, but couldn’t quite kick the habit, not even looking at the cake as she stabbed a piece of it. Eating was always a weird task to do in front of other people, but luckily today it wasn’t giving her as many issues. And shoving bite after bite into her mouth was a good distraction from actually having to talk. Maybe he already forgot about the topic, she wasn’t even sure what else there was to explain about it. Klaus noticed, but he didn’t say anything. He just put it in the back of his mind as something to think about. He pulled one knee up, leaning against it as he ate his cake. He paused long enough to sip at his coffee. “So…” He studied her for a moment. “This whole fading into nothing thing is serious? Not just some dark joke that you said?” Because if that was the case, he could understand that, but if it wasn’t, then he’d have to figure out both his feelings and what that might mean for Diego. Right. No such luck. “No, it’s not some joke,” she confirmed a bit defensively after delaying answering with an attempted sip of the coffee, blowing on it a bit, trying to calm herself a bit so she could approach this discussion without some outburst. It wouldn’t be fair to take it out on Klaus when she was the one that had mentioned it in the first place, far too casually, thinking that they’d move past it as if she hadn’t said anything at all. Along with his talk of bellybutton eldritch monsters and dinosaurs and him falling down the stairs, it really hadn’t felt like anything all that interesting. Everyone was going to die someday, after all, her likely end just happened to be a bit more scientifically complicated. “I’m unstable. Literally falling apart at a particle level.” That was a pretty bullshit sort of situation to find yourself in. He frowned a little at it. She didn’t seem overly happy to be talking about it, which made him wonder why she’d brought it up in the first place. “That’s fucked.” He was quiet for a moment. “How many people know about that?” It was not him outright coming out and asking if Diego knew, but he was really curious if his brother was aware. Especially since he’d said that he liked her. And Diego was an idiot about that. Ava slowly pushed the cake away from herself, no longer had the stomach for it as guilt ate away at her instead. Because she knew exactly what was meant by his question. And that was something she definitely didn’t know how to confront yet. Not with Diego, and not with Klaus. Because she wasn’t outright willing to lie, but she hadn’t even fully considered until that moment the full implications of the truth she was avoiding. Ava never expected any of this to go so far, for her feelings to get so mixed up in it, she figured Diego would’ve found a dozen other reasons by now to have learnt putting up with her really wasn’t worth the effort. So why add her deterioration on top of it all? And that existential doom that she’d been fighting to push down was back, and the room suddenly felt too bright and loud. “Hey, I should get going,” she abruptly announced as she stood, knew it wasn’t even a smooth cover up or change in topic, but she didn’t need it to be. She needed to be gone. Klaus looked over at her for a minute, frowning even more. “Don’t run away. I know what it looks like because I’m amazing at it. If you don’t want to talk about it, fine, but…” He didn’t say that she should have told Diego. She didn’t need to hear that and he also didn’t know how serious it was. He also didn’t really think he was the person to give advice on anything considering what a fuck up he was in general and his history with dating. “No one should run out on cake.” A pause. “I can’t help with it, but if other people know, then maybe they can help?” He wasn’t going to force her to stay, though. So if she still wanted to run, she could. “There’s magic people and other smart people, right?” Help. Yeah. She needed help. Had it once, hope that she’d finally be cured, and lost it all just as quickly. She didn’t want to go through that again. Didn’t want to put it on anyone else’s conscience to fail saving her. Ava was partially through the wall, backing away, when she changed her mind and passed through the chair to sit back down. Her elbows hit the table heavily, rattling the tray and plates along with it, and she hung her head over her coffee, glaring at her reflection in it. Right, she had to stop running. But. “I really don’t want to talk about this,” she confirmed, an edge to her voice, but she glanced up and frowned apologetically. “Or anything.” “Can you just…” she waved a hand a bit vaguely, watching the blurred trail. She wanted to ask for advice, how to approach telling Diego, but it felt like too much in that moment. “Take over the talking bit?” And she’d finish her cake. Klaus was slightly relieved when she sat back down. He wasn’t sure why she’d even brought it up if she didn’t want to talk about it, but then again, he brought up a lot of things he didn’t want to talk about. Like the fact that he’d been careless cost his brother his life. Even if it was only for a brief span of time. It had sent him into drinking and he’d been even more careless after that. Now he just had to think of something to talk about. What hadn’t he talked about? What could easily remedy the situation? And by remedy, he definitely meant lighten the mood. He had to have some comical enough fuck up to talk about. That or something ridiculous. “Before you got here, I had some friends with amazing cloaks. They sometimes let me wear them when I came over to eat food. Usually trash food. Like a lot of burritos and too much candy. I seriously miss those cloaks. Oh!” His eyes lit up for a moment. “We need to go on an expedition to see if we can find cloaks. You need one, too. We can work with your...color choices.” He eyed the lack of color. “Maybe make it your one colorful piece. We should be able to look important and fabulous whenever we enter a room, you know? I love cloaks. Ugh. Why don’t I have more?” A beat. “I mean...any, actually cause I don’t even have one. Life is truly a travesty.” And he was more than likely to keep on talking about stupid things that meant nothing and putting a dramatic flair to it until she seemed less...sad about everything. |