Who: Ava, Klaus, and surprise guest, Diego What: Illegal Stargazing When: End of April, night Where: Mostly in a clearing in the woods Warnings: References to drugs, addiction, abuse…
Klaus eyed the lobby doors with glee, nearly skipping with joy as he crossed the remaining distance where he could push them open, breaking free into the cool nighttime air. Perhaps he was being a tad bit dramatic, but the night breeze felt like freedom after a long imprisonment.
Sure it had only been a couple days, but who was truly counting?
When he'd told his mom his plans, including how he'd missed out on stargazing with Ava once already and how she'd made him sandwiches, his mother responded by giving him sandwiches to take with him, commenting that it was nice he was making a friend who wasn't a bad influence, and said she wouldn't stop him from leaving since he was being honest about it. All that was left was waiting for Diego to finally fall asleep, which he had done, and escape.
He raised the bag of sandwiches up into the air triumphantly and then texted Ava with a promise he was on his way, before continuing his skipping journey down to the waypoint that would lead him closest to their agreed upon clearing in the woods. He'd worry about convincing himself to go back later.
It wasn’t that Ava was expecting Klaus to ditch her without warning, again, but the last several days had felt like a series of all of her plans not going quite working out the way she hoped. Between the trouble she had gotten herself into, the trouble that Klaus had managed to get himself into, she wanted a night to try forgetting about it all and work on that new sense of normal she was trying to establish for herself. That Klaus was trying to encourage her into giving a chance.
But she wasn’t hopeful, not about him getting away. She felt weird about it, that Klaus was under a lot more restriction than she was all things considered. Not that she knew a whole lot about it, drugs or benders or going off to get high to chase away ghosts. Just that people were concerned and he wasn’t handling being cooped up so well. Which was fair, she supposed, she never did all that well in situations where she didn’t feel she could escape either.
Still, Ava did worry. That she was encouraging something she shouldn’t be, even if the intention was just stargazing. It was harmless, but her own judgment felt off kilter lately. But she wanted to see Klaus, make sure he was okay for herself. And maybe it would keep both of them out of more trouble.
Ava was already waiting when she received Klaus’ text, had already decided to spend the evening out under the stars whether he showed or not. She had a blanket spread out in the clearing, her knees pulled up and tucked under her chin as she scrolled through a stargazer app, trying to orient it with the night sky.
“You actually made it,” she greeted before even looking up to confirm it was Klaus, her small smile illuminated by the glow of her phone screen before she shut it off. “Guess you’re sneakier than I thought.”
"I can be quite stealthy when I want to," Klaus confirmed, dropping onto the blanket and holding out the bag. "Mom doesn't sleep though so she knows I'm here. But she also made us sandwiches to make up for having to feed mine to a goblin dog."
Glancing over at her he smiled, a combination of having finally left the apartment along with meeting up with her now, in the same spot he'd met up with her not long before, only she'd been a child. "So you're managing real star names this time? I was particularly fond of the ones you lied about."
Ava laughed, mostly muffled behind the palm of her hand. “There’s weird creatures here,” she whispered, “but some of them are sort of cute.” She peeked into the bag, curious about what kind of sandwiches he brought along, but not picky enough to turn them down either way. They had the crusts neatly cut off, and Ava gave Klaus a bit of a look but kept any such comments to herself.
“I wasn’t lying,” she insisted, stretching her legs out and kicking off her shoes. “I was improvising. Besides, the constellations are different here. Than the ones I remember in Argentina.” She picked up her phone again, showing him the app. “But this knows all of them.”
She took a bite out of the corner of her sandwich, shrugged. “Or I could just keep making them all up.”
Yes, the crust was cut off the sandwiches. He'd outgrown that now, but his mother held onto the remnant from his childhood and he loved her for it. "I think we're some of the weird creatures here," Klaus offered, reaching for the second sandwich.
He stretched out as well, chewing thoughtfully as he gazed up into the night sky. The six year old version of the woman sitting next to him had given him a new appreciation for the stars above, and it was her version he wanted to hear.
"I definitely think you should keep making them up. I'll never remember the real names, anyway."
“You’re a weird creature anywhere,” Ava teased, giving him an affectionate nudge with her elbow “But okay,” she agreed, tilting her head up and scanning the sky quietly. It felt silly, and with anyone else she’d probably refuse to do this, but at least with Klaus she didn’t feel too entirely judged.
She pointed up to a cluster of stars, glancing up to see if he was paying attention. “Those ones,” she traced her fingers in a pattern to connect them, leaning in close to make sure they were seeing it from the same perspective, her chin resting against his shoulder. “That’s Toadus Hoppus,” and damn did she have difficulty saying that with any sort of authority or straight face. “Legend has it he was the greediest frog in the marsh. Ate up all the lightning bugs before the others could get any. So they devised a plan to trick him, told him all the stars in the sky were lightning bugs and only the greatest hopper could get them.” Ava paused, mostly for dramatic effect. “So he jumped all the way up there and got stuck.”
It was all Klaus could do to not laugh, but he did smile, because that was absolutely brilliant. "Yeah, your stories are much better than the real ones." He noted the position of the stars in case he ever had someone else to share this newfound "knowledge" with. He finished his sandwich quickly and then leaned all the way back on the blanket, taking in the expanse above him.
"Turns out you didn't lose your touch."
“Only my literal touch,” she retorted, emphasizing the statement by putting her hand straight through his. She considered a brief moment of holding it, but pulled back instead, uncomfortable with getting too close or making things weird. People here at least didn’t treat her like some science experiment or horror sideshow freak, but a lifetime of having it drilled into her head didn’t make things much easier to get past the disconnect.
She took a few slow bites of the sandwich, patiently trying to ignore the bites she missed. Klaus was already finished with his, but she was used to so many stupid tasks taking her far longer than they should. “So that one, there,” she pointed out, drawing out a little loop. Or attempting to, her hand flickered and blurred, and she frowned, waiting a moment for it to stop before trying again. “That… is the Egg Man,” she told Klaus solemnly. “Sitting on a cornflake, waiting for the van to come,” she quoted the Beatles, waiting to see if he picked up on it.
Given how many times Klaus had walked straight through Ben, usually to make some poorly conceived point, it wasn't completely bizarre that Ava's hand passed straight through his. Except the part where she was still very much alive. But he put that out of his mind as she pointed out the next constellation.
"Where's the walrus then?" Klaus asked, then laughed. "That song is too much of a trip, even for me."
He sighed. "I hope Diego hasn't woken up." Klaus wasn't sure how long he had to get back, but he wasn't eager to return.
“No, it makes absolutely no sense,” she agreed, had given up trying to figure out what any of the lyrics even meant or if they did at all. “That one,” she decided, zigzagging her finger next to where she drew the circle in an approximation of a walrus.
But her focus was off the stars for a moment, head tilted as she regarded Klaus and the weight of the situation he was in. “They seem worried about you,” she mentioned cautiously, not wanting to turn this into a thing they had to get into. She knew it was way above her ability, and trying to fumble her way through it would likely cause more damage. “You’re not even the one that tied up a guy,” she gave up on the sandwich, placing it carefully on the bag before laying back herself, arms stretched up above her head. “Are they always so protective?”
"Since we got the band back together," Klaus mused. "Well not even really that. Since the apocalypse and we ended up here. Before I was kidnapped and held hostage and tortured and they never even noticed I was missing. Which was fine, I didn't expect them to. Even told the kidnappers they had chosen the exact wrong Hargreeves sibling for that reason."
He sighed. "We all left at seventeen... except Luther because he never grew out of the superhero thing. And then... Diego was the only one I really heard from. Allison was off being a huge movie star, Vanya was busy writing a memoir about how we were all terrible people..." He paused.
"I mean, she's not entirely wrong."
He fell silent for a moment. "Five had disappeared when we were younger and Ben was dead, but keeping me company whenever I was sober enough to see him. Diego on the other hand..." A faint smile formed on his lips, shared only with the stars above. "He'd deny it if he could but he at least attempted to keep tabs on me. Showed up one day when I was getting out of rehab to give me a ride. No idea how he even knew I was there. But he means well, when he's not being controlling or completely overreacting."
Another pause. "Which is pretty much always. And Mom... we all pretty much abandoned her while she lived with Dad. I couldn't face that bastard. Not after all he did."
He turned on his side to face her, propping himself up with an elbow. "Enough about that though." This was meant to be a good night away from the family, after all.
Ava had questions. A lot of them, from the torture to the memoir and the siblings that weren’t there, and the entire rundown had her hesitating before reaching back out to place her fingertips over his in a small attempt at comfort. She liked what little she knew of his family, even though she knew there was a much more twisted and complicated past behind it all, but his last statement signaled the end of it. So she kept her mouth shut, respecting whatever boundaries he was drawing.
But it did have her thinking about other things. “You know, I used to be fine with working alone. Get in, get out. Mission report. Nobody I had to really… share what I did with. Emotionally. Imagine having to kill people, and then either hold in or admit how much you hated it all to the person that had your back. That would suck.” She was used to keeping most of what she thought and felt to herself, her fingers twisting nervously into the blanket, worrying that she was going too far on the subject.
“But then there were the Avengers. The Director of SHIELD, Nick Fury, he put together a team of heroes to save the world. The public face, praise all over the news. They even got merchandise.” Ava scoffed, because she really wasn’t jealous over action figures or anything stupid, just the concept of not being locked and hidden away. She continued staring up, the stars going blurry for a moment until she blinked. “Thought I was a natural for recruitment. High success rate. Been working for them as long as I could remember. I wanted that chance to feel like what I did actually fucking mattered. So I made the mistake of asking, what about me?”
This all felt like a mistake. She should have kept making up stupid stories instead of going on about shit that couldn’t change now. He probably wanted to hear more of that and less of this. “And they said, Ava, there’s a reason we call you the Ghost. You’re not meant to exist. Guess it just brought everything into perspective after that. They put a building-smashing green monster of a man on that team. But not me.”
She rolled over, picked up her sandwich again to finish it off. “I dunno. It didn’t matter in the end. They failed. And me being there wouldn’t have made any bit of difference.”
Falling silent as Ava spoke, this was a far cry from the short answers she gave on the network, but Klaus really didn't know what to say to any of it either. He saw and talked to the dead, sending the living onto the afterlife was an unfortunate side effect, not the goal.
Watching the stars, looking back to the made-up frog constellation, he offered, "I wish I had rum with me. We could drink to powers being highly overrated."
“Yeah,” she agreed flatly, because there didn’t seem much to do about either of theirs. Not without upsetting everyone around them. She sighed regretfully and stood, offering out a hand for Klaus as well. “I should probably go,” she had hoped she could manage a bit longer, because she did like Klaus. But her habit of cutting encounters short had her itching to get away before she managed to drag the mood down even further.
“But,” she hesitated, “I do have something for you.” She patted her jacket pocket to make sure it was still there, after she almost changed her mind about bringing it at all. “Wasn’t sure I should actually give it to you,” she admitted, pulling out a small drawstring bag. Maybe she should have wrapped it. Except then it’d look like more than it really was, like she actually put thought into it and less something she bought on a whim. “Didn’t want to encourage you,” though she sounded more amused. “It’s not rum. But… I thought you might like it.”
She held out the bag for him to take, smiling a bit shyly.
Diego had long ago shed much of Reginald Hargreeves’s militant training, but one thing he had never been able to give up was waking up with a jolt upon the faintest of noises. So of course he woke up when Klaus left, and of course he asked Grace if she knew where Klaus was going and of course she told him. Diego had sat with that for a moment, thinking. He could have let it go, gone back to his own place and been done. But Diego knew that doing that would mean only staring up at the ceiling wondering. Grumbling, he had placed a few knives in his pockets and wished that whatever it was that caused him to be concerned about things like Allison’s magical healing or Klaus’s relapse or where Five and Luther were could just be excised out.
Instead, here he was, leaning up against a tree about fifteen feet southeast of where Klaus and Ava were. “Klaus,” Diego’s voice cut through the darkness. He may not have been able to seemingly blend into the shadows like the Fryes and Isabela, but he did alright for himself. Especially when the target was an oblivious brother who thought he’d gotten away. He sauntered up, looking for the world like he’d gotten a full night’s rest instead of the probably ten minutes he actually had. “I’d say I hate to break up the party, but,” Diego shrugged, one hand clamping down on Klaus’s shoulder. “I’m not.”
Anger and bluntness were a lot easier to weld than whatever Diego was actually feeling.
Turning in surprise at the sound of his name, Klaus of course recognized his brother's voice before he actually spotted him. Of course he was here. Couldn't leave well enough alone, like ever.
"Diego!" he said, ignoring all his instinctive reactions to take on an overly pleasant tone. (Which may have been instinct on its own.) "Imagine running into you here! Have you met Ava? Ava, this is my overprotective brother, Diego. Diego, this is my new friend Ava, though we've been friends since she was six years old."
He smiled fondly at Ava before adding, "She was just about to give me a present." And at that point he took it, curious as to what was inside.
It would be hypocritical of Ava to be mad about somebody else spying when she wasn’t even the focus, or interrupting even though she’d been about to leave anyway. Maybe it was polite of Diego to wait until the end, whether he’d been lurking the whole time or just shown up. She didn’t know. But she took a step back as Klaus made introductions, fists clenched and defensive, knowing she couldn’t afford to get into anymore fights. No matter how much she wanted to insist that Klaus hadn’t been doing anything wrong, she knew she had no place in any of this. It was a good reminder as any that she was an outsider.
Which meant her gift was… “It’s stupid,” she decided before he could open it and mistake it for meaning anything, busying herself with slipping her shoes back on instead so she could hurry and get out of there.
Diego’s eyes nearly rolled out of his head at the assertion that he was overprotective. He could be accused of having a healthy skepticism, absolutely. And being untrusting, well. Maybe that too. But honestly, Klaus, how was it supposed to look literally sneaking out a few days after falling off the wagon? Maybe he was overreacting and overprotective, but he was also showing up for Klaus. Diego did best when he had something to fight, something to focus his anger on and if he had to fight Klaus for Klaus’s own health, well, then so be it. He was stubborn enough for the both of them.
He sized up Ava with a quick glance over and although Diego could hardly ever be described as kind, he at least recognized that Ava looked about ready to bolt and so he did little more than arch an eyebrow. “Yeah, I know,” he said, omitting the part about shopping for said six year old child. Engage in whatever a tea party was, no, Diego wanted no part in that, but Allison had asked for help in a specific way so Diego responded.
Diego eyed the bag with all the suspicion of a bomb sniffing dog and for everyone’s sake, it better not have been drugs. That skittishness had better be just because Ava was uncomfortable and not because she was handing over drugs. Jesus Christ. He pinched at the space between his eyes, willing away the tension headache that had been intensifying for a few days now. “Great,” he muttered, clearly unmoved by whatever was happening.
"I love presents," Klaus said excitedly, purposely ignoring Mr. Grumpy Pants himself, Diego Hargreeves, digging into the bag and finding the keychain within. He read it and then laughed, and said, "You have to ignore Diego. He's just grumpy that he's only competing for second best."
Turning back to Ava he said, "I love it."
She sized up Diego in return, eyes narrowed as she considered strategies for taking him out. And god, Ava, she cut herself off. Not every situation was something she had to fight her way out of. Looking away, she deliberately avoided watching Klaus open the gift so she didn’t feel tempted to grab it back, hating that something small was now at the center of attention for scrutiny. A lot of the things she wanted to say in explanation were difficult with another person there. But she relaxed when Klaus at least seemed to find the humor in it. “Good. It cost a whole two dollars.” It’d been his joke in the first place.
“He seems like a good brother though,” she sighed, gathering up her blanket off the grass in a messy bundle, not wanting to take the time to fold it when she was long overdue leaving by this point. But there was one path from here that she knew of that led back out of the woods, and they’d be taking it too. So maybe she should head off in a different direction, Ava didn’t mind too badly getting lost. “Don’t be too hard on him,” she requested of Diego, trying to soften her glare. He probably wasn’t completely unreasonable in worrying. “He was just making up for a broken promise.”
She turned away in a fragmented blur, paused, then laughed. “Tell your mom thanks for the crustless sandwiches.”
“Story of my life, thanks,” Diego drawled, his lip curling up in a snarl that was really more about the fact that he had to hunt down Klaus in the woods rather than any unintended jab.
He whacked Klaus on the back of the head. “That’s for making me chase you, idiot.” Then another one. “That’s for having Mom make you food.”