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When a cold wet nose presses into Ava's hand, she does not jump or overreact or anything like that. No, she has a very reasonable response.
“Shit!”
That is to phase through the counter and turn to face the Potential Threat. That said threat was Yelena's dog is beside the point. It could have been something much more dangerous lurking in the kitchen, so Ava’s reaction was entirely appropriate.
Ava casts around for Yelena, Bob—any of her team members. She only finds empty takeout containers and spilled cereal. It makes sense, she chose this time to avoid them, but usually somebody is around to wrangle the beast.
The dog whines and circles the counter to sit in front of Ava again. To think, Ava had been having a very nice, low-pain day before this.
“What?” Ava asks, watching it wearily. It is mid-size with a fluffy, curling tail, and looks kind of like a toasted marshmallow.
When Yelena brought her pets into the tower a week or so after she moved in, Ava figured it didn’t have anything to do with her. While that is true for the guinea pigs, who stay tucked away in their pen in Yelena’s room, the dog is largely allowed to roam free on the communal floors. It’s whatever. Ava doesn’t really care if there’s a dog around.
It is just that the extent of Ava's experience with dogs was the guard dogs she encountered on SHIELD missions— in other words, actively trying to bite her. This dog … is not and Ava is at a loss for how to interact with a dog outside of that.
She doesn’t know how to interpret the dog just staring expectantly at her. It doesn’t seem angry or scared, Ava had seen plenty of dogs like that. No, its tongue is lolling, paws dancing like it wants to get up but it wasn’t allowed to. Did it think she told it to sit?
"I didn't ask…" Ava starts to say, but the dog whines and Ava realizes she was about to try to argue with an animal.
So instead, Ava phases back through the counter, takes her toast from the toaster, and heads for the elevator. The dog follows her.
Ava stops and stares. "What do you want?"
"Treats." Yelena responses, literally appearing out of nowhere. Fuck, Ava was supposed to be the sneaky one.
Ava doesn't jump, but it is a near thing. "What?"
Yelena crouches next to her dog and explains, "We were training her and now she thinks she gets a treat every time she sits. We've been working on it."
"Okay," Ava said. "Just keep her away from me. yeah?"
"Why? She's so cute." Yelena squishes her dog's face and noisily plants a few kisses on top of her head. The dog lets her.
"Yeah, I don't do dogs." Ava blinks away, leaving a conversation behind.
"You are a very good girl, my beautiful granddog," Alexei coos and practically shoves a piece of his dinner in the dog’s mouth. She was cradled in his arms like a baby, something even Ava could tell she was barely tolerating.
After Ava told Yelena to keep the dog away from her, Ava only sees the dog sporadically and never up close. Which is how Ava finds out that she doesn't mind sharing a space with the dog, so long as she’s not expected to do anything with her. Everyone else seems to have some sort of script for interacting with the dog, but even if she wants to (questionable), Ava doesn’t know where to start. Watching the rest of the team play with the dog doesn't help at all because just look at Alexei.
Why he has to bother the dog like that at dinner is beyond Ava. She doesn’t mind the dog hanging around, but this is beyond ridiculous.
“Put her down, Alexei,” Yelena says, not anymore amused than her dog.
"But look at her face?" Alexei gestures emphatically.
John hides a smirk. "He makes a compelling argument. She clearly loves it." He offers the dog a piece of chicken as well, which she eats.
Ava rubs her temples, trying to ward off the building tension there. Her fork drops through her hand and onto the table, but no one gives her a second look.
Bob says, "She might like it, but she doesn't know better. Our food isn't good for her."
“A little bit won’t kill her.” John rolls his eyes.
Yelena frowns. "You all are teaching her bad manners. She still thinks she can come up to anyone and expect treats." She glances at Ava before adding, "Not everyone wants that."
John opens his mouth to argue, but Ava has had enough. “Quit being an asshole, Walker.”
Quick as a whip and without an ounce of shame, he asks, “What did I do?”
“You know what you did,” Ava says, standing to glare him down. “but if you really want me to explain it to you, we can take this outside.”
“Please,” John slouches back in his chair, clearly not taking the threat seriously. "Unlike someone, I'm not afraid of cute, little puppies."
Ava freezes all the way to the bone. "I'm not afraid."
Dogs couldn't hurt Ava even when they tried; why would she be afraid of them? She wants to explain this. The words get stuck in her throat.
It’s Bucky that breaks the silence. “John.”
John looks around the table and deflates. “Sorry. Too far. I get it.”
Ava forces herself to finish the dinner with the team, despite the worried glances everyone keeps shooting her. The pressure inside her head increases with each bite, but at this point running away would feel like admitting something that she doesn’t want to.
After dinner went the way it did, Ava knows she has a flare up coming. She texts Scott about getting some quantum energy and spends the entirety of the next day in bed, just dealing with existing in her fucked up body. Resting keeps her suffering to a low-grade misery, not the feeling of being literally torn apart.
It’s a quiet day, at least until some time in the evening when Ava hears a knock at her door.
“What are you doing here?” Ava asks when she opens the door to find John.
John shuffles his feet and looks anywhere but Ava. There’s a plate wrapped in foil in his hands. “You weren’t at dinner, so—” John looks at Ava, uncertain.
Ava raises an eyebrow at him and says nothing.
“I’ll leave it here.” John hands her the plate and begins to leave, but he doesn’t take more than two steps before he looks back. “I’m—” John clears his throat. “Make sure you eat it. Before it gets cold.”
He briskly walks away.
The incident at dinner and John’s weird non-apology is—well, not quite forgotten, but at least long past when Ava wanders into the gym for some training. Yelena and Bob are playing with Fanny in the area of the space set up with some fake turf to simulate running on real grass. It’s a good distance away from Ava’s treadmill, but she has a good view of their antics.
From what Ava has seen, Yelena and Bob do the majority of Fanny’s care and training, but also spend plenty of time just playing with her like this. Fanny, for her part, never seems less than absolutely overjoyed to be spending time with her favorite people, wagging her tail and licking both Bob and Yelena every chance she got.
“Sit.” Bob says and doles out a treat when Fanny does so. She happily scarfs it up.
After practicing commands for a while, Yelena pulls out a tennis ball and lightly tosses it across the room. Fanny bounds after it, excitedly snapping it up and shaking it, before laying down with it between her paws to chomp at it.
Yelena whistles and Fanny bolts up bringing the ball back, but when Bob goes to take it, she doesn’t let go. “Come on, Fanny girl, give me the ball.”
Fanny, wagging her tail, darts away, ball in mouth. “Fanfan!”
Yelena covers a laugh.
“Lena,” Bob pleads.
Yelena sighs and whistles again and Fanny drops the ball at her feet.
This is repeated several more times while Ava begins winding down on the treadmill. The machine comes to a stop and Ava takes a moment to rehydrate and wipe some of the sweat away. She considers which part of her training program to move onto next.
Then Fanny comes up and drops the ball at her feet. She looks up at Ava with a whine.
“Uh,” Ava says.
She is probably supposed to pick up the ball and throw it, right? The ball looks wet. Ava isn’t sure she wants to touch it, so she nudges it away with her shoe instead.
Yelena whistles and Fanny returns to her. She waves to Ava, her hand firmly gripping Fanny’s collar. “Sorry, we’ll take her outside,” she says.
Ava expects to feel relieved. She doesn’t.
“No, I’ll just…” Ava trails off and just decides to phase away.
She curls up in her comfy chair in the corner of her room. Something in her stomach is twisting and she doesn’t know why. Feels are stupid and complicated. All she knows is that what just happened doesn’t feel good.
Closing her eyes, she thinks back to Fanny sitting at her feet, big eyes, wagging tail. Even she could admit it had been pretty cute.
Ava tries not to cry as she slides down to the kitchen floor. This isn’t the worst flare up she’s had and it is nothing compared to when her body was actively destabilizing. She will get through it. She just needs some time.
Her joints ache. Her whole body feels like it is about to shatter, but, laying on the cool stone floor, it is her joints that stand out to her.
It had been a mistake to leave her room. She’s crawling back into bed just as soon as she feels like she can move, breakfast be damned.
Claws click against the floor and there is a soft snuffling in Ava’s ear as Fanny noses at her. Ava groans wordlessly. Fanny seems to take that as an invitation because she lies beside Ava, pressed up against her side. She’s warm and soft.
The pain doesn’t go away, but Ava finds the energy to get a little more comfortable, to snuggle a bit closer to Fanny. Ava closes her eyes. Eventually, she will get back up. Just not yet.
Ava takes her time, letting her breaths sync with Fanny’s, and feels a little less like crying. Then someone else joins her in the kitchen. Ava’s eyes fly open.
"What are you doing here?" Yelena says, peering down at Ava.
"Nothing." Ava thinks about moving. She doesn't.
"Well, is everything okay?" Yelena asks, sitting down beside Ava.
Though gritted teeth, "Peachy."
Yelena reaches over to scratch behind Fanny’s ears. "I didn't think you liked her."
Ava hugs Fanny tighter, stroking her fur with her thumb. "She's fine."
“You don’t have to say that. I can do a better job of keeping her away from you.”
Then Ava frowns. "I'm sorry if you don't want me touching your dog," She says, not sorry at all.
Yelena’s head whips around to stare at Ava, open-mouthed. "What? Why are you apologizing?"
"You don't even think I'm a good person." Ava doesn't disagree with what Yelena said all those months ago, but it still hurts, especially coming from someone like Yelena. It turns out that it had been eating at her more than she thought.
"No. That's not—I—" Yelena hangs her head and takes a deep breath. " I'm sorry."
"It doesn't matter. You weren't wrong," Ava says.
Yelena shakes her head and says, "I was wrong.”
Ava pushes up, so she’s sitting with her back leaned against the counter. Fanny follows her. “Are you sure about that?”
“All of us made mistakes, were backed into corners where the choices were so completely awful that they were barely even choices, but what you're doing now matters, not all of that shit. None of us are all good or all bad. It's what we do and the choices we make and how we move forward."
Ava rolls her eyes. "Don't give me that bullshit."
"It's not bullshit," Yelena insists evenly.
"It is.” Ava clenched her hands into fists. “I can't call myself a good person with what I've done."
Ava had been a tool for SHIELD and then for Valentina, but she never thought to question how she’d been used. What kind of person killed and never stopped to wonder if it was the right thing to do? How could any of her choices now really make up for that?
"Then neither can I and I don't want to live in a world where that is true!” Yelena practically shouts. She’s shaking. Fanny’s ears go down and she clings to Ava for comfort. “It matters that we're trying to be better and I'm sorry I made you feel like it doesn't."
Ava’s eyes blur with tears. This is why she doesn’t think about this shit. “I’m so lost and I hurt all the time and I don’t know what to do, like ever.”
“You don’t have to hurt alone. We’re here for you.” Yelena hugs Ava, wrapping her arms around from the side. Fanny’s head rests on Ava’s lap.
In that moment, Ava could believe it. Yelena, Fanny, the rest of the team even, they weren’t perfect, they cared. There was love and support all around Ava.
Maybe all Ava had to do was help herself to it.