FOILS 2

"Well, it's actually Ava's dog. She needs it for training purposes. I can get Angela one too though. There were many dogs at the shelter." Hawkeye said unhelpfully as he watched Angela pet Ava's dog.


No, Ava must raise this dog and learn feelings. angela, get away...


AAAAUUUUUGGgggghhhhhhhhhhhh(screaming internally)
 
Banner quickly put his hand on Angela's shoulder, the most caring gesture he'd displayed since he'd packed her bags for her.


"No, that's okay." Bruce put the dog on the ground with his free hand. "We're good."


Angela, shellshocked, whined. "Stop that," muttered Banner to her. "We've got more important things to do."
 
Clint smiled and scooped up the dog, hustling both it and Ava to the door.


"Well, see you later! Good luck with, um, speaking words?"


Then he pulled Ava down the hall to the fun room where he fell down on the couch and pushed the dog at her.


"Name it."


"Exvuse me?"


"You have to give it a name. Have you thought of any yet?"


Ava shook her head.


"No. I have not."


Clint sat up, motioning for Ava to come sit next to him. She remained where she was standing behind the couch.


"Well, sometiems we name our dogs after people we love, or like, or things we like. Or, if we like the name."


"I do not'like' anything."


Clint cocked his head and raised his eyebrow, a smirk playing around his lips. He whipped out a pen and paper. He wrote on it 'THINGS AVA LIKES' in big sloppy handwriting.


"1, Pancakes. Don't deny it."


Ava inclined her head slightly.


"2, pillows. I have seen the way you look at your pillow. Be glad I'm not saying it's love."


Ava looked at the pillow on the couch silently.


"3, your bed. I swear I've never seen so much repressed excitement about bedtime before."


Ava sat down not exactly where Clint had wanted her to, she was far away from him, but it was a start.


"4, toast. You waffle toast down like nobody's business. 5, running. You really love the treadmill.Oh, 6, treadmill. 7, chicken noodle soup. 8, chocolate. You even looked for more in my pockets when you thought I wasn't looking.9, legos. Emma has gotten you to play with them at least twice and has had to tell youto put them away both times. 10," Clint paused for a moment, searching for the tenth thing.


"Pajamas." Ava said softly looking at her hands.


Clint smiled at the paper as he added it to the list.
 
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Angela ruefully watched the dog bob away in Barton's arms.


"But I really wanted to play with it."


With creases in his face, Banner huffed and bent down and opened cabinets thhat creaked like his joints. "Where is it? The phonebook?"


"Why are you looking for that?"


"Calling up an old friend."


Angela scoffed. "Didnt know you ha friends."
 
"I like Pajamas. I shall name the dog Pajamas."


Clint smiled at the dog, who was yawning and stretching on the couch.


"Well, maybe we could shorten it. What about P.J.? That's an abreviation of pajamas."


Ava nodded towards the couch silently and Clint smiled.


"Okay, have a P.J."


Clint plopped the tired dog in her lap and laughed as it fell asleep on a bewildered emotionless mess of a human.
 
"Look who's talking."


Angela watched Banner emerge from some unvharted depths of the kitchen cabinet with a phone book from 1978. "How old is your friend?" she asked doubiously.


Ignoring her, Banner leafed through the pages. He stopped, tapped the page, an reached for the phone.
 
Emma walked in with a file to her office, ready to meet with Ava once again. She would force a feeling out of that child, even if it had to be a negative one.


Ava wasn't in the office though.


She checked her room, Ava wasn't there either.


Emma sighed, Clint knew this was the time for her therapy.


She chekced the play room on a whim and was met with a highly unusual sight.


The lights were off and a Tom and Jerry cartoon was playing. Clint seemed to be watching intently, laughing at all the right points, but Emma saw his hearing aids were out. Ava was watching too, sitting close to Clint, who had his arm on the couch behind her, and absentmindedly stroking a ball of fur that was breathing softly on her lap. Ava would look up every once and a while at Clint's face, whenever seh thought he wasn't looking. He always seemed to know though, which may be why he was staring at the screen so intently. Ava scooched a little closer and put her head down on the couch behind her gently.


It was a scene that melted the heart like an oven melted chocolate.


Emma frowned down at them. This would not do. This would not do at all.


She flipped the lights and the response was instantaneous. Ava jumped about a mile and stood aside from the couch, putting a yawning puppy on the ground. Clint got up slower, putting his hearing aids in and slowly turning around.


If looks could kill Emma would be somewhere six feet under.


"What. Is. Your. Problem?" He asked with clenched fists.


"It's time for Ava's therapy."


"Can't that wait?"


Emma smiled sweetly.


"I'm afraid not."
 
Banner made several thirty second phone calls; it was all very shifty, and he sounded smug, even during the Czech one.


"Banner." But it was no use; he was too absorbed.


Suddenly, he put the phone back and smiled grimly at Angela. "Fury's gonna be mad. Whats he gonna do though, kill me?"
 
Ava sat on the edge of the uncomfortable wooden chair, arms clutching the wooden edge tightly. P. j. Had to stay with Clint! Emma wouldn't allow the dog to interrupt the session. Today they watched more of Ava's life, today Ava watched herself become a cyborg.


She remembered it well, but seeing it...


Metal plates inserted under her skin, it made everything so cold. Wires and a new voice box going throughout her body, connecting her eyes to a computer back at the lab. Leg boosters and rockets that came from her hands and feet.


All installed over a three day period. All while she was conscious.


She forgot how young she'd been, only two hundred and nine. The implants had lasted for five years, but father eventually removed them. Her body had been fighting them, rejecting them. She had been in a constant state of agonizing pain, but was physically unable to do anything about it since Father now controlled her through a computer in the brain.


He had told her that he took everything out.


She had never really believed him.


She was right.


At the base of her spine was a small metal implement that allowed him to track her, cause pain, and even control her at times. It was there.


Ava felt the base of her spine with a shakes hand as Emma called Bruce. There was surgery to be done.
 
Banner jumped all the same, even though it was just Barton from the therapists' office.


He tried to ignore it, hunching down to scribble a scrap of information on the back of a Chinese takeout menu that had been left out. Angela went tp investigate.


She found then gathered in their two-out-of-five star lab, with its nurse's-office countertops complete with chewed gum stuck to the underside. One bed of airmattress-like quality touched the back wall. Q-Tips were next to the sterile syringes. Banner's midnight wantons were in the sink.


As Angela glanced at Ava, who was sitting grudgingly on the bed, Emma glared at her. Something in her eyes reminded Angela of her mother's voice. She looked apologetical in Emma's direction, even though she's met the woman only once, and had nothing to be sorry for.


"What's up?" she asked Barton. "I thought it was her hour with the shrink aroun now."
 
"We have found something...leftover from before Ava came to us, they are going to remove it." Emma said diplomatically. Ava resisted the urge to roll her eyes, where had that urge come from?


"My father implanted a chip in my spinal column and they are going to surgically remove it. Watch after P.J. If they make a mistake and miraculously permementally incapacitate me."
 
"You named your dog after a sandwhich?" Angela scoffed. "There are, like, seven thousand of Jupiter's moons you could have named him after."
 
"No, Hawkeye said to name him after something I liked, so I named him P.J. After pajamas."


Emma cleared her throat loudly.


"I'm sorry Angela, but the surgery will start very soon, you need to leave."


Clint showed up at the door looking flustered.


"Hey Ava, um, good luck and stuff. We will be here when you wake up."


Ava cocked her head.


"What is luck?"


Emma almost snarled.


"You all need to leave, now! This girl is going to go through intensive surgery in" she checked her watch "three minutes. We have a schedule to keep. I'm sorry if you two are worried, but we must get going."


She smiled sweetly and pushed them out.
 
Banner shuffled down the hallway halfheartedly.


When he saw Angela and Clint at the end of the hall, outside of his lab, he stopped. "Who's in there?"
 
"Hello Doctor Banner!" Ava smiled as she called. They had been steadily pumping her with more and more drugs, trying to see if they'd take effect. They had started to work. Ava felt...good.


"Hiiiiiii Angellllllaaaaa. Your nice.....Clint!" Ava looked over as if shed just noticed him, standing outside the door.


"Clients my favorite! I'm not allowed to like him though. No, no, no."


Ava pulled a big friend face, which looked unnatural on such an unlined face. Clint pushed past Emma, who looked somewhat shocked, and went over to Ava, stroking her hair and telling her to lie down.


"It's ok to like things now Ava. You're safe here now. Shhh, go to sleep."
 
"Who thinks they're doing surgery?" Banner asked Emma.


"I'll do it," said Angela.


"No, be quiet."


(i gtg noght)
 
"Those physicians in there. Now, the procedure is about to begin and I believe you all need to leave." Emma said quietly. Ava watched through droopy eyes and looked at hawk eyes reassuring smile as she fell asleep. What a nice smile, she thought contentedly.
 
Angela looked ready to leave, but Banner, glancing at the uncomfortable physicians, laughed.


"I didn't even hear about this," he said. "Until I had to come over here, myself. Who's authority do you think you're working under, lady? My lab might be in a SHIELD building, but its mine. You're breaking into my space."
 
Emma frowned at Banner.


"I am working under the highest authority. The chip in her back poses a security threat. Director Fury has ordered me to eliminate any security threats, at any cost." She said those words with a finality that rung in the air for a moment, making it somehow stale in the few seconds since the words were spoken.


"Woah lady." Clint moved next to her, blocking Ava with his body.


"Whaddya mean, is this surgery dangerous?"


Emma frowned.


"Agent Barton, any surgery is dangerous. I'm sure the creature will be fine."
 
Bruce, pointing harshly, ordered the physicians to leave just then. The tension was static. They hovered, unsure.


"Who let her in here, Clint?" Bruce asked, as if Emma wasn't a step behind him. "She must be out of her mind. Fury doesn't give authority to people with the prudency of kindergarten teachers."


He carried on hobbling around Emma as if she were a ghost or a thing without ears, pushing the other surgeons around like they were naive, 20-something interns, and pulling a powdery pair of gloves over his calluses and scarred palms.


"Oh, and I think someone should check her liscence, Clint," he said pointedly, before slipping on a mint surgical mask. "To see if it's valid. You know, Clint? Because anybody who gave her a phycologists' liscence is out of their gourd, Clint."


He hovered over Ava now. "What do you think you clowns are doing here, still?" he snapped at the other surgeons. "Be useful and get me that cup of sterile needles."
 
Emma bristled for a moment, then sighed and followed Clint out the door.


"You know, those surgeons were some of the best. I wasn't going to intentionally harm it. Director Fury would've had kittens if anything happened to his newest little toy soldier."


Clint shot her a glare then kept walking briskly. Emma almost had to jog to keep up.


"What? Why are you so mad Agent?"


"It. Creature. Toy soldier. You know, all of these are just another way of calling her an experiment. She's just a little girl, and her name is Ava."


Emma rolled her eyes and snorted.


"It's completely different Agent Barton.She isn't human. She literally has different DNA and-"


"Stop!"


Clint put his hands up and closed his eyes, head facing the ground and stopped. He was breathing like he'd just jogged a mile in the snow.


"Emma,"


Clint turned around slowly and glared at her.


"If this is how you're treating her, no wonder she's not getting any better with people.Just, just treat her like she's a person, treat her like a kid, she's just a kid..."


Emma shook her head slowly.


"If you've even seen any of the footage, she has killed so many innocent people, so so many."


Clint's glare softened a bit.


"I know, she seems like a monster, right? Well," Clint laughed a little bit, eyes losing their focus on the ground.


"Well I'm a monster too. "


"That's not what I said."


"You didn't have to say it. Don't worry Emma. It's ok."


Clint smiled at her sadly.


"Us monsters have to stick together. Ever think about what you are Emma? You work for SHIELD. If you've done half or even a quarter of what I've been ordered to do...puts a whole other spin on it, don't it?"


Emma shuffled her feet.


"I'm just a psychologist."


"Well, we all believe what we need to believe to survive. I'll see you later Emma."


Clint walked away, leaving Emma alone in the corridor.


She shook her head as she watched him go and sighed.


He has no idea.
 
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Angela traced a circle in the wall next to the sink, from which she'd stolen the leftover wontons, and snacked silently, her ear in the newly-made hole.


It all seemed very calm and, like the wantons, unsatisfying. But a few minutes in, Clint called himself a monster, and Angela willed herself to develop superhearing.


"Hey, Angela."


She jumped. "I wasn't eavesdropping-"


"Don't pretend like you weren't." Banner gestured to Ava. "Just come over here. I need help putting her out."


As if they were all unnecessary loose ties, he glanced uninterestedly at the three subsurgeons. "Oh, you guys can leave."


They hesitated. He was the Hulk, they remembered; they left quickly.


Angela watched them disapper.


"Angela." Banner had Ava out cold and ready to be cut open, like a fish. Angela ventured over, catious, watching Banner work. She played the drums with her fingertips and the bedframe.


"I'll have to sterilize everything," muttered Banner.


"Why?"


"Or buy new sets of everything that woman touched." He nodded at the door.
 
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Clint looked up Emma's file on his computer, but he couldn't concentrate. He sighed and rubbed his eyes.


He wished the years could go away, that he could be a man, not a man shaped monster.


But that wasn't him anymore. He and Natasha had talked about it. Sometimes the world needs a few monsters so everybody didn't turn into one. He was one, Nat was one, Ava was one.


Emma was probably one too, even if she didn't think so.


That's the problem with monsters like us. We look so human sometimes we even fool ourselves.
 
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"Let's learn some biology," Banner said.


With Angela attentive, he pointed out organs on Ava's person as he treated the incision site; here was the liver, here was the stomach, here was the large intestine, here is where babies are made- but, not yet. "When you're older," he added. "Something your dad talked to you about, I'm sure."


But at Bruce's question, Angela looked shaken. "Can we talk about something else?"


"Why?"


"What?"


Banner, professionally making little dots on the incision site, didn't even look up as he calmly said, "Or did you learn all about it in that biology class you supposedly passed?"


Angela bit her lip. Those facts were one of those things you didn't remember learning, but knew anyway. And she told Banner so. He grunted.


"What?" she said, irritated.


"Weird answer," he grunted.


"Well," she grumbled, but just crossed her arms.


Eventually, Angela drifted over to the hole again, but Clint wasn't there anymore. But she still had that comment on her mind. Monster.


Monster? Like, what Banner insisted on calling the Big Guy, but with Clint? What happened when Clint got angry? She thought about the impressive-looking silver arrows always strapped to his back, and remembered the Battle of New York, and breifly, her image of a superstar archer flickered off.


To distract herself, Angela watched the surgery.


Banner pulled out the foreign travker.


"Jeez," he muttered. "Her dad was on another level of psychotic."
 
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Ava was dreaming.


She was standing in a little room, it was purple and the walls were made of cushions. She wore s jacket that pinned her arms crossed against her chest. Everything was vibrating and shifting so she started to fall down. Falling took forever, the laws of gravity must have been broken.


She was falling towards the ground after she had killed her father, she thought she was free of him, but there he was, waiting for her on the ground. She landed in her room at Shield instead, Clint giving her chocolates, Dr. Banner arguing with Angela in the background. P.J. Was curled up on her, and she was wearing her warm pajamas.


She smiled.


She was happy.


Ava was dreaming.


Ava hadn't dreamed things that hadn't happened...possibly ever.


At least, not that she could remember in her five hundred fourteen years. Some hallucinations in the pit, but never good ones.


Ava smiled in her sleep.


Ava liked dreaming.
 
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