FOILS 2

(oh, ava.)


The machine blared BEEP, and Angela jumped.


"For the love of everything!" she yelped. "Does it do that every time?"


Banner peered at the results and recorded it on a piece of paper on his clipboard. "You were here the last three times we did this. Which, we would have only had to do once if you stopped squirming."


"You made me take off all my clothes. I. Am. Exposed." She drew out her syllables and let them hang in the air.


Banner made an "ugh" noise. "Angela, if a medical gown isnt good enough for you, then I dont know what to do. You insist on wearing a hundred layers of clothing otherwise."


Angela puffed her cheeks out and made a show of crossing her arms. She turned, wobbled but pulled off a half-face, and went to get changed.


Banner rubbed his eyes. He wasn't angry. No, this was a different type of exhausting, mentally staining exercise in the art of patience.
 
"Okay Ava, I think we're doe wiht the legos now." Hawkeye said after Ava built and showed them memories from the Eifel tower, the subway, and the empire state building. Emma nodded.


"Yes I agree, if you wouldn;'t mind I'dl like you to come with me to my office Ava, we can talk more there."Ava looked at Hawkeye who was staring very hard at the legos in his hands.


"Are you coming with us?"


Hawkeye looked up after a pause, just longer than normal.


"No, I'll meet you after. Emma and you need to talk without me." Ava furrowed her eyebrows for a moment.


"Come on Ava, let's go." Emma got up and gestured for her to follow. Clint looked at the ground and wouldn't meet Ava's eyes as she left.
 
(i feel like avas gonna flip without clint)


When Angela came back, Banner broke the disappointing news to her.


"You are malnourished," he said flatly, keeing his eyes on the clipboard. "You're 20 lbs underweight. Angela, what did you eat during an average day, while you were with your dad?"


Angela had to sit down to think. That was like a different lifetime.


"Well, like, when you woke me up this morning, I was having a dream that Dad didnt put the Chinese in the fridge, which is what I usually have for breakfast. Then, I dont know, maybe takeout if were stayig at a place. Drive-thru if we dont. And... yeah, we drank a lot of water. We had Chinese alot because Dad knew this guy, and we got a lot of coupons."


Banner's critical look could cut through a steel door. "So oils."


Angela, suddenly self conscious, sat on her hands. "Yeah, well....."


"Youre metabolic rate must be high. No, dont give me that look like you dont know what that is. Im hanging onto the belief that you passed middle school biology."
 
"So, Ava. I know this is very different than what you are used to. Direcotr Fury had me watch most of the footage your Father had of you before I talked to you, so I know what you went through."


Ava shifted in her seat to better see her exit path.


"Why is Hawkeye not allowed to be here?"


Emma smiled easily.


"Don't worry, we'll see him soon. I just want your thoughts on things first."


"Everything is fine. Those are my thoughts.I am recieving proper nurishment and sleep. My basic needs are met."


Emma's smile faltered.


"Yes, we know, but what do you think about everything? What do you feel?"
 
("what do you feeeeeeeeel ava?")


"Dude."


There was silence as some of Banner's faith in the American School System shriveled up and burned. As he tapped the clipboard on his knee absently, Angela's eyes started losing their focus point and drifted to the ceiling. Wowie, look at the texture on those tiles. Magnficent.


"Why didn't you pass?" Banner asked.


Angela blinked. "Wuh?- oh, um. I don't know... I think I did, it was just hard. Biology isn't my thing. The teachers sucked."


Banner abrubtly stood from sitting cross legge on the floor and left the room. Angela wondered what she said wrong.


As she nervously tapped on her collar bone, she wondered if she had even taken middle school biology.


The push-inward door was ripped off its hinges as Banner pulled it open. He was carrying a huge thing that, horrifyingy, looked like a textbook.


Angela jumped and picked up a weighted rod. "Stay back."


Banner looked grim. "Yeah, what are you going to do with that? You managed to pick it up, though. Count me as a proud placebo daddy."
 
(oh, that was beautiful. count me as proud placebo daddy. okay, im gonna stop for now, i might write some more later okay?)
 
Ava blinked.


Feel?


"I am feeling several things at once..." Ava said slowly. Emma nodded.


"That's not unusual, can you explain what these things feel like?"


Ava nodded, still looking at the woman quizzically.


"I feel plush softness from the fabric on my skin, coldness from the wooden chair I am sitting on-"


Emma shook her head slightly.


"Have I done something incorrect?" Ava asked in her normal tone.


"What is to be my punishment?" This sounded normal too! But for the hint of tiredness, the heaviness of the question that had been used so much that the words were worn and strained.
 
"Can you not? Can you not, please, just stop. Dont bring up my dad." The bar slipped from Angela's fingers with a hard thump and rolled toward Banner.


"Excuse me?" Banner replied.


Angela inhaled and exhaled heavily. "Sorry," she mumbled.


Slowly, Banner picked up the weight bar and crossed the room to return it to the rack. "Look, kid, I have no intentions of replacing your dad. Even if I wanted to, I couldnt."


Angela looked him hard in the eyes, as if to say 'Well, good' or an obnoxious 'FINE.'


And it was done. Banner huffed and left her alone in the weight room. She hummed the first few lines of the theme song to the X Files in the still, empty air, making sounds for no reason.
 
Hawkeye sighed heavily onto the phone.


"Nat, you have no idea, this kid...we'll for one thing she's over five hundred years old, but she hasn't even reached puberty. I think her Dad did something to her to slow it down or something... She's so pathetic. She's one of the strongest things on the planet, but she can't have thoughts for herself."


"Brainwashing does that. You know that Clint."


Clint Barton nodded his head with his eyes closed.


"I know, I know, it's just, this little girl...she doesn't even know what emotions are! The therapist asked her how she felt and she described what her clothes and a chair she was sitting on felt!"


"That's a little funny."


"It would be," Clint said tiredly "if she hadn't asked what her punishment was to be for answering the question wrong. She even gave some suggestions." Clint shook his head.


"Whoever her Father is, he is one sick piece of work."


"Well, I'll let you know when we get any leads, but nothing so far."


"Okay. Hey! Be careful."


Clint was rewarded with a half snort.


"Coming from the one training a sociopath with incredible powers to have fun. One slip up and she'll decide that cannabalism is fun."


Clint Barton let out a throaty chuckle.


"Ah, I love you Tasha."


He didn't see it but he could feel the smile on the other end of the phone.


"I know."
 
Banner wanted a sandwhich.


There was no end to the black void of his stomach. He had the apetite of a hulk, after all.


While in the kitchen, he overheard Clint on the phone with Black Widow. It was probably her, anyway; who else bothered to call him? Oh, shoot, he had to remember to call Fury for those weeky progress reports. Heroism involved a lot of paperwork.


Banner reflected, scrapping Jiffy on the bread slowly. When was the last time he'd had a non-sarcastic conversation with someone?


"Mmm."
 
Ava had been sent back to her room after Emma had talked to her for a long time, explaining what feelings were, how they worked, and that Ava shouldn't be scared of them. Then she'd noticed that it was almost lunchtime and sent Ava back to her room to change garments.


The clothes laid out on Ava's bed were very different than the sleeping clothes. They were all black and more form fitting, though they still hung loose on her. The shield logo was prominent on her left shoulder and the clothing felt as though it were made of leather. Ava almost smiled, nice and durable. Unlike...what she used to wear...


Ava shivered in the cold of the pit. She had no idea how long shed been here, it may have been a year, it may have been forever.


The outside world did seem like a dream.


Her clothes were tattered threads that barely clung to her frame and she was coated in dirt and blood that was caked in from creatures shed killed and eaten. She wished a bigger creature would fall into her hole, she was always hungry.


She shuffled in the darkness and suddenly blinding whiteness came from the top of her hole, covering her in its painful light as the unfamiliar sensation of warmth crept over her body.


"Get up. Come out."


The man's voice...Father. He must be obeyed. He must be obeyed at all costs.


Ava struggled and stood up. She closed her eyes to avoid the blinding light, which she would realize later, was the moon. Slowly she groped and felt and climbed, falling many times, before she felt the cool wet softness of the grass under her finger tips.


"Get up. Now."


Ava got up and more of the threadbare clothing fell off. She felt exposed without her darkness, without her out. She crossed her arms.


She opened her eyes just wide enough to see the man striding away shaking his head and muttering


"Pathetic..."
 
"This place is a freaking maze. Cheese and crackers." Angela paused halfway around a corner. "It's so amaze-ing. Haha."


After loitering in the weight room for a while, Angela's stomach, demanding sustenance, had encouraged her to go exploring for food. She didnt want to run into Banner- what a cranky old man- so she figured that hey, how big could this place be? She could find her way around.


It was getting later and later, and Angela had gotten herself lost. It was, indeed, that big.


"Hel-looooooo." Her echo bounced down a hallway. There werent even any doors this deep in the facility. Or maybe they were hidden. Angela was too hungry to figure it out.


She tried smelling out food, or doing that spy-movie thing with the knocking on the walls (what she was trying to accomplish is a mystery), but only succeeded on stumbling upon civilization when she heard Hawkeye's voice.


"...no, you have no idea, this kid...."


Angela tiptoed closer.


"hasnt even reached puberty...slow her down...." Angela pressed her ear to the wall. "She's so pathetic."


Angela blushed.


"Shes one of the strongest things on the planet, but she can't have thoughts for herself," Hawkeye finished.


"Wah wuh wuh wuh, wuh wuh," from the phone.


So it was Ava that was pathetic. Angela's expression twisted, as if she'd just eaten something she suspected would give her food poisoning.
 
Ava crept out of her room in her new clothes, hugging the walls and creeping in the shadows until she came back upon the kitchen. She saw Angela loitering around outside, but Ava ignored her and snuck into the kitchen behind Bruce Banners back. He was too absorbed in his sand which. Ava opened a drawer softly and stared at all the food. Then, quickly, she started shoving it down her shirt, up her sleeves, anywhere, not even noticing when banner shifted position until it was too late and he was staring at her, mid shoving a can of soup down her shirt.
 
"I love you, Tasha."


"Wuh wuh."


Angela heard the phone click, and hovered, pondering her next move carefully. Then, she kicked the wall with her big, ripped, yellowing boot, and hollared for Hawkeye to tell her where the door was.


Meanwhile, speachless and confused in the kitchen, Banner reflected on the fact that not even his half-alien children from whom he was separated were as weird as the girl shoving Cream of Tartar in her shirt.
 
Hawkeye opened the door and let Angela stride inside angrily before closing it behind her.


"Something I can do for you young lady?"


Ava dropped the cream if tartar and it opened, powder filling the air and making her sneeze as she ran away and hid under the table next to the sandwich eating mans legs. When the danger passed Ava crawled out and looked at the man, who was staring back at her. Then she looked at the floor and slowly started to remove cans of food and boxes, from her clothing. She left nothing and waited for her punishment while staring at the ground.
 
(danger level: cream of tartar)


Bruce started to say many things at once. He settled, after several awkward minutes, on, "If you were hungry, you could have just asked."


Angela said to Hawkeye, "I heard you just now calling Ava pathetic. I thought you were supposed to be being nice to her."
 
"Woah woah woah, hold up there. First of all, you shouldn't be listening to my private conversations. Second of all, I didn't call her pathetic to her fac, that's a whole lot nicer than you've been to her missy. You didn't even explain to her how to work a shower, how to put on clothes or underwear right!"


Ava looked up at banner with large eyes.


"You, you will not be punishing me?"
 
Banner looked away.


"No no no... save those puppydog looks for Natasha or something. Here."


Banner handed down his finished sandwhich to Ava. "Your medicals say youre not allergic to peanuts or gluten."


----


"Yeah but, she's a super smart megagenius that should have figured it out!"


Angela shook her head; her pigtails wipped her cheeks. "I'm going to tell Ava and Banner what you said."
 
Ava hesitated for a fraction of a second before grabbing the sandwich and eating it with such speed that she had to stop to catch her breath so she wouldn't choke, just as Angela burst in, closely followed by Hawkeye. Ava was covered in bits of food and there was powder all over her new clothing. Her hair was greasy and stood up in weird ways from washing it with soap, and she had unwittingly put her boots on the wrong feet, which caused her to trip when she tried to take a step back, and she smushed the sandwich on her face on the way down. She looked up at threes pairs of eyes stating down at her...and took another bite of her sandwich.
 
Banner was the first to speak.


"You know how to eat, more or less, right?" he asked Angela, who bobbed her head.


She was more concerned with the overgrown five year old sitting in her own one-man-food-fight, on the floor in the kitchen. This was the sort of moment moms capture on tape.


"Good," Banner said, interrupting her thoughts. "Then I don't have to give that particula lesson. Sorry, that came out a little rude."


Playing with her fingers, chewing the flesh on the inside of her cheek, Angela hovered, wondering if it was worth it to help Ava, wondering if she'd be the better (wo)man by doing so, hoping coming into contact with Ava wouldnt make her lose control again.


Finally, as Barton was bendig down to pick up some of Ava's mess, Angela aaid weakly, "No, I'll do it."
 
Ava did not understand people. They were more complex than their anatomy entailed.


First of all, they had stared at her while she ate on the floor and Angela had cleaned up the mess. No trouble, no yelling, no pain.


Secondly, after lunch she was told to report to Dr. Banner's office for a medical.


A feeling of dread draped over Ava like a heavy blanket, threatening to suffocate her and cause her to panic.


She had done what she was told though. When she arrived she had been told to change into a paper gown and when she had started changing on the spot Banner yelped and turned around, yelling at her tochange in the bathroom. Humans were shy.


Then she had sat on the metal platform, ready for whatever torture was coming her way, knowing that Banner would turn into the Hulk and smash her if she resisted. Yet, he seemed...gentle.
 
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