Chapter Text
Out of all the tasks that come along with being an Avenger—with all the press, and posing, and relinquishing of free time—it’s Val’s bullshit reconnaissance missions that so badly piss Ava off. They serve no purpose. Not a real one anyway, not some ‘greater good’ when they’re only intended to scope out political opposition and intel through bugging colleagues. No civilians to save, no tech to steal out of the ‘wrong’ hands. Stealthy slinking through government galas and trust-fund circlejerks was not what Ava signed up for, well, as if she signed up for this in the first place. As if she’s worthy of a public-facing ‘hero’ role. She’s not Avengers material, but these missions aren’t either. In many ways, she’s not doing anything different from her years of undercover operative work. All that’s changed is a public stamp of approval and her attire. Maybe Ava would be able to stomach the frivolity of it all if it weren’t for the designer gowns.
The conspiratorial part of her brain believes their ‘handler’ finds some sort of sick pleasure in dressing her Avengers up. Hand picking Chanel and Tom Ford to make them blend in, employing a team of stitchers to line the insides with Kevlar after one ‘CIA social’ turned messy. They’ve all been Val’s dolls for a while—her, Walker, and Yelena; otherwise known as the shadow ops squad, at least. She’d point and they’d shoot. She’d say “jump” and the three of them, with varying degrees of begrudging frustration, would ask how high. Now what fits the madwoman’s fancy is playing dress-up. Navy matches your complexion, Val once told her, the tiny woman’s hand lingering as she smoothed satin fabric down Ava’s chest. Shame you hide everything under that suit . Gritted teeth and a held tongue kept her from replying I’d prefer to keep it that way.
It’s mainly Val’s beloved former shadow ops who deal with her hanger-heavy hand. Bucky’s always a second away from ripping her in half and Alexei’s not capable of cleaning up nor handling undercover operations—two ‘blessings’ that spare them on the regular. But there’s still another victim besides the usual three, one confined to the shadows of the Watchtower while the rest of the team is out. Ava’s seen the way Val looks at Bob through stolen glances: hunger behind hard brown eyes, glint of something darker. A longing, almost. The tiny woman is shelled in a cold, hard exterior but the eyes are the windows to the soul.
She plays dress up with him when no one’s watching. Ava’s more vigilant than most.
Pulling on her latest assigned outfit, she spies Val’s hand on Bob’s shoulder through the crack of the door as the woman leads him down the hall with a garment bag in tow. They’re saying something; she could hear, if only she was a little bit closer—
“Ava?”
Her hand reaches out and shuts the door. Hard. It’s on instinct, at the sound of his voice. Turning around with the heavy Christian Dior dress pooled between her knees and hips isn’t easy—she does, lips tight with quick-deployed anxiety, and looks at John across the room. Her expression isn’t the kindest and she doesn’t need his wide-eyed reaction to know she’s snapped at him in all but words.
“I just wanted to offer—” He gestures vaguely towards Ava, palm upturned and fingers pointing to the puddle of sparkling blue fabric around her body. “If you wanted help, getting that on and all.” John’s already dressed; a black tuxedo, nothing fancy. To an unknowing viewer it might look a bit more structured than’s typical, but Ava can tell it’s been made bulletproof. In noticing the tailoring—and only that, just that—her gaze stays on him far too long and she snaps back to his eyes. And his face. His cheeks are slightly red and she can feel her own heat up against her will.
When Ava speaks, it’s gentler than expected. The split-second anxiety and lingering glances have mellowed her out, and she speaks under her breath. “Oh.” It holds in the air until the weight of fabric drags down past her knees. “Maybe,” she concedes.
A moment barely passes and John’s beside her, silently helping hold the dress as Ava pulls it up around her body. The feeling of it is a nightmare: tufts layered on each other like petals of a flower, dark blue beaded edges and stones threaded into fabric. An unfortunate side effect of her condition is sensitive skin—funny, how her body punishes her for being tangible with itchy welts and cracked, scaly patches like she was never meant to be material in the first place. It’s almost more preferable to not be real. It’s almost enough to make her wish that was the case, between the eczema and constant pain. The drag of jagged rhinestones across her arm that now hangs at her side forewarns the hell this evening holds.
Kevlar’s lined the inside of the dress as well. Ava can feel the extra fabric between the outer layer and the new satin inner lining, adding extra weight she’s not exactly equipped to carry. But the bulletproofing does fuck all when her shoulders, back, and arms are fully exposed; it’s strapless. Of course it is. If I had that rack, I’d be putting it on display , Val told her. I’m doing you a favor. Some favor. The word implies it’s something beneficial, when the immodest outfits are anything but. Existing outside the comfort of her suit is already a challenge. Ava’s fear of losing control of her solidity in public is too great to ever risk through her own free will. Can you find me something with sleeves , she once asked Val after being presented with another strapless, backless, vintage dress the day before a mission. Apparently that ‘simply wouldn’t do.’
Nimble fingers come to Ava’s back to pull the dress’s corset tight and that’s the only silver lining to this whole affair. No, being tangible and exposed to the world is worth it for this brief moment—the brush of calloused fingertips between her shoulder blades.
John deftly laces the corset with lingering touches just ghosting the edge of her skin. It seems to Ava like second nature to him; thankfully, since she certainly has no skill for it. How the hell is he so good at this? His voice and eyes meeting hers in the mirror a few feet away pull her from thought. “Why’d you close the door?”
Ava rolls her eyes, even with the full knowledge he can see her face clear as day. Ah, yes, let everyone speculate why we’re getting dressed together. Answer the question as to why you’ve been nowhere to be found all day; you spent the better half of the afternoon in my bed and between my legs. I can’t admit that you— Her internal monologue rolls on so long that John doesn’t repeat himself, but instead traces fingers down her shoulder while looking at her expectantly. “Would you like to explain why we’re getting dressed together? To Bob? To our boss?” Ava replies, soft in volume but sharp nonetheless.
John shrugs. “She’s sending us out together.”
“Because no one knows what I look like and you’re the only generic man here who could convincingly play a bodyguard.” Blunt, but true. They’re ideal candidates for Val’s ‘infiltrate for information’ missions. The only other team member who’d been drafted in the same way as them was Yelena, but her accent and ‘general unwillingness’ meant she was less often called upon. “No metal arm. No Russian accent. No big mouth.” Ava inhales a small laugh at her final words; no, his mouth is big but he knows enough of when to keep it shut. Decades of a soldier’s instinct has at least instilled that.
And he keeps it shut now. John’s quiet for a moment, hands busy smoothing the ribbon running across Ava’s back. Gentle. Though she can’t see his eyes, the silence holds like he’s knee-deep in thought until his hand drops from her back and he says, “You don’t think there’s an ulterior motive at all? It’s always me and you, me and you, me and—”
“You’ve gone with Yelena before. I have too, once.”
“Once.”
“What, do you really think the team knows? Or that Val knows?” With a raise of her eyebrows, she meets his gaze quickly before flitting away and adjusting the neckline’s lay on her chest. Ava’s constantly been afraid of being caught since the beginning of this whole affair; she doesn’t know why, not really, nothing beyond a sinking worry that the moment there are suspicions—and those suspicions are confirmed—everything will come crashing down. That it’ll shrivel up the moment they hit the light. “I think she’d throw a conniption fit,” she settles on, swallowing everything back.
“I think she’d use it to her advantage. Like she’s doing right now.”
Truth settles under her skin at the onset of his words and Ava shakes her head, walking away from John and the mirror to her desk across the room. “She doesn’t know. She’d say something, God, you know she wouldn’t keep it in; some trite remark, some bullshit on playing matchmaker”—Ava fumbles with the shoebox beside her, nearly gagging at the stilettos and toying with the strap—“like this was some grand plan all along.”
“And because she’d try to take credit, we can’t get ready together? I can’t help you get dressed?” Ava can deal with frustration in his voice—the raise of eyebrows, the unspoken ‘you never would’ve managed to get that blue mess on’ —but it’s the undertone of something tender and bruised that forces her to focus anywhere but him. Everything goes fuzzy when he gets all wounded. She’s never been one to handle emotions well.
Shakily standing four inches taller with the heels on, she starts quietly, “I think we shouldn’t—”
“Shouldn’t what, Ava? Be seen together?” John fiddles with the cuffs of his sleeves as he says it; not necessarily nervous fingers but it’s been long enough that Ava’s familiarized herself with his tells. Maybe what comes with a life of stillness and regimented order are miniscule outlets, pressure valve release preventing explosion. She’s seen his outbursts—all of them, the world at least, has seen the one. Compulsive motions in response to the feeling of hurt, is much more preferable. “Be together?” he continues.
Ava shakes her head, a small, restrained movement. “We shouldn’t be reckless, John.” Just yesterday, in the kitchen when Yelena walked in to seconds after your hand was down my sweats. Five weeks ago, at the start of this all, when we narrowly missed Bucky by ducking into the darkness of the linen closet. The shadows, that’s where they needed to confine their affair. Away from prying eyes, away from questions that would lead to follow-ups and realizations and labels and judging eyes. Ava’s fallen in loveeee , she can hear them say . Is this love? How would she know? Her heart races whenever she looks at John, even out in the common areas in front of everyone, and she starts imagining frivolous things like how he’d talk in the dead of night after waking from a nightmare (surprisingly hushed and guarded for an angry man) and which paintings she’d hang in their shared bedroom and what he’d look like going old and gray. She can never confess that to a soul, not unless she wants the questions about what they are. Teammates. Friends. More like friends with benefits, considering the marathon of intimate firsts he’s checked off her list. God, maybe a relationship ; what the hell does she know about that? In all her years she’s never once, never ever had anything like that. It should be too late now. Stop. Stop. Her heart slows but that does nothing to calm her lungs and the heavy breathing. “Things dissolve quickly when put into reality,” Ava finally says with a shaky exhale. It comes out more hollow than she’d like.
The sinking feeling dropping through her body like an anchor at the quirk of his lips, the acceptance of her hesitancy is almost worse than her pervasive fear of commitment. Almost.
Not even twenty minutes pass through the night before Ava’s frustration breaches containment and out into the gold leaf, glittering old-money ballroom.
Getting to the gala and entering was easy; Val’s endless list of fake names and fake companies to claim inheritance make life simple, and on American soil, no one questions her once Ava deploys the British accent. She’s fairly certain she could spout utter and true bullshit and no one would bat an eye before asking her ‘oh, can you say holiday again?’ Tonight’s name of choice is Maret Holm and apparently she’s the heiress of a medical technology company based in Sweden. Thankfully, all the American upper-crust social climbers would rather make small talk over vacation spots than details of some brain chip nonsense. Ava couldn’t explain it if they asked. She’d thrown out Val’s notecards with informational bullet points before she and John walked in.
The headache growing at the top of her neck pulses with each new, pointless comment.
“Are the beaches on Naxos really as gorgeous as they say? See me and Oliver here”—the middle-aged woman in front of her grabs the frail arm of the near-geriatric man close by, a bright red smile revealing the stain of lipstick and red wine on her teeth—“we were hearing from a colleague of his in the State Department that the sand is unbelievably white, and I don’t know if that could be true.”
“Oh, it is, it is,” Ava assures, her fake smile only dropping with each sip of champagne. Two glasses down already and she’s already eyeing the server passing by to grab a fourth. Will this woman ever shut up? “I’ve seen them myself. Just last year, my parents—they had a vow renewal at Plaka.”
That, however, does not get the woman to quit. “Pictures!” Her eyes light up like a child’s and Ava works doubly hard to keep her own expression from giving away a lack of enthusiasm. “Pictures, please, oh I’d love to see—”
“I’m afraid my family keeps things quite private,” Ava quickly interjects. Nip this in the bud. With that, the woman finally leaves—but not before Ava gives her and her husband (or father? Ava can’t determine) a polite kiss on the cheek and grasp of their hands.
John stands by silently. His face is blank; to anyone else he looks bored but Ava can see his own flair of frustration in the corners of his eyes. Hands at his side, his trigger finger twitches back and forth. No guns. No weapons, no suit to concentrate her phasing. Val’s orders; I don’t want a goddamn mess to clean up . They might as well be naked, being this vulnerable. It puts the both of them on edge.
He steps slightly closer, eyeing between the retreating couple and Ava. “Didn’t know you frequent Greece.” Sarcasm permeates every syllable and Ava thinks, let the volley of bickering jabs begin.
“This is demeaning,” she replies. A step towards John closes the space between them and even in a room full of self-important assholes begging for attention, all that matters is each other.
“The dress, the conversation, or that I’m assigned to ‘protect’ you?”
“Both. All. I can’t decide what’s worse.”
“At least you get to talk, all I’m allowed to do is stand here and look pretty.”
Ava snorts at that, almost chokes on her champagne as she finishes the glass.
“What, I don’t look pretty?”
“No, John ,”—she lowers her voice, not only to keep his name inaudible over the chatter of the room but because there’s no way for her to say it other than like a weakness—“you’re dashing.” Ava rolls her eyes and a playfulness eases through her gaze.
“Dashing, huh? Yeah, the tux is nice, say what you will about the woman but Valentina really does her job—”
Reaching up, Ava combs a hand through his hair and with heels on, she’s not straining for once. “Hair could use a bit of a fix,” she remarks with a smirk.
“Oh, you just want to touch me.”
“No, I just don’t think my security detail would look—”
“Your detail? No, I think it’s Miss Holm’s —”
“—so scruffy,” she finishes, pulling her hand away.
“Well, you look beautiful.”
The threat of dissolution hits like cold water with his words; dissolution of them, yes, but Ava sucks the inside of her cheek in concentration to prevent a dissolution of herself. Caught off guard like this and outside of the confines of her suit, she’s been prone to disappear. That’d be the worst thing that could happen right now, but instead, the second worst thing happens and she goes red in the face. Flustered. Words stolen from her razor-sharp mouth.
“Should’ve told you sooner, but,” John shakes his head and gently takes the empty champagne flute from Ava’s hand to set it on the table, “that dress is gorgeous on you. Blue’s your color. All those sparkles, you’re shimmering under the lights.”
Compliments, praise—she’s never been comfortable with either. No amount of approval saved her from hell at the hands of SHIELD. Wonderful job, Ava. Tomorrow we brief you on the last mission. Last mission, her ass. With each halfhearted compliment came the promise of an end continually renewed. But there was always another job. Another kill. Eventually she began to distrust the praise as much as she did the rest that followed.
But the sincerity in John’s eyes is undeniable.
Ava nods, looking down and pressing her hand to the rhinestones around her hips. It stings; she wants it to sting. A piece of praise without something painful in tandem is dangerous. But John takes her hand in his, squeezing slightly, and Ava can feel the blush of her cheeks deepen as she meets his gaze.
“It’s alright,” she softly says. “I’d much rather be—”
Suddenly his other hand is on her cheek and his lips are on hers and the room feels too small, too focused, like the world’s turned to face the two of them. Ava’s skin isn’t flushed; it’s burning to the touch while her heart beats faster and faster. Too bright. The ballroom is too bright, and there’s nothing to shield their precious, fragile thing from the harsh light of reality. Not here. Not public. No—
Staggering in her heels, she pulls away from John only to see his mouth slightly open and eyes just as wide. She avoids registering what lies beneath his gutted expression. “I need another drink,” Ava says. Looking past him to catch the attention of a server doesn’t distract her enough. She can still feel his focus, the same combination of frustration and rejection from earlier still present now. In an attempt at dismissing him, she adds “What? You can drink on the job. I don’t care.”
John straightens out. Falls back into his bodyguard role and the alarming suddenness of his distance catches Ava unsettled. “It’d do fuck all for me,” he mutters. She gives him a confused look but he doesn’t elaborate. Instead, he asks matter of fact, “You bugged the targets?”
“No,” she lies.
“What do you mean, no?”
“Of course I did.” Two devices in the sleeves when I took their hands. Easiest trick in the book. The utter seriousness in his tone brings her eye to twitch. “Were you even paying attention?”
“I was.”
“Shit bodyguard.”
With a clench of his jaw, Ava knows he’s holding back through her blow after blow. She doesn’t deserve it, not after pushing his buttons. Normally he matches her in bickering but it’s worse like this. Please, be an asshole back to me. He simply resumes standing beside her like a dutiful guard dog.
She can’t handle the silence. “I don’t think she’s gonna get any valuable information out of the lot of them,” Ava remarks. “Where to fly off to next when we cause her too much headache.”
But John doesn’t reply. Emptiness pulses inside Ava and, as a server passes, she grabs another drink from the tray. Maybe she’ll dissolve whatever the two of them have, all on her own.
Mixing and mingling had gotten very boring.
Though the wounded ache from the incident earlier still marked their companionship for the rest of the evening, at least the perceivable effect on John’s demeanor had mellowed out. One handsy old man getting a little too close to Ava for her (and John’s) comfort was all it took to bring them back to ‘normal.’ Back to bickering but pulling punches, puppies play fighting with nips instead of bites. The situation handled itself , she’ll tell Val later. The situation got a black eye and broken jaw, saw himself out of the venue, and Ava found herself so turned on by John’s quick defense of her safety that she couldn’t see straight.
That’s how the two of them ended up in a closet off the main hallway, bruising hands at her hips exploring downwards and her arms tangled around John’s neck in the dark of the cramped room.
“Fucking hell, why couldn’t Val put me in pants,” Ava complains. “Or something with better access.”
He’s given up trying to hike up her dress and instead starts kissing down her jaw. “Less bedazzling, too.”
“It pokes like hell when I’m pressed up against this wall.”
“But your ass still looks good.” Ava can’t help but grin at that, eyes up at the dark ceiling while John nudges the side of her neck with his nose.
“Oh, you like it now?” she asks. “Not too hard? Weird?”
He groans; it could be bickering, it could be the pressure of her knee to the front of his slacks. “You are never gonna let me live that comment down, huh? I wasn’t thinking—”
“That old man back there liked it too.”
John grips her a little harder and Ava lets out a breathy, unbecoming gasp; the comment seems to have produced her intended effect. “He should be thankful I don’t have my gun.” Stars dot the ceiling above her and her vision goes blurry as he continues. “Execution style, right to the head. A round for every second his hand was on you.”
Breath hitched, she replies, “Forget a hole. You’d put a tunnel through his brains.”
He doesn’t say anything, just fumbles with her corset back until impatience wins over and he simply rips it loose enough to unceremoniously shove down the bodice of the dress. Lips are on her chest, lower and lower and lower until they’re latched onto her right breast while he kneads the other with his free hand. Devouring her like a man starved, arm hooked around her back and desperately searching for any sort of friction. Ava would gasp but there’s no air left in her lungs. He’s kissing like he’s trying to suck the oxygen right out through her skin.
John stops to breathe, looking up at her with feverish eyes she can barely see in the dim light. There’s no blue in them; all pupil, all dilated. “Wanna fuck you right out there on the table,” he murmurs, back to worshipping her in a heartbeat.
That fear, the lingering worry of being caught, comes crashing like cold water. “John, no,” she protests. Soft at first. Maybe it’s all talk.
But he begins to pull them both back, speaking, “Want them to know I’m yours, c’mon—” and Ava grips him back into place.
“ No ,” she repeats. She’d like it to be firm but even to her, she sounds like a scared little kid.
The seriousness from earlier returns, permeating John’s voice to an unignorable degree. “There’s no point in hiding. We’re not here as ourselves. We can do whatever we want and it won’t reflect on us, as public figures. Val won’t know, no one on the team could possibly know what we do right here, right now. And Jesus, Ava, you’re still keeping us in the shadows.”
A small, pained breath rings through the air. Anxiety chokes her from speaking any further.
“Are you ashamed of this?” he asks, and something inside Ava cracks. “Are you ashamed of me?”
Her hand reaches out and flings open the door. Hard. It hits the wall to the right, bathing the two of them in the warm glow of the hallway leading back towards the ballroom. Ava cradles the back of John’s neck as she kisses him in response, dragging the two of them out into the light. Breathless. Heart pounding. The air on her chest—so bare, very bare—is strange but not unwelcome altogether. She hears the click of heels, not hers, on the tiled floor but the world blurs around them both and Ava couldn’t care even if she tried. Lips crash and press as gasps for breath fill the in-between; with the curl of her hand through John’s hair and a slight tug, she swears she hears him moan.
“I’m not,” Ava replies in a hushed breath, pulling away but still close enough to press her forehead to his.
A pause passes by, and it doesn’t register for John right away. “Not?”
“I’m not ashamed of you.” The words come out on an exhale, breathless, head spinning but it’s exhilaration this time. Not fear. Not overwhelming fear, at least; nothing will take away her terror quite yet but it’s less fight-or-flight and more delirium. “If anything, I’m afraid,” she confesses, eyes closed in hesitation of meeting his. “I’ve been afraid the moment this becomes real—not real to us, but real to the team, to Val, to the world—it’ll go away. Crack under pressure. Things get difficult and maybe I’m difficult, and you’ll…”
“Leave?” John brushes her cheek and the movement brings her eyes to flutter open. He’s delicately sandwiched between Ava and the wall, a hand keeping her bodice more or less in place.
It’s not words that escape her lips, but a soft gasp like an injured animal.
“You’ve never had this before, have you?” Ava shakes her head; nothing braces her for his continuation. “A relationship?”
Thoughts crawl back—the worry, the oppressive litany that she’s too far gone, that if she hadn’t had this before, she certainly doesn’t deserve it now. Thirty-two and never once loved, how pitiful. How pathetic. The muscles of her face tighten familiarly; she blinks to keep the tears at bay. Can’t handle compliments, can’t handle emotions. Everything this evening—down to the dress—has been designed to bring her to her weakest.
“I’m not gonna leave you,” John replies, speaking it into existence with a sort of strength, as if it’s as easy as breathing. His hand stays at her cheek, gentle but steady. Affirming she’s really there. “No matter what anyone else says.”
And even in the harsh light of reality—in front of the whole world—the two of them don’t disappear.