Ava Anatalya Orlova (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverviewlogs2017-10-09 01:58 pm
krasnaya_vdova) wrote in riverviewlogs2017-10-09 01:58 pm
[open]
who: Ava Orlova & Other People
what: Memories
when: Memshare Event
where: Dreamscapes
warnings: Emotions, shitty familial relationships, violence, Red Room type trauma, child murder, child torture, I'll update as needed.
[ooc: All memshares are dreamscapes unless your name is Natasha Romanoff. If we didn't plot something, feel free to tag-in and get something random, or PM me or hit me up at![[plurk.com profile]](https://plurk.com/favicon.ico)
natalia_vdova for any and all plotting needs.]
For Tony
The darkness bleeds into familiar sounds, hushed voices almost drowned out by the soft drone of the engines of a departing quinjet. Ava watches her own memories, doesn't notice that she's not alone at first as three people approach what's clearly the SHIELD Triskelion. There's Ava' looking a little younger, but also a little pale, a bottle of water clutched deathly tight in one hand. There's a dark-haired boy walking next to her, holding her hand, and then there's a rather sour looking Natasha Romanoff. The similarity between Ava and Nat is more obvious when they're standing so close together. They approach the security door, and as it slides open, there's a familiar face: Tony's face. Briefcase in hand, three-piece suit that probably costs as much as a low-end car.
The boy stops dead in his tracks, wide-eyed as Ava stops too. "Is that--?" He asks, like he's seen a ghost. Or, you know, an Avenger.
Natasha just shrugs, a touch of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "Like I told you. I have friends in low places." Friends. That's Natasha's word for Tony.
"Agent Romanoff, what are you doing here? Or do you just happen to be stopping by to submit your proprietary plan for alternative energy subsidies, too?" He grins, teasing lightly.
"Not so much," Natasha says, crossing the distance and pulling him in for a brief but easy hug. "I was hoping you'd be here, actually."
"First Saturday of the month. Where else would I be?" Tony points out, a cock of his head to the side. "I thought you were off hunting bad guys in Bahrain?" It's friendly, the easy conversation of two people that keep in touch enough to know each others' schedules, including what part of the world she's in shooting at people.
"Turns out the bad guys are hunting me. Surprise." Natasha quips with an easy shrug as she pulls back a step. The two teens just watching quietly for the moment; the boy in shock and Ava's a little pale, like she's maybe not having the best day.
For Bucky (616)
Ava doesn't sleep easily, even now that she has her own room. Nightmares and memories, but tonight it feels different. She's there, watching her memories, like some kind of ghostly observer. Less visceral. The world fades into being, two teenagers in a room in the Triskelion; all grey walls, perfunctory bunk beds that seemed like they'd fit better in a prison, blue lights on the door lock. Ava's clearly younger, but only by a few years, maybe seventeen. The boy seems about the same age; short dark brown hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders. He looks at Ava like she puts oxygen in the room, though Ava seems distracted by something else, a tension as she moves. She lets go of his hand, pulling her backpack over her shoulder and getting ready to open the door, sparing a conspiratorial look back at him.
He nods, "You go left, I'll go right."
But Ava shakes her head. "I've got a better idea." She murmurs, opening the door. "Hey," she calls, getting the attention of the SHIELD agents patrolling near the door. She puts her hands up, a charming smile, brown eyes guileless. Just a girl, not a threat. "It's just me. Can I ask you for a favor?"
She holds up a roughed-up iPod, and manages to talk one of the agents into letting her use his comm to test the speaker, drawing him in when he reaches to retrieve it. It takes them a few seconds to put down the agents; Ava slams the door into his skull hard, though the sound thuds more than rings. She steps into the room as his partner charges, and the boy grabs him and slams his head into the frame of the bunkbed.
In a matter of seconds they've dragged the bodies out of immediate view, stolen the agents' earpieces, key cards, and sidearms, though the commlink the boy takes seems to be broken. It takes them twelve seconds after that to make it to the elevator. He's about to press the keycard to the panel, but Ava grabs his hand, touching a finger to her ear.
Instead, they slip down the hall to an alcove where the stairwell is; another two agents. Ava grins as she looks over at him, magnetic. "Now you take left, I'll take right."
what: Memories
when: Memshare Event
where: Dreamscapes
warnings: Emotions, shitty familial relationships, violence, Red Room type trauma, child murder, child torture, I'll update as needed.
[ooc: All memshares are dreamscapes unless your name is Natasha Romanoff. If we didn't plot something, feel free to tag-in and get something random, or PM me or hit me up at
For Tony
The darkness bleeds into familiar sounds, hushed voices almost drowned out by the soft drone of the engines of a departing quinjet. Ava watches her own memories, doesn't notice that she's not alone at first as three people approach what's clearly the SHIELD Triskelion. There's Ava' looking a little younger, but also a little pale, a bottle of water clutched deathly tight in one hand. There's a dark-haired boy walking next to her, holding her hand, and then there's a rather sour looking Natasha Romanoff. The similarity between Ava and Nat is more obvious when they're standing so close together. They approach the security door, and as it slides open, there's a familiar face: Tony's face. Briefcase in hand, three-piece suit that probably costs as much as a low-end car.
The boy stops dead in his tracks, wide-eyed as Ava stops too. "Is that--?" He asks, like he's seen a ghost. Or, you know, an Avenger.
Natasha just shrugs, a touch of a smile tugging at one corner of her mouth. "Like I told you. I have friends in low places." Friends. That's Natasha's word for Tony.
"Agent Romanoff, what are you doing here? Or do you just happen to be stopping by to submit your proprietary plan for alternative energy subsidies, too?" He grins, teasing lightly.
"Not so much," Natasha says, crossing the distance and pulling him in for a brief but easy hug. "I was hoping you'd be here, actually."
"First Saturday of the month. Where else would I be?" Tony points out, a cock of his head to the side. "I thought you were off hunting bad guys in Bahrain?" It's friendly, the easy conversation of two people that keep in touch enough to know each others' schedules, including what part of the world she's in shooting at people.
"Turns out the bad guys are hunting me. Surprise." Natasha quips with an easy shrug as she pulls back a step. The two teens just watching quietly for the moment; the boy in shock and Ava's a little pale, like she's maybe not having the best day.
For Bucky (616)
Ava doesn't sleep easily, even now that she has her own room. Nightmares and memories, but tonight it feels different. She's there, watching her memories, like some kind of ghostly observer. Less visceral. The world fades into being, two teenagers in a room in the Triskelion; all grey walls, perfunctory bunk beds that seemed like they'd fit better in a prison, blue lights on the door lock. Ava's clearly younger, but only by a few years, maybe seventeen. The boy seems about the same age; short dark brown hair, brown eyes, broad shoulders. He looks at Ava like she puts oxygen in the room, though Ava seems distracted by something else, a tension as she moves. She lets go of his hand, pulling her backpack over her shoulder and getting ready to open the door, sparing a conspiratorial look back at him.
He nods, "You go left, I'll go right."
But Ava shakes her head. "I've got a better idea." She murmurs, opening the door. "Hey," she calls, getting the attention of the SHIELD agents patrolling near the door. She puts her hands up, a charming smile, brown eyes guileless. Just a girl, not a threat. "It's just me. Can I ask you for a favor?"
She holds up a roughed-up iPod, and manages to talk one of the agents into letting her use his comm to test the speaker, drawing him in when he reaches to retrieve it. It takes them a few seconds to put down the agents; Ava slams the door into his skull hard, though the sound thuds more than rings. She steps into the room as his partner charges, and the boy grabs him and slams his head into the frame of the bunkbed.
In a matter of seconds they've dragged the bodies out of immediate view, stolen the agents' earpieces, key cards, and sidearms, though the commlink the boy takes seems to be broken. It takes them twelve seconds after that to make it to the elevator. He's about to press the keycard to the panel, but Ava grabs his hand, touching a finger to her ear.
Instead, they slip down the hall to an alcove where the stairwell is; another two agents. Ava grins as she looks over at him, magnetic. "Now you take left, I'll take right."
no subject
But the dreaming doesn't show her Alexei. Instead, Natasha is sitting in a cabin, between a lake and a forest, light streaming in through the windows. An old woman sits, stick straight, with mirrored glasses, wearing black like a Russian monk. She is holding a baby.
"I think you should hold her," she tells Natasha.
"No." Natasha's legs are crossed— she is sitting like a supplicant.
"Coward," the woman says, and the words settle like leaves.
"Maybe I am," replies Natasha, who keeps very still. The baby's name is Rose, and that name fills up the space like something solid, though it has not been said out loud.
no subject
He died, she almost wants to say, to admit to someone how much she's lost, watching as the memory starts to fade out. He died because when he asked, she told him not to leave. Because she took him to Odessa, because he was Natasha's little brother, and some days it feels like he died because she couldn't help but love him. But she doesn't know how to talk about those things. Any more than she knows how to say that his name was Alexei Romanov, and what that meant.
The memory that comes instead isn't Ava's, and that's a small solace. It gives her time to breathe. It's Natasha's, she realizes. A piece of something that doesn't fit into the narrative she already knows, and it seems more distant than it was when they were linked. This is watching, not feeling her feelings and breathing her breath, memories that are more than memory.
The woman calls Natasha a coward, with a baby in her hands, and Ava can't help but watch. It seems like a small moment, but there's something about it that feels more tense than comfortable.
no subject
She tries to focus on that, on fitting the parts of Ava's memory together, despite her earlier misgivings, because that's easier than watching her past self, right now. It's nothing she's ashamed of, nothing she regrets, but the parts of herself she keeps hidden are also the parts Natasha holds dear.
The memory lurches— Natasha his holding the baby now, despite her protests. She has taken off her glove. There's a black ribbon, tied around her finger.
"You wanted to know if Id hurt my finger, if that was why I had silk ribbon wrapped around it."
"You told me yes, you were hurt." The old woman replies. "That a little piece of ribbon was holding you together. It was years before I understood what you meant."
"His name was Nikolai." In the dream, Natasha's lips are stretched into something that's not a smile. "The ribbon belonged to his mother. She had… sewn it into his shirt so that he would have something of hers near his heart. There was no priest. Just us… saying we loved each other. This was the only ring he could give me."
no subject
Natasha takes the baby, and there's a black ribbon around her finger as the glove comes off. And Ava listens, to her story. Pieces of someone different from the woman she knew, pieces of memory that don't fit. And that's a good thing, she decides. Even if she would never have asked for this, never have stolen these things all over again, there's something about getting to see the pieces that make her different. Maybe understanding it a little more.
Even if that story that Natasha tells hurts. It hurt because Ava remembers what love and loss is like. Laying in the rubble next to him. The way I love you had turned into You have to wait, wait for me, Alexei, don't--. She's not good at talking about these things.
"Alexei died," she says softly. Not because it's the same, but because it isn't. But she thinks she might understand even if she doesn't have that same connection to Alexei she'd had in her world.
no subject
It is too much to explain. Natasha is good at reports, but not always good at explanations.
"So did Nikolai."
But the Natasha in the memory is still talking. "It was good that we had each other, even for a short time."
The old woman tells Natasha to stay. "Your mother used to tell me that." The two embrace, and then the old woman is holding the baby again.
"She was afraid you would forget what's important."
"Never," says the Natasha in the memory, even as she walks away.
no subject
"I still think about him," she says softly. Willing to give something, even when she doesn't really know how to talk about these things. The things she hides from everyone.
Hearing the words Natasha says in the memory is hard. To have had him even briefly matters, and she knows that. She clings to it despite everything wrong with what had happened. With Alexei dead, it's made it impossible for her to feel those feelings, to unravel any of what had happened. He'd made her feel things that she didn't know how to process, and now, two years later, she still hadn't.
In her world, Natasha and Ava had both been quietly aware of the other's inability to move past his death. It drew them closer, but they didn't really talk about it or process it. It just was.
Nat's memory fades into something else; one of Ava's again, like some sort of see-saw. They're two teenagers in the dark, holding flashlights in what looks like some old Russian underground bunker from the shadows, the maps on the walls, Russian lettering and the remnants of some sort of lab. Ava and Alexei stand by a bank of filling cabinets marked O.P.U.S in faded letters, and Ava pockets a switchblade and then yanks the cabinet open, revealing a collection of hanging file folders. There's a pause, as they take in the sight. "I think we hit the jackpot," Ava breathes into the still quiet.
"Looks that way," he says, shaking his head. "Holy Mother." Institutional-green folders, stuffed with graphs and charts, marked with names in Cyrillic and a series of numbers. He grabs the first folder, and there's a pause before he looks over at Ava.
"They're the names of the test subjects," he says, and then with the file open he points to a name-- "That's you, right?"
Орлова, Ава Анатольевна. Orlova, Ava Anatolyevna.
"Test subject? I was a test subject?" Her voice is tight and thin.
"That's what the report says," Alexei says softly, nodding. "In Dr. Orlova's program."
"She was doing tests on me? Her own child? She knew I was part of this?" Ava looked shell-shocked, like she'd just been hit in the face. "I wasn't here because Ivan took me. I wasn't abducted. I was here because she gave me to him. She was using me."
Her brown eyes glitter with tears she refuses to shed. Watching outside of the memory, standing next to Natasha, Ava doesn't flinch. "I still haven't been able to make sense of it all," she admits quietly. Her life is a puzzle, tangled strings, things she will never be able to know the truth of. The code her mother put in her head, somehow based on her genetics, a code that Natasha had been able to read. Questions with no answers.
no subject
But she didn't need to know the names to be disgusted. Something sour rises at the back of her throat. Natasha has an impulse to reach out, and touch Ava on the shoulder, to offer some kind of comfort. But she doesn't; she doesn't know if it's comfort that Ava wants right now, comfort from her. Not everyone likes to be touched.
What Natasha offers, then, is anger and ice in her voice. "No one could make sense of it. It isn't supposed to work that way." She had seen the inside of similar folders before— lots of logic, but no rules.
no subject
The anger and the ice in her voice is a strange sort of comfort itself. Like that moment when she'd realized that Natasha had cared enough to keep track of her, even after she'd ditched SHIELD. That she knew where she slept, where she ate, who her one and only friend was. And this was better, less traitorous-- that Natasha could see that she hurt, and cared in at least some small way. "I tried. And I keep trying, but it feels like I'll never have all the pieces. Too many people dead."
The memory keeps playing. Alexei watching Ava as she stubbornly fights back tears, refuses to let them fall no matter how angry she is. "We don't know anything for certain. Let's take these files and get out of here. We should probably grab as many as we can, actually," Alexei says, trying to focus her.
Ava nods, silent as she turns back to the cabinet. He reaches for her hand and squeezes her fingers, "Hey, don't do this to yourself," Alexei tries to comfort her but she pulls her hand away and instead grabs handfuls of files, almost viciously loading them into two cardboard boxes as if doing so can make some kind of sense of the words bouncing in her head.
Alexei gives up, and for a while they move in silence with nothing but the rustle of papers and folders. Eventually, when she seems to have settled a little, he turns and asks: "You find anything more about the program?"
"There's a whole stack of reports here." She splits them in half and shoves the folders into his hands, shining her flashlight down. "Look," she insists quietly as she shines the light on a page. "This transcript calls it Ivan's spiritual successor to the Red Room program." She shivers in what's clearly some kind of recognition.
"'But this time he's not holding back'? That doesn't sound good," the boy says grimly.
"It's not." Ava frowns. "This says that the OPUS children are to be trained as master spies-- listen to this-- 'until such a time as their placements with top foreign governments can be assured. Only the highest-level access, particularly with Western heads of state, will allow us to execute our glorious plan.'"
"That's crazy," Alexei says, almost incredulous, but more spooked than anything.
Ava has a strange look about her, like she's having to reframe her entire life, digging through her mother's old records. "But then the Black Widow showed up that night, and the warehouse got blown into oblivion, and after that I was nowhere to be found--"
Alexei finished the thought. "--And Ivan was supposed to be dead. End of program."
Ava shakes her head, flipping to another page. "Except that now he's back, and kids are disappearing from orphanages again." The memory fades out on that rustle of papers and low murmured voices of children in the dark.
no subject
"The trouble with ghosts is that they don't really die." Everything in the shadow world grew back, no matter how many times you set fire to the roots. "I hope you stopped…"
But her voice drifts off as the landscape changes. It's Natasha's memory, now, of a man clad all in red, with a single white star on his chest. He is charging at another Natasha, with shorter hair— though this was many years ago, her face is still the same.
"Alexei," Natasha whispers.
He is wearing a mask. His face cannot be seen.
no subject
There's something about how she talks about ghosts that almost sounds familiar. There's something she's about to ask, but then there's a man in red, a white star on his chest, Natasha with shorter hair, though she looks largely the same. That name on the air, and it sharpens her focus as she watches. Not her Alexei, but it doesn't make it matter less.
There's a tension that settles in her shoulders, that slow fascination.
no subject
Natasha runs toward him, "Is it true? Is it really you?"
The man takes her by the arms, grabbing the suitcase in her hand. "Of course it is, Natasha. Who else could it be?" Then something snaps.
"Alexei? The briefcase— the detonator? What are you?" He twists her hand.
Behind them, someone else speaks. "Good work, Dr. Kiev. The golem's grip crushed the briefcase detonator before it could explode. The microchip is ours."
"The Chilovyek Machina is not a golem comrade. Please do not demean a decade of Soviet cybernetic research with such supernatural euphemisms." And it suddenly becomes obvious— wires grow from around the Red Guardian's neck, now, like a puppet's strings. He's hunched over, silent. But only for the moment. The voice of the scientist continues, his face indistinct behind his glasses. "Project Red Guardian IV is finally complete. Using the bio-pattern of the original Red Guardian and the Matrix microchip, we have created the most powerful man-made construct in the world."
"'Tasha, I'm sorry," someone else stands behind her, a tall man with a thick Russian accent. He speaks English, and Natasha responds in kind.
"I'm not, Ivan. I had to be sure." Her face is like glass that does not reflect.
"We've played this farce long enough. Red Guardian— kill them." A woman barks the orders in Russian. And sure enough, the thing that had been Alexei a few moments ago charges her, turning over a car in the middle of the square.
"You were a fool to return, Natalia Alianovna Romanova. But how could it have been otherwise? A Russian woman is always ruled by her heart. Even one who hides hers beneath a sheath of ice."
Outside of the memory, Natasha looks at Ava. "You see what I mean. You can't bury a ghost."
no subject
There's a man that stands behind her, thick Russian accent. She calls him Ivan, but it's not her Ivan. Not the man that caused her and the Natasha of her world so much pain and misery. Not the man that had taken a bullet through the jaw.
The words they say about her, though, that rings familiar. She's heard that sentiment before, even if the words are different.
"No, I guess you can't," she admits softly, sympathy for having to go through that. She's not sure how she'd have handled it.
"Ivan came back once, I'm always afraid it'll happen again. And I don't know how to let go of Alexei. Before I came here, I was still having dreams about him." She says it softly, a little shy, because she hadn't told anyone that, not even her own Natasha. She knows it doesn't mean anything more than her mind's attempt to create experiences they'll never get to have. But they feel real, and she's not sure if that's worse or better.
no subject
"It doesn't happen all at once," she says, "letting go. And it is not such a bad thing, to have memories."
Eventually they hurt less. Most of them. The scene around them turns to liquid, begins to change.
no subject
When Natasha's memory swirls into liquid dark, it coalesces into one of Ava's. She's there, walking with Coulson and Maria Hill, wearing a SHIELD uniform, red hair pulled back into a ponytail as they walk through the halls. It's Coulson who speaks-- "There's something I thought you might want to see," he offers, leading her over to a memorial wall.
There's the SHIELD crest, surrounded by the words S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy of Operations. At the top it read The Wall of Valor, beneath which was a dedication 'In honor of the members of S.H.I.E.L.D. who gave their lives in the service of humanity', and 'Wars may be fought with weapons, but are won or lost by men. -- Gen. George S. Patton'. Each section has a date at the top, 1941 - 1965, 1966 - 1990, and 1991 - with a blank space for the ending date.
And there are names beneath symbols, that all seem to largely be reminiscent of the SHIELD insignia. They start on the top left with names like Dr. Abraham Erksine and Sgt. James 'Bucky' Barnes. Ava, however, after taking it in for a moment, moves all the way to the right, having to lean down and perch on her heels down to drag fingers over the most recent name: ALEXEI ROMANOFF.
Ava's face doesn't change, even as her fingers touch his name embossed in the metal. "Alexei," she says quietly.
Coulson reaches down to put a hand on her shoulder. "Take a minute," he offers, with a look that tries to be kind.
But Ava shakes it off, pushes herself up onto her feet, turning to face them. She refuses to be soft. "No. Let's go."
Watching outside of the memory, Ava stays quiet, still. Watches that name and feels it cut. She knows that she should say something to Natasha, but she can't find the words. Everything in her life is so interconnected it's hard to know where to start. And this isn't Natasha's loss.
no subject
The name Alexei Romanoff makes her think of the dead Tsarevich, Alexei Nikolaevich, the one whose blood ran too thin. The old spelling, like something in a Cold War textbook. She'd gone undercover as a schoolteacher, once, in upstate New York. It's a silly thing to remember, in this river of pasts.
But it cannot be that Alexei Romanoff, she realizes. This is Ava's Alexei— she can feel Ava's stillness, next to her, matching her own. There is something she's missing here, a line she doesn't draw, and all she finds herself thinking is that she took Alexei's name, and not the other way around.
no subject
"He was-- her younger brother."
There's nothing else to say, nothing else she can say, because Ava's left this buried, refused to dig it up and look at the bones and how all the whole tangled web of it comes together. What it had all meant. She doesn't know how to digest everything that happened when Alexei's still dead.
The memory is just Ava walking with them, chin high, into a room of other recruits-- people older and taller than her. That same black bodysuit that Ava wears. But then there's a flicker of the light, like a mirror of the image, and Ava's outfit is white now, more clearly reminiscent of Natasha's instead of the regulation SHIELD uniform. That symbol on her chest of two red hourglasses, and red bracelets on her wrists that looks like the silver ones Natasha wears. There are three recruits coming at her and Ava moves, deadly grace, a turn that could almost have been a pirouette as she kicks one of them into the other two ending in a pile of three bodies tangled on the floor. She looks up, and there's a glimpse of Natasha standing with Maria and Coulson, and Ava nods at her, holding her head high as the memory swirls into darkness again, fading out on a whisper of something that had almost been.
Standing beside Natasha, Ava's still quiet, silent, like the moment is still too tense to breathe.