Ava's grandparents haven't touched her room in the ten years since she first moved out of home. She was both pleasantly surprised and saddened in a bittersweet way when she had first walked into the room she had grown up in to find that nothing has been moved out of place; not even the notes with her neat scrawl scattered across the desk have been disturbed.
Laying in her double bed now, her round, green eyes flicker from one object to the other in the rather large room, drinking in all the details and the memories that came with them while the light from the rising sun streams through her bedroom window. The posters that she had stuck to her peach-coloured walls as a teen aren't of music artists that had been deemed popular by her peers from high school, but rather singers and bands that had been big in the '70s and '80s. David Bowie. The Bangles. Queen, ABBA. Billy Joel, Blondie, and Fleetwood Mac, among others. Stars that had greatly shaped her childhood and bled into adolescence; artists that she still listens to every day as an adult now.
Stacked in a pile on the corner of the wooden desk that her grandfather had built for her is computer parts. Some are still intact, but many other pieces have been completely pulled apart. She can remember the countless hours that she spent sitting at that desk fiddling around with these parts, experimenting and creating with both new and old technology alike. And sometimes not being all that successful. Many times her grandparents have barged into her room when the sounds of small explosions and wispy smoke had filtered from the gap between the bottom of her door and the floor, only to find an excited Ava sitting amidst all the chaos with a grin tugging at her lips.
Her wardrobe is already filled to the brim with all the clothes that she had brought for her stay; she had unpacked them into the spacious closet as soon as she had arrived. Fashion had always been another one of her loves along with music and computers, and she always said that if she the engineering at MIT didn't work out, then fashion school would be her next choice. With the morning light still pouring through the window, she can make out the soft jumpers and expensive jackets, her trademark maroon trench coat hanging proudly among them all.
The wall across from her bed is completely covered with photos. Most of them are of her and her grandparents throughout different stages of her life- her 18th, her home-school graduation and their wedding anniversary party among other big events. Then there was also the small things; her first Christmas. Dinner down at the diner they frequented every Sunday evening. Shots taken of the three of them doing jobs around the farm. Her grandfather on the tractor, her grandmother feeding the chooks and Ava riding her old horse which has since passed away.
She had never had friends during her teen years, so the only photos of her and someone outside of her family were of her and Lydia. She had brought some photos of the two of them back home to hang up on this wall over the years so that she could look back over them and say that she did actually have a friend in this lonely world. There was the photo of the two of them at the Elton John concert that they had attended for Ava's birthday, Lydia surprising her with the tickets. Photos of the two of them at a bar they went to whenever Lydia came to visit her in D.C, and the weekend that they had spent at the beach two years ago, relaxing in the heat and away from the stress of SHIELD. There were a few photobooth strips taken from a mutual friend's wedding, their faces screwed up in many different expressions and poses, smiles as bright as the sun on each of their faces.
But the majority of the space is taken up by photos of her mother and brother. Laying on a soft bale of hay out in the old shed, the yellow straw sticking to their hair and clothes and making Peter sneeze mid photo. Ava's second birthday, cake splattered all over the dress her mother had put on her earlier in the day and across the highchair, her lips open as she shoves a handful of the chocolate dessert deep in her mouth while her mother watches in amusement. A photo of Peter in his soccer gear, her mother dancing with them to Elvis Presley in their living room, and of the three of them dressed in their bathers while they made a sandcastle in front of them, the waves of the ocean crashing and breaking against the shore in the distance behind them. There are many more, but she finds that she can't look at them for too long. The grief that she is all too accustomed to begins to tug painfully at her heart, and she physically has to curl in on herself and turn her back to the photos to keep her emotions in check.
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The Seventh Avenger: Playing With Fire
Fanfic*SEQUEL to The Seventh Avenger* Months have passed since the Battle of New York, and the creation of the superhero team the Avengers. After having quit the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, Lydia Hathaway is strugg...
