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Ava has been spending an unusually high amount of time cooped up inside SHIELD HQ lately, doing her best to help make sure the Winter Soldier doesn't escape…again. But she can only take it for so long before her skin starts to crawl and she gets snappy with people. So after barely restraining herself from taking the head off of a senior agent, she slipped out of HQ and headed into the city.
It certainly explains why she's perched on the last rung of a fire escape in the alley, tucked in an oversized coat with fingerless gloves on her hands, enjoying the relative peace and silence of the city.
*
Peace and silence don't last long.
The whirl of air around the alley sends vibrations up the fire escape, causing it to rumble lightly beneath Ava's spot. Stability is in question, as is her footing.
The change in the air is enough to draw attention, but the bright spot that pierces the alley — almost like a rip in reality — spits out a trench coated figure that slams against the pavement. He rolls alongside it, clattering loudly against the dumpster.
The very disheveled John Constantine sits up, sliding his hand against the dumpster for a sense of balance before rising to his feet. He pauses and stares at the ground, nearly frantic before bending down, lucking a cigarette butt from the ground, and pursing it between his lips.
When he rises again, he catches sight of Ava and simply shrugs, "Couldn't waste it."
*
Ava startles as the portal starts to open, though it's more at the shaking that comes with it than the portal itself - she's gone through Billy's portals often enough to know one when she sees it. She does grab on to the rung above her, steadying herself, only to arch a brow down at Constantine when he looks back up toward her.
"Yes. The cigarette is the notable part of this encounter," she deadpans, only to crack the faintest smile afterwards, straightening up and leaning over to get a glimpse at the other side of where the portal was a moment ago.
*
Constantine's lips hitch up on one side. It's not quite a smile, but it strikes as amused just the same. His nose wrinkles. "It's New York," he says blandly. "I'd have thought you'd seen stranger things outside your flat on the regular." And, to punctuate the point, his eyebrows lift.
His gaze follows hers and he issues her another shrug. "Beats the subway," as a mode of travel. He tugs on his collar and straightens it. "So. When are we? I know it's New York. The smell. And humidity. Nowhere else on earth offers that raw mix of putrid, humidity, and despondent reality quite like New York." He lifts a single eyebrow, "Mind," he waggles his finger, "it has some pull over London."
*
"I have seen portals. There is usually less…noise coming from the other side. We finish what we're doing before we leave." Ava hops down from the fire escape, tilting her head as she inspects the man more intently now, not bothering to hide it. After all, he seems quite comfortable with the strangeness.
"It is May 7, 1964. Mid-evening," she offers in regards to his question. "And if you think this is humid, just wait until the summer truly hits. Where - or when - were you coming from?" she asks curiously, turning her inspection back to the ground around the portal.
*
Constantine hums. "Pity," he murmurs with a stroke of his chin. A glance is cast over his shoulder, as if expecting to see the portal behind him, yet its absence warrants a vague smirk. "Yesterday," he actually shrugs at that. "Brooklyn," he offers as he pats down his pockets to find a pack of cigarettes. One is extracted, put along the butt of the first, and lit with a lighter (where it came from, it's impossible to tell — he's unusually adept with his hands).
The lighter disappears, presumably up his sleeve, and he drops the now vanished cigarette to the ground, and begins puffing on the newly lit one.
He looks back to where the moral had appeared, "I'm sure things in Brooklyn are… fine. The world is still intact, so, all is well enough."
*
"So it would seem," Ava agrees. "I probably would have heard if it was not." There's no ego in the statement, only a weary sort of acceptance that this is her life. But between SHIELD and the Contingency Plan, she does usually hear about it if things are falling apart in one way or another.
Back to Constantine, considered, as she watches the movements of his hands. "You are a mage?" she asks, connecting a few dots.
*
Constantine smirks at the assessment. His lips part wordlessly and then close before he wags his finger at Ava once more. "How'd you figure?" he answers with an ounce of mischief. "Might be called that in some circles. More detective than mage though. Parlour tricks 'n all."
*
"The portal trick seems largely limited to those with control of magic," Ava shrugs, finishing a circuit around where the portal was by sticking a hand through the empty air. After all, Billy's still getting his to stay closed. Best to make sure it's actually gone and not just waiting for some clueless bystander to wander through.
"Control being a relative term." She stuffs her hands in her pocket then, facing him head-on. "What were you fighting back there?"
*
A smirk follows the assessment of control. "Ah-ha," he murmurs around his cigarette. "Just your average black hole." His lips twist uncertainly. "Imagine it wouldn't be interesting to you. Sucks all types of matter into itself." He scratches his head and then issues her a one shouldered shrug.
"And you. Make a hobby out of loitering in alleys, or you live near here?"
*
"Believe me, I know that it is not interesting to me," Ava drawls, dry. It's possible Billy has tried to explain the science of it to her more than once. And while she's certainly intelligent enough to understand it, she's too scientifically minded to bother connecting it to magic and how that works.
She twists her own faint smirk at the question, lifting one shoulder in a vague shrug that screams shiftless teenager. Or it would if she hadn't already responded so coolly to the entire idea of magic, or hopped so easily down from the fire escape. "Sometimes I loiter in alleys because they are quiet. Or at least free of prying eyes. There are very many people in the city," she wrinkles her nose, glancing toward the mouth of the alley.
*
"Good," John murmurs about the black hole not being interesting. "Most people pretend to care," his nose wrinkles. "It's annoying and insipid."
"Easy solution to that, you know. Find a new city," Constantine offers with another puff on his cigarette. "Or," his eyebrows lift, "learn to be invisible in plain sight." He blows a long puff of smoke.
"City never seems quiet though. Even if the impossibility of invisibility is achieved." He almost smiles at that; weirdly satisfied with himself and his thoughts. His hands stuff into his trench coat pockets.
*
Ava waves a hand, pulling a ball cap out of her pocket and tugging it down over her head. "Invisible in plain sight is easy. But it doesn't stop the noise, or the bustle. And leaving the city?" She smirks, shrugging. "It may be a crowded, smelly, noisy place, but it is as close to home as I will ever know, so."
"There are places in the city to truly disappear, but they are mostly not prone to the appearance of portals. But portals don't exactly follow the rules of where people are prone to wander," she points out, a note of amusement in her voice.
*
Constantine rocks his hand uncertainly. "That old thing," he motions to where the portal had been, "has no rhyme or reason. It does what it does. I am but a purveyor of its will. A slave to its desire." He actually smirks at that. "And sometimes it sees fit to throw me into a busy part of town. Other times," his arms extend triumphantly as he takes a single step towards the mouth of the alley.
"But it's all luck, that. Sometimes it's good to be in a crowd." His eyes squint, "Sometimes it isn't. Lady luck is a mistress some court. Others though? Well, she courts them."
*
"Aaah," Ava nods, giving the spot where the portal was another speculative look. "So you are not actually in control of where it goes. Interesting. A different sort of magic, then." Granted, most of what she knows of involves raw will, but it's something to file away for future questions.
"Well. Better here than the middle of Times Square. Or Central Park. I think people in Central Park are allowed to shoot on sight when a portal opens up now." Is that meant to be reassuring?
*
Constantine's eyebrows draw together at the assessment. "Luck isn't a lady, she's a downright whore." As if that explains why he's not concerned about being shot on sight. He takes a step towards the road and then stops before looking over his shoulder. "But in the event — " the thought isn't entirely uttered. Instead he tosses a card towards her, flicking it with the deftness of someone particularly good with their hands. "If you need something investigated. Give me a call. Detective. Not quite a mage."
His lips turn up, he turns on his heel, and he trails back to the street.
*
Ava reaches out to catch the card, relatively quick with her hands herself. Though detective seems to amuse her even more than mage does, a wry smile curving as she looks over the card. Interesting. She tucks it away for now - though it's likely to be quarantined and handed over to someone with their own magical abilities to be checked for the equivalent of bugs before it goes anywhere important - and raises a hand to wave after him.
*