He likes the way she moves.

It's not exactly graceful or feminine, the criteria most men look for when they sit around and gawk at every woman passingby. Her legs are too strong and toned for that, her fingers too tense and sharp. She could even be downright clumsy when he thinks about it.

Sometimes, she doesnt know how to carry herself at school, years of discipline and training makining her appear stiff and on edge, face twisted in a perma-scowl throughout most classes. Her walk could be rigid, shoulders bristling from stress. There should have been nothing appealing about it.

Doesn't stop Sam from staring, entranced.

It takes him a while to realize just why he can't stop his eyes from searching her out when he exits a classroom, or why he'll have to shake his gaze off when he feels like it's been hours since he's looked at anything else. It has nothing to do with grace or beauty and everything to do with determination and genuinity. Her walk, her sway, her crossed arms and tired flips of the hair….they are all so raw, laced with a subtle sense of self only she could emit.

Sure, she doesn't have the smooth confidence and sultry strut of Mary Jane, or the cutesy skip and bright charm of Liz Allan. But Ava Ayala is a capable woman filled with a power even Sam has to respect. He might be of space, of cosmic mystery and endless sky…but she is of the tiger, of wild ambition and vicious jungle. Every step she takes exudes pride. Every kick and punch she throws radiates mastery.

And when she is in her element, when the fight is underway and her prowess takes over, that's when Sam can really see it. That is where she feels right, where she feel she belongs. Striking at the enemy with nails like knives, swerving and leaping and running as a predator would stalk its prey. This: jumping off concrete roofs and slashing at criminals, skin hot and head buzzing, is where Ava Ayala feels alive. Where she can truly dazzle brighter than any star he has ever seen.

It is that, while his head is lost in those stars and hers is found in trees, Sam Alexander falls in love with.