Authors Note:
After finishing the last chapter, I realized I needed to jump between Amy and Starling's perspectives to get where I wanted to go with this Fic. This Chapter is from Starling's POV. I'll clarify who's narrating in all the chapters to come. For now, I'm planning for it to just be Amy and Starling, but I might have chapters from other character's points of view as well.
Starling knew that adjusting to a new body would be difficult, but she was already running into problems. Even though she knew she couldn't fly, she had already begun trying to fly multiple times while walking to Havoc's house before she would remember again that she couldn't. By the time Havoc's phone announced that she had reached her destination Starling was feeling the effects of the late night. She isn't sure if Havoc had gotten any sleep before she had come to the junkyard or if that would even affect her now, but she was in desperate need of rest.
As Starling looks at the house, the phone tells her to enter. She spots a blond woman sitting on the porch with a mug. Starling looks around her in confusion, wondering if she has been sent to the wrong house. The woman looks up from her mug and spots Starling. As her face enters the light, Starling thinks she recognizes it but can't quite place it.
"Amy, thank goodness your back. I was getting close to going out and looking for you myself." Starling is taken aback when she hears the woman's voice. The distinctive British accent, combined with her familiarity with the woman's face, sparks her memory. It's Surge! The blond hair had definitely thrown her off, both Jake and Havoc had removed the color from their hair, but she hadn't anticipated the switch from brown to blond. "Amy, are you good?" Starling is shocked out of her thoughts when she realizes that Surge is talking to her.
"Sorry, everything looks different in the dark. I just got a bit turned around."
"It's fine. I unlocked your window so you can climb in that way without walking through the house since Vic is working in the layer and refuses to sleep." Surge rolls her eyes and takes a sip from her mug. "I'm not going to ask how you got out of the house in the first place."
As Surge turns to reenter the house, Starling walks down the driveway but stops when she realizes she has no idea where the window to Havoc's room is. As Surge opens the door, Starling wracks her brain for a topic to start a conversation to keep Surge outside longer and find a way to ask her where the window is.
"Is that coffee?" To Starling's relief, Surge turns around to look at her again and closes the door behind her.
"Of course. How else do you expect me to stay up waiting for you?"
"But you're not going to be able to fall back asleep." Ever since Starling became a hero, people had been strict about her getting her full ten hours of sleep. Anna always ensured she had enough time in her schedule to sleep and would explore whenever she caught Starling doing anything else.
"I'll need to be up in an hour or two to get you kids ready for school. I might as well stay up and get some things around the house done. I still need to find the rest of the food we swapped around and throw it out before Celia comes over, eats it, and gets suspicious. I had to make four cups of coffee before I got one that hadn't been messed with."
Starling has no Idea what Surge is talking about but just goes with it. A vague memory of Havoc mentioning the device that caused all this being intended to swap food surfaces in her mind, but everything else is foreign.
"I can take a nap later in the day. You, on the other hand, have to go to school. Head up to your room and get some sleep before you have to get up for school."
Starling groans and lets her shoulders slump. Havoc had mentioned going to school, but Starling assumed her parents would let her skip, especially if they were why Havoc had been up.
"I know it sucks, but there's some attendance law. If you miss one more day of school, they'll send your father and me to jail, and we really don't need the government looking too hard into our documents." Surge takes another sip of her coffee but finds the mug empty.
"Right." Jake had mentioned a little about his family being on the run, but Starling hadn't asked too much about the topic. "In the small chance you do get arrested, how should we deal with that?" Starling asks, hoping there's already not a plan in place that Havoc would know about.
Surge opens her mouth but looks at Starling skeptically, "I'm not going to let you get me talking about this and try and guilt trip me into letting you stay home. Go to sleep."
"But..."
"Good night Amy!" Before Starling can get another word out, Surge opens the door and enters the house. She stands there for a second before scanning the house. There's no indication of where Havoc's room could be. Before Starling can overthink the situation and get stuck arguing with herself about what to do, she turns on her heel and walks to the left side of the house.
She looks up and sees three dark windows. Nothing about them would indicate whose bedroom they are or if they are even bedrooms in the first place. Again Starling keeps herself from overthinking the situation and just decides to check each room one by one. Whichever window opens should lead to Havoc's room. As she lifts her arms to her side, she has to remind herself again that she can't fly, or at least not like how she's used to. Remembering when she and Havoc first fought in the junkyard, she lifted her hands to look at them. It seemed as if Havoc had figured out the flying maneuver for the first time during the battle. It couldn't be too hard if she had been able to figure it out for herself.
Starling locks her arms at her side and turns her hands to be at a ninety-degree angle. She closes her eyes and imagines shock waves shooting out of them. After a second, Starling begins to feel energy pooling in her palms and then a strange sensation of the power flowing out, lifting her off the ground. Starling hovers over the ground, trying to get control of the power and keep the energy flowing out of her hands even so she doesn't tip to one side. After staying stable for a moment or two, she slowly begins to allow more power to flow through her arms, lifting her further off the ground. When Starling reaches the window, she attempts to cut the power but is shot up into the air over the house's roof. She lets out a screech and completely stops the power propelling her upwards. For a second, relief flows through her until she begins plummeting toward the ground.
As she falls, the window flashes in front of her, and she desperately reaches out to grasp onto it. Her hands connect with the sill at the bottom of the window, and she holds on for dear life as her body slams into the house. Starling hangs there for a second, catching her breath before attempting to pull herself up to check if the window is actually Havoc's or if the entire effort was in vain. Before she can reach the window, it flies open, and a head pops out and swings around wildly before turning down to her. Starling looks up and squints her eyes, trying to see the different features of the face above her despite the dark.
"What on earth are you doing, Amy?" Jake's voice calls from above.
"Ummmm..."
"Sharing a wall with you is bad enough, but know you have to prank me in the middle of the night from the window as well. Can you not give me a break!" Starling tries not to let the excitement show on her face when he mentions sharing a wall with Havoc. "I mean, Honestly, what is it? Three in the morning? Couldn't this wai..."
"Jake, are you ok? What was that noise?" Starling tenses as she hears Kraniacs voice call from within the house.
"Busted!"
Starling shakes her head at Jake desperately. There is a chance that Kraniac would find the 'prank' funny. That seems like the kind of person he is, but Starling is still afraid to face the evil scientist. "Please!" she whispers.
Jake turns to look over his shoulder as Kraniacs rushed footsteps come within earshot. "Fine, you owe me!" Jake disappears from Starling's view as the sound of his door flying open reaches her.
"Jake, did you hear me? Are you ok?"
"Ya, I'm good. I think a bird flew into my window. There were a few feathers stuck in it."
"That sounded a lot bigger than a bird. Are you sure it wasn't something else?" Starling grips the window sill tighter in fear but cringes when it makes a small squeak.
"It seemed pretty loud to me too, but it could just be because it woke me up. It's probably just because the windows are really crapy."
"Is it cracked?" Starling hears the floor creak as Kraniac steps closer to the window.
"No!" Jake practically shouts as the loud thump of what Starling assumes is him Jumping in front of Kraniac shakes the floor and window. "It's still intact."
"Good! We really don't have the money to pay Celia for repairs."
Starling makes a mental note to text Havoc and ask her who Celia is. If the woman has already come up twice in conversation, she seems like the person she should know about. As the thought of texting Havoc crosses Starlings mind, she internally cringes. She could have avoided this mess if she had simply texted her to ask which window led to her room.
"Anyway. Get back to sleep. You have school in the morning, and you seem weirdly obsessed with doing well at it. I'm going to go check on Amy. This probably woke her up too." Starling focuses back on the conversation happening above her.
"No! Um... Amy's a pretty deep sleeper. She might still be asleep. If you're the one who wakes her up, it will not be pretty."
"You're probably right. And she's been acting extra irritable lately, even for her. Do you know anything about that?"
"Ummm... nope." Starling rolls her eyes. When she first became a hero, it had been drilled into her not to overuse filler words, especially umm or like. Jake had just used one twice in less than one minute.
"I'd ask her myself, but I feel like that might make it worse. I've asked everyone else in the family, but none of them know either. I guess maybe I could ask Hartley. She and Amy have gotten fairly close. I just can't keep walking on eggshells whenever I'm around her. I feel like she blows up at the most random stuff."
"Ya, it could just be the move, though. I know she feels guilty about it" Bu this point, Starling's arms have begun to shake from exhaustion. She shifts them back and forth, hoping the conversation will drown out the sound of the squeaking window sill. For a second, she's annoyed at the overly drawn-out conversation but then realizes what's going on. Jakes covering for her. Amy is Havoc's undercover name. Starling's pretty sure she should have realized that sooner between sure calling her that and because when Havoc... or Amy handed Starling's phone back, she had added herself as Amy, not as Havoc.
I guess. But I really shouldn't be keeping you up with family drama. Go to bed. We can talk about this more later."
"Ok, Goodnight, dad."
"Goodnight." The sound of a door closing reaches Starling seconds before Jake's head pops back out the window.
''You owe me double now."
"Fine." Starling huffs out.
"You're really not going to fight me on this. Try and barter for a better deal?"
"I'm a little busy not falling to my death." Instead of helping her up, Jake sticks his head further out the window and laughs at her.
"Your iconic Havoc sass has stayed intact in more life threatening situations than this. You're only two stories off the ground. The worst thing that can happen is you breaking your leg. If you're unlucky, I guess you could paralyze yourself, but 'life or death' is a little dramatic."
"Just help me up!"
"I don't know what's in it for me?"
"Jake!"
"Fine, I guess it's what a good person would do," As Jake reaches out of the window to pull her into his room, the irony of the situation dawns on her, and she thinks back to the time when she pulled him out of a similar situation. She's so lost in thought that she doesn't say anything to Jake or notice the look or slight panic flash across his face at the words. "Look, Amy, I'm trying not to bring up the whole 'being a good person thing. I know you're still angry at me. But like dad said, I can't constantly walk on eggshells when I'm around you."
Starling blinks in confusion at the quick change in topic and almost tells him it's okay when it dawns on her that he's talking about the situation that's supposed to be her excuse for acting weird. "Look, Jake. You can do whatever you want, but I can't pretend like everything is fine. I can forgive you, but I'm not going to push it all under the bus and pretend like nothing happened." Starling internally cringes at the rudeness but knows if she's going to fly under the radar and not alert anyone of her impersonating Havoc she needs to take on her character, not just her appearance.
"I... ok." Before Starling can change her mind and apologize, she walks out of the room and closes the door behind her. She leans back against it, takes a deep breath, and imagines Jake standing on the other side of the door looking hurt, like how he had the night at the junkyard. Before her guilt can eat away at her, the sound of Kraniac moving around on the bottom floor of the house spurs her to slip into the room next to Jake's. Despite the lack of personal belongings, it's clear to Starling that she was right in assuming that the room belonged to Havoc... or Amy.
A desk sits in one corner of the room with a charging high school-issue laptop and a charging cable for a phone. In another corner, a bed with simple white sheets to match the equally plain was sits on a bare metal bed frame. It had never crossed Starling's mind that the family would have very little in possessions. Jake, whose room had been just as bare as the one she's currently in, had mentioned in one of their many conversations that his family had to flee their old layer in a rush, though he had never said why.
Seeing the lackluster inside of her Arch-enemies room made her realize how dire their situation truly must have been if they had left everything behind. The move must have completely upturned the family. They would have had to change everything, their way of life, their names, and they must have completely lost their support network and their jobs. It dawns on Starling that she has no idea the undercover names of the family members other than Jake and now Amy. Surge and Kraniac's new identities are a complete mystery to her.
When she pulls out Havoc... or Amy's phone, she needs to get used to the name before it causes her trouble. To text the villain to ask her their names, she notices it's almost dead. Starling walks over to plug the phone in, sits down in the basic office chair tucked under the desk, and pauses, staring at the phone's lock screen. After a second, she remembers Ha... Amy's less-than-secure password, HAVOC, and she types it in, then pulls up the messaging app, wondering in the back of her mind why Amy hasn't texted her any questions yet. It's been a while since they parted ways.
Got back fine
Don't think anyone's suspicious
A few questions though
What are Surge and Kraniac's undercover names?
Who is Celia?
What bus number do you ride home from school?
What is your class schedule?
Starling is about to shut down the phone when she realizes that if she forgets Amy's password, it's likely that Amy will forget hers as well. Especially with her having a concussion.
My password is 37728469, just in case you forget.
Starling just hopes her original phone won't get overwhelmed with other notifications so Amy can see the text when she opens the phone again. Starling waits by the phone for a minute to see if Amy will text her back now that she has the password again, but after getting no response, she checks to ensure the phone is in silent mode and walks over to the bed. As she sits down, she realizes that it might be challenging to fall asleep despite her extreme tiredness. The bed under her is as hard as a rock. It could either be a cheap one the family quickly bought after relocating, or Havoc does seem like the kind of person who would like to sleep on a hard bed. Either way, Starling has just had another roadblock added to her already overwhelming pile.
She takes off Amy's coat and lays back in her bed, thinking of how the coming days, and maybe even weeks, might be. Little inconveniences like the bed, difficulty understanding what's going on, and always being partially in the dark. Having to pretend like a completely different person will be difficult, not because of the pretending part. She's constantly pretending to be someone she's not. Whether to keep the public happy, to get a brand deal, or to maintain the image she's already built for herself, Starling seldom gets to act like her authentic self. No, the difficulty would come from pretending to be a person like Havoc. Rude, snappy, destructive, unbudging. The exact opposite person to whom Starling had always forced herself to portray. Maybe it could be a break, though. A break from the constant pressure to be perfect, a break from the spotlight, a break from continuous work. Maybe for a little bit, she could just be a regular girl. A girl who made mistakes acted like a teenager and did whatever she wanted.
Just maybe.
Authors Note:
For my Composition 1 class that just finished, I got to choose the topic of my final essay. I decided to focus on young social media stars like Ryan Kija and Charlie D'amilio and how having the spotlight like that at such a young age can affect a person. I based that last paragraph from Starling on that concept.