Chapter Text
Trigger Warning!!
First section depicts non-consensual touching. If you wish to skip, then skip down to the ~~ line break.
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She moaned as Hartley straddled her pushing her back on the bed by her shoulders. Her lips crashed into hers, pulling Amy’s lower lip with her teeth as she pulled away, then began to kiss down her jawline towards her neck.
Amy would be lying if she said this wasn’t great, but this was too rough and frenzied for Hartley. What had come over her? Hartley was less reserved in this department than most people would think, but she was still gentle. Hartley always favored showing love and care than this careless display of, well, careless sex.
She was snapped from these confusing thoughts as ‘Hartley’s’ teeth nipped at the spot where two small scars hid. She did not like that, and Hartley knew that. She went to sit up and push her away, but ‘Hartley’s hands found her wrists first, pining them to the bed by her head.
“Hartley, stop” she said trying to sound sharp and serious but it sounded more like a broken plead.
She tried again to pull her arms away and break free but it was pointless the hands, that she decided couldn’t possibly be Hartley’s, tightened with each struggle.
“Hartley? Please, stop!” she yelled as tears began to fall.
Whoever was holding her down pulled back slightly and she saw Hartley’s face blur and change until it was Mara’s wolfish smile above her.
“Mara, let me go!” she shouted angrily.
Her hands tightened again on her wrists till it hurt. She leaned back into her neck and bit down in the same place as her scars. She screamed as Mara’s teeth broke the sensitive skin at her neck. It felt like every old wound split open at the same time. When Mara pulled back again her teeth and lips drenched in blood, she changed again into him. Onyx.
She sat up with another scream trying to get away, until her back hit the headboard or was it a wall.
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When she wasn’t pursued or grabbed again she snapped her eyes open looking for any threats. But her surroundings didn’t match what she had been expecting. She wasn’t in her bedroom or in her bed or in her home at all. She was on the floor on a ratty old mattress in a crappy apartment that she rented with her possibly ‘S-worded’ (as Hartley would say) money.
She had her arms and knees pulled into her chest as she hyperventilated with her back firmly pressed to the hard wall. Her hand brushed across her neck and let out a relieved sigh when she didn’t find any blood. She looked at her wrists next and didn’t see any red marks.
It was just a nightmare.
So calm the fuck down.
She tried to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, but it turned into a shuddering sob. She hugged herself closer and let herself cry it out, it was practically the only thing she could do after those kinds of nightmares.
God, she was pathetic. She left for Hartley’s protection and here she was crying like a baby because she had a bad dream and missed her. She just wanted to hug her and feel her arms around her, but she couldn’t go home until Mara was taken care of…again. Well wouldn’t go home was more like it.
She swiped at the tears once they began to slow finally and took a few deep breaths. She checked her phone to see what time it was, 5:21 pm, meaning she only slept 3 hours. At this point she’d barely slept in weeks.
She also had 30 text messages and 5 voicemails, from her family and Hartley and one voicemail from Starling. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and started to get up, ready for another night of searching, putting the messages out of her mind for now.
She largely ignored their calls and texts, as they were usually just telling her to come home and asking if she was ok. Hartley usually left voicemails asking her to check in, because she was worried. Half the time by the end she was crying and telling Amy to get her ass back home or at the very least not to do anything stupid. Her voicemails always made Amy cry.
She had also managed to disable the tracking in her phone and the nanites blocking part of Mara’s powers. That way her dad couldn’t just track her down and drag her back to Valley View.
She focused on the tasks of getting cleaned up, showering and rewrapping her bandage, to block out the memories of the nightmare. They kept slipping through her defenses and she shivered at the thought of Mara’s hands on her. She poured herself a cup of coffee as she pulled on her old villain suit. She knew Mara was in Centropolis, she’d heard of sightings of her villain persona roaming the city and unfortunately had a run in with her the night before (which explains the nightmare). She was forced to run before she could find her hideout though, she was still managing to pay for a truckload of armed mercenaries, somehow, giving her an army to back her up. Amy had made it her job to catch or put an end to Mara once and for all. Then she could go home.
She decided to listen to Starling’s message before heading out though in case she had something useful to tell her.
“Hey Amy, I know you don’t exactly want to hear from me right now, let alone see me, but it’s really important. I really need to talk to you. Can you meet me on the rooftop tonight at 7?” she asked sincerely. “I promise this isn’t some stupid trick, I know you’re too smart for that anyway” she said with a laugh.
Amy put her phone in her secret pocket as she thought about Starling’s request. She was pissed at Starling still, but she knew logically it wasn’t actually her fault and she trusted her enough not to do something stupid like force her to go home. But every time she saw Starling, she was irrationally angry and kind of a bitch to her. Either way she needed to know what Starling needed to tell her. It could be important. It could also give her a chance to set up her back up plan, if Starling can’t find the traitorous ‘hero’.
She thought about what Hartley’s message might say, but couldn’t bring herself to listen to it yet. If she listened to it she would end up crying again, and she had a job to do tonight.
She re-searched several old hiding spots that Mara and her used to frequent back when they dated, like every night just in case, along her way. Most nights she usually just wandered around the city looking for trouble, if she was here she may as well have some fun. Her fun now was slightly different than it was before Valley View though. She usually ended up stopping muggings now or would be rapists.
The news had caught glimpses of her and with witness testimony had started debating whether Havoc was now a hero or just a vigilante and what had happened to make her come back from a disappearance as a heroic villain.
Tonight, though she needed to get to the middle of the city to meet Starling, so no aimless wandering. She couldn’t pass up the fight she stumbled upon in a back alley on her though, it felt good to take her frustration out on a couple of dicks. She took down the drunken men that were trying to back a woman into a corner of an alley quickly, they put up a decent fight pulling out a knife and slashing it around wildly. She managed to slam the knife guy’s head into the brick wall knocking him out, with possibly too much anger, but he did deserve it.
She took their wallets and left before the women was able to get any words of gratitude out, as she stood by the entrance of the alley, where she had ran to when Amy started attacking the men, on the phone with police. She was stuttering and crying to someone on the phone, clearly panicked, but she was safe now and she had no time (or desire) to comfort someone.
She realized belatedly that the knife had cut into her upper arm, it didn’t feel like a bad cut though. She couldn’t bring herself to care about the blood leaking through her suit though, she was more annoyed that there was now a cut in her suit. She just hoped that it was dark enough to hide the blood leaking down her arm.
She finally made it to the building where her and Starling had meet last week. The same rooftop where they had their big fight just about a year ago. She threw herself up the side of the building with her powers, she’d been practicing and had gotten pretty good at it. Though as she tumbled onto the rooftop and landed on her back, she was reminded how bad she still was at landings.
“Oww. Still got to work on the landings” she groaned as Starling stood over her looking slightly amused.
Amy pushed herself up ignoring the hand Starling offered her and turned to look at Starling with her arms crossed, “What did you want?” she asked kind of coldly.
“How are you doing?” Starling asked back softly, ignoring her bitchiness as usual.
“Fantastic. Any news?” Amy said flatly.
“I’ll be straight with you when you’re straight with me” Starling said crossing her arms too.
“Starling, why did you call me here?” she asked impatiently.
They stared each other down until Starling relented to Amy’s intense stubbornness.
“I’m getting closer to finding the leak in the hero league. I’ve narrowed it down to just a few possibilities. When I find them, I am going to turn him over to the heroes with the evidence. Then we can safely lock Mara up again” Starling said.
Amy’s eyebrow moved almost imperceptibly at Starling’s slip of calling the mole a ‘him’ but filed it away for later choosing to focus on Starling’s naivety. Amy scoffed slightly, “She has connections everywhere Starling. Not just in the league. You’re incredibly naïve if you think she’ll stay locked up. Now if that’s all the pointless information you have, I think I’ll be going” she said sassily and started to walk to the roof exit door, she didn’t need another embarrassing crash landing tonight.
Before she could get there though, Starling’s hand wrapped around her bicep stopping her. Amy winced as her hand landed on the cut from the other night, hoping she didn’t notice.
“Don’t touch me” she growled.
Starling pulled her hand away quickly looking at it, “Are you bleeding?!?” Starling gasped. “Are you hurt?” she said trying to step closer to look at it.
Amy shrugged away, “I’m fine” she snapped angling her bleeding arm away from Starling.
“Amy, why are you here? Your family misses you and Hartley is heartbroken without you. She’s not herself anymore. You need them too. I can see how miserable you are too” Starling tried softly.
Amy blinked and tried to focus on the anger, “I don’t need anyone!” she growled.
“Amy” she started softly, “You’re 16. And you’re going through something difficult. You need your family, you need Hartley. You can’t take her down alone and you don’t have to. Your stronger with your family”
“I have always taken care of myself! I don’t need anyone checking up on me or trying to act like… like I need them” she yelled, stumbling on the last part. She had wanted to say acting like her mother, but in truth she missed her mom’s mothering, and she couldn’t make herself say it like it was a bad thing.
“Well, that’s too damn bad! You have people who care about you and we can’t just turn that off! I just want to help you. Whether that means helping you find Mara so you can go home or at the very very least, making sure you don’t get yourself killed like an idiot” Starling yelled back.
She was about to yell back when she saw the glint of a reflection on the roof of the adjacent building. Shit! She jumped at Starling, knocking them both to the ground just as she heard the bang of the gunshot.