Veronica Grey's pov
Gotham Academy
Monday, October 12th, 2010
The chilled autumn breeze gives my legs goosebumps. Just because you wear tights in the cold with your school uniform, doesn't mean they keep your legs warm. But, all I can do is rush inside the school and head to my locker. Everything is finally fixed since the superheroes fought an android called Amazo within these walls. I exchange my homework stuff for the supplies for my morning classes. I manage to make my science class just before the bell rings. I sit down at my empty lab table. At first I think it's just one of those days where he's just not going to show up, but after a few minutes, he rushes in and sits down. The two of us pull out our notebooks and begin copying the notes that Mrs. Reed begins writing on the board for Chemistry. I look around and hear everyone whispering about the volcanic eruption that occurred in Yellowstone National Park last night. Apparently it was made known this morning that Red Tornado diverted the ash cloud, which is why a worldwide nuclear winter didn't occur considering the mass of the cloud produced.
"How's your morning so far, Ronnie?" He asks me in a whisper. I always feel intimidated by him, being a super smart freshman in a junior chemistry class, as well as being Dick Grayson, the ward of Bruce Wayne. I may be at the top of my class, but he very closely rivals me. I could have been in higher classes but I managed to convince my parents to let me do minimal work to continue with extracurriculars.
"I-it's fine, Dick. How about yours?" I whisper back, reaching for my eraser and accidentally brushing hands with him, I notice his hand spaz out of the corner of my eye.
"You shocked me." He laughs under his breath. "You've got some major static cling." He comments. I just fake a laugh. I wish it was just static.
"It's probably just the hair." I tell him, currently my mass of curly, frizzy, blonde hair is up in a tight bun. It's always the little white lies that get me through the day. The two of us continue in silence, doing our work. The whole time, I'm trying to relax. Being high strung and a person with my… condition… is never a good combination. The day goes on until I get to lunch. As I sit in the oddly pristine cafeteria, the people pass around me. I sit and eat my food as I do random things on my laptop. When I think no one is actually looking, I press my hand onto my laptop and begin searching around for files and projects I could be interested in. Usually I find abandoned projects, ones that had no hope of making it to testing stages. Those are the ones I copy the schematics of and remodel them to actually carry out their specific function. The hair on the back of my neck stands up and I remove my hand from the computer and actually type so I don't look suspicious.
"How are you doing that?" Dick asks as he sits down at my table, forcing me out of the comfortability of being alone. His redhead friend, Barbara, sits down next to him and looks at my screen for a plane that was planned to reach mach five without extreme g-force occurring on the inside cockpit.
"It was just going through abandoned projects, I find them interesting." I say quietly, putting my hands under the table in fear of exposing myself.
"It's cool." Barbara smiles at me. Dick just continues to stare at my screen.
"It's watermarked by start labs, how did you get these?" He asks with slight confusion. But for me, I have this weird pitfall in my gut that is telling me that he probably knows something.
"I-I have this thing where I get old, basically abandoned files from online and I honestly just study them. It's just a thing I do." I stay quiet, trying to dance around the fact that I found and made a copy of the file he is looking at, but telling my computer to take me to the secure server of Star Labs.
"That's really cool." Dick smiles, I still have the feeling that he is hiding something. I close my computer and continue eating. "Sorry about not asking earlier, but do you mind if we eat with you?" He asks. I nod.
"Yeah, it's fine." I give a little smile. The three of us just sit there, eating lunch and talking. Mainly the two of them are talking, I just comment here and there, avoiding speaking. When lunch is over, I get through the rest of my classes until I get to the last glass of the day: Gym. I get changed and enter the Gym designated for my class, the gymnastics class. I take this to basically warm myself up for actual gymnastics training after school. I stand with the rest of the girls who await the teacher's instructions for the day. The new girl comes in late. Bette said her name was Artemis. Interesting name for such a secretive person. The teacher stands up and tells us today it a free day. I wrap up my hands and go to the uneven bars. There, is where I spend the entire class. I do run after run until the final bell rings and I get changed and take a cab home. I enter the abnormally large brownstone, my mother is doing the same thing she does every day. I find her in the kitchen making me food for before my Gymnastics training.
"How was school?" She asks as she flips the sandwich in the frying pan, some cheese dripping into the pan.
"It was just like any other day. But at lunch, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon sat next to me. It was weird, they were really interested in what I was doing with my computer." I tell her as I pull out my laptop, setting it on the table.
"Veronica Leigh Grey, You know you're not supposed to be doing that in public places." She presses as she takes the sandwich out of the pan and sets in on a plate. I put my hand on my laptop and let it read my mind for knowledge needed to do my homework. As far as math homework goes, it's still my handwriting so they just think I do it on a tablet.
"No one ever notices, I stick my back to the wall, so I don't know how someone finally decided to notice today." I tell my mother as she sets the plate in front of me with a glass of water. I start eating, as a junior, my mother's cooking is something I'm going to cherish and appreciate before I go away to college.
"Just stop doing it school, please. I know I can't stop you but something could happen if the wrong person found out what you can do." She says quietly. I just nod.
"Fine, I won't do it at school anymore if it makes you feel better." I smile at her as I continue to eat my sandwich with one hand while keeping the other on my computer in order to complete my homework. Lucky me, as soon as I finish eating, my laptop beeps, telling me my homework is finished. I remove my hand.
"It does, thank you sweetheart, now go change so I can drive you to the gym." She smiles. I get up and run upstairs to my room. If I had it my way, I would have redesigned and rewired my room so everything in the room could carry out basic functions by my command. But, my parents both agreed that everything in the house should be manual to hide my abilities from guests and visitors. But it never stops me from controlling the metal in the room. I put my hand out and focus on what I need for Gymnastics. Various drawers open, revealing various articles of clothing. I grab a blue leotard, a sports bra and a pair of black sweatpants and get dress, just sliding my feet into a pair of uggs. I make sure my bun is still tight before I grab my bag and head downstairs. My mother and I pull on our coats and go to the garage.
As we drive to the gym, I turn on the radio and just relax as we drive. By the time we get to the gym, the sun is beginning to set. My mother goes to sit in the observation room with the other parents as I drop my bag and warm up. I sit and stretch with music in my ears. But the relaxed moments Lily approaches me.
"Hey, Ronnie," she begins as she slides into her middle splits before me, "hows the Gotham Academy life?" Lily asks and she brushes a tendril of her dark brown hair from her face.
"It's pretty normal, still partnered with that genius freshman in chemistry. Still socially awkward." I tell her. It's easy to talk to her since we've been friends since we both started gymnastics when we were seven. The little tiny tots class.
"Well I think they would all think you're really cool if you actually let them get to know you." She comments as she bends one of her legs to hyperextend her hamstrings. I shift into my left split and lean back to stretch out my right hip flexor.
"Yes but you know I struggle in that department." I tell her as she lays on her stomach and brings her feet past her head to touch the floor in front of her face. "What kind of stretch is that?" I laugh at her.
"It's not, I'm just bored." She jokes. "But seriously, I could help you get better socially." She smiles, still lightly laughing about her position she's put herself in. I give her a look.
"I don't know how you're going to pull that off, but I may or may not like to see you try." I give her a little smirk. I don't think she can pull it off and I don't even think there is much to work with. I'm a basket case when it comes to people.
"Well, you already have the clothes for outside of school, you have the long, curly blond hair, and you have the personality. We just have to push you out of your comfort zone, get you into the groove of being around other people." She smiles, hoping she'll actually get to do this. "And a little makeup and some anti frizz hair products and you'll seem more approachable and easy going. And we need to get you to relax and be a little looser in order to actually handle the social pressures of actually having to keep up with friends that haven't known you since the tiny tot days." She grins from ear to ear. I don't know if I actually want to let her do this.
"Sounds like a pretty interesting plan. It could work, but now I don't know if I should let you." I laugh, moving to my right split and laying back to stretch out my left hip flexor.
"I honestly think it would be awesome to reinvent you. Leave all the good things about you, and just fine tune your faults, such as being socially awkward, high strung, and quiet. You're afraid of what other's think of you, so I think you should let go and just do what makes you happy. That way people will see you as carefree and easygoing.
"You really want to do this now, don't you?" I raise an eyebrow, still skeptical about this. She just nods like a five year old.
"If you go and talk to the most popular girl in your grade without freaking out or embarrassing yourself, then you don't have to do any of this, but if you can't, then I get to go through with the plan. Deal?" She asks as she sits normally and starts stretching her arms.
"Fine, challenge accepted." I smirk at her and I sit criss cross, stretching my arms with her as well.
"You're actually going to do it?" She has a smile from ear to ear, making me slightly uneasy. I have to hold myself together, taking deep breaths to not expose anything. The most visible thing I have to worry about are the sparks and electrical currents that leap between my fingers and run across my skin.
"I'll do it if it gets you off my back about being socially awkward." I promise her. "But if I don't go through with it, you can go on ahead with your plan, okay?" I tell her, hoping she will drop the subject of conversation this time.
"Yay!" She squeals as I stand up.
"Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get the rings over with before coach gets mad." I half laugh as I walk over the dangling rings. I leap up and grab hold, practicing flips and swings, even holding myself in place. I lower my body to be completely parallel to the ground. After a few seconds of holding, I lift up and swing, dismounting in a full, but my landing is rough. I land with my ankle bent at a bad angle. I hear the snap and the pain floods through me but I just go and walk it off before anyone notices. The pain dulls and my ankle snaps back into place as my cells get to work to put me back together. I researched everything about this kind of thing, and it's like a salamander. I regenerate. After shaking it out, I go through the rest of the gymnastics practice for the next few hours before the coaches tell us to wrap up and get going. I find my bag and pull my sweat pants and coat back on. I find my mom and get going. In the car, she begins talking.
"I saw your landing, you should be more careful. Especially if you compete nationally and someone notices you walking away from an injury like that on national television." She gives me a look as we walk to the car.
"I know, it was an accident, won't happen again." I promise as we get into the gar and drive away from the gym.
"Do you want Wendy's? Cause we have time before your father gets home." She smiles. I nod vigorously and we head to the nearest drive through. My dad doesn't think athletes should eat fast food or anything with that much grease for that matter. He barely lets me get ice cream with my cake on my birthday. But every now and again when Dad works late, she takes me to get something as greasy and delicious as a fast food burger with fries on the side. After getting the food from Wendy's, I dig right in. My mom laughs.
"What?" I ask with a mouth full of french fries.
"I swear, this is like crack to you." She can't contain her laughter as we drive home. I manage to stuff my face with food so well, that I finish before the car even pulls into the driveway. We stop at the neighbor's garbage can and dump the evidence of my indulgence. Back at the house, my dad arrives the same time as us.
"Hi, dad." I give him a smile as the three of us get out of the two cars.
"Hello, Veronica." He gives me a small smile with the greeting before he goes inside. My mother sighs and the two of us go inside. I go up and take a shower as my mother and father start making dinner. It honestly doesn't matter that I just ate, because it's going to take and hour and half for them to finish making whatever they ended up agreeing on making. High metabolisms make it easy. When finished with my shower, I let my hair stay free as it dries. The curls slowly rising as they dry. I just pull on a simple pair of cotton shorts and a tank top for my pajamas tonight. As soon as I smell the cooking, I just flop on my bed and pull out my laptop, continueing my activities from before. Going through old, abandoned files of projects. Some of these things could really benefit mankind if they ever made it past prototype stage, but sadly they haven't. But something catches my eye. I didn't even mean to find it, but I did.
Wayne Tech has come across many interesting projects that suddenly 'failed' during testing, or were deemed too dangerous, so the projects were shut down. All of it, resistant fabrics and armour, extreme weapons, adapted performance transportation, advanced software that could either protect the world from greater threats, or become a threat itself. All of the remaining data was transferred to the R&D and Applied Sciences departments of Wayne Enterprises. Why take it from Tech to Enterprises when all of it is multiple parts of the same company? But before I can continue investigating, my parents call me to dinner.