Disclaimer: I don't own any of this stuff, I only play with the characters.
Emma tried to concentrate in class, she really did. It's just that the teachers were so boring! And the subject was boring, and the class, and the whole school. Just the word 'school' bored her. And this class, Math, especially bored her. Does this teacher really think that 10th-grade students care about algebra? Heck with algebra!
She glanced at the clock and sighed. Forty-five minutes. Forty-five whole flipping minutes of this guy talking about who knows what! Honestly, she hadn't been paying attention to any of it. She glanced down at her doodle filled scratch paper and the broken pencil. 'Great' she thought miserably 'I can't even doodle to keep my mind off this mathematical crap'.
Emma had always sucked at math. She was awful at math, science, geography… almost everything except art and language arts. She had been convinced by her friend, Hazel, to come to a charter school with her. Emma's mother was on board with the idea. She was hoping that this new charter school would help Emma improve her grades. So just a week before starting 10th grade she was dragged away from her small group of friends at Hambing high and forced into American Academy of Innovation. Luckily Hazel was there to join her on her first day. But even though she was in her second semester she only had two friends. Hazel (of course), and Amie.
"Emma" the voice of her math teacher, Mr. Warren, shook her out of her thoughts. "Mind telling the class what I was talking about?"
Emma swallowed hard. "Sorry," she said sweetly "I would… but I'm afraid I'm losing my voice" she did a fake cough at the end for effect. She heard Amie giggle a few seats behind her. The teacher frowned at her for a moment before continuing his lecture on exponents. That was close.
As soon as the bell rang for school to end she bolted out of the classroom. She couldn't stand another minute in this prison! The long ride on the subway home left her annoyed beyond belief. Stupid people. Why are humans so loud and obnoxious? Finally, she lay sprawled out on her bed like a starfish, headphones in and music blaring in her ears. Blocking out the sounds of her Mother yelling at someone on the phone. Home sweet home. She tossed around on the black and white patterned bedspread. Her room was, like the rest of the apartment, old and worn out. Her neighborhood was sketchy. But her mother couldn't afford anything better. Emma's family was poor. Light blue painted walls were chipped faded. Large cracks ran down the length of the walls. An assortment of dirty clothes, old papers, and colored pencils littered her dusty floorboards. She whipped open her bedside drawer and pulled out a bright green notebook that was covered in Sharpie doodles. Inside were comics. Superhero comics of her own creation. Someday she would be a cartoonist. Or a character designer. Or an animator. Or something else that sounded cool. Her comic book superheroes were based off the Avengers. The Avengers was awesome! People she admired! Ever since they saved New York she had been a fan. (who wouldn't? They did save the world after all).
The drawing was her form of escaping. The was the pencil traced over previous lines, so refined, so… perfect, it was beautiful. It was art! She could get lost in the paisley patterns of sharpie on certain pages, the scent of pencil lead and wooden shavings, the action packed pages that popped as you turned the pages. Various drawings and paintings of her own design had ended up in the artist showcases her previous school put on. But now she was in a new school. She had to build her reputation up again.
Hazel had said the new school would be a clean slate. Yeah right. It was just another crowd to get lost in. another sea of students to ignore her. She was the quiet girl in the background. No one cared for whatever reputation she set for herself.
Left to her depressing thoughts, Emma crawled into a ball. She tried to forget about life, just think about drawing. The colors of markers, the boxes of crayons in her closet, types of artist canvases… it didn't work. She lay down and tried not to cry…
The evening crawled by. Her Mom left for work (she was a nurse at the hospital and worked nights), so she was left alone at the house. Emma slid into the kitchen to grab some food. The cracked kitchen tiles and scuffed countertops indicated the many years of use. The kitchen had a stench to it, one like old food and dust. But that was to be expected, the apartment building was very old. Her mom wouldn't be back until Five am, and who knows when her dad would be back. Assorted remixes of pop songs blasted from her phone as she ate her small dinner and called Hazel. Hazel and Emma talked about the usual, boys, school, comics, friends, more comics.
That was when the front door blast open. In walked her father, his mechanic uniform crumpled and his hair matted. The smell of cigarettes clung to him and made Emma want to gag. Emma gathered her stuff and started walking toward her room when a shout from her dad caught her attention.
Her father, Cash, was tall and rather thin. He had messy dark brown hair that he almost never combed through. His dark brown eyes had large dark bags under them. His pale face gave him a tired look. He usually wore sports jerseys or his work uniform. Emma hated him. He left frequently and usually wouldn't come back for weeks on end. Whenever he did come back home he acted like he owned the place and its occupants. He was downright awful.
"Why are you here?" he asked her gruffly
Emma spun around and stared at him for a few seconds. "Well, being your daughter I have to live here until I turn eighteen." she crossed her arms and looked at him coldly, "don't worry, as soon as I'm legally an adult I'll be out of here. Why are you back?"
The older man turned toward the fridge and started rummaging through it. "Cause this is my house, girly."
"Could have fooled me," Emma mumbled. When Cash looked up at her she continued, "you're gone so much. So I've started a campaign to kick you out for good." she smirked, then turned and headed into her room.
"Yeah that's right, go and hide after that comment." Emma heard him grumble from his spot in the kitchen. "No one wants you here anyway."
Ouch. hit her in a weak spot. One of her many insecurities. Emma threw her stuff onto the bed and stormed back into the kitchen. "Why can't you leave? Can't you see? Every time you show your face here it makes mom even sadder!"
Cash turned around and glared at her. "Would that make you happy? For me to leave you fatherless?"
"Like you care! I'm already fatherless! I HATE YOU!"
"Listen up girly, I didn't choose to have you! If it was up to me, you wouldn't exist! But here you are! You are such an ungrateful little child."
"Ungrateful!?" Emma seethed "you have a family! But you take us and our money for granted and leave us for weeks on end!"
"I've given you a house and food! And if you don't watch it I can dump you out on the streets. The streets are exactly where you belong. Now get out of my sight!"
"I wish you were dead!" Emma screamed. "I wish you left for good last year! Like you threatened to!"
Cash took a few menacing steps toward her. Emma shrank back in fear. Cash never hit her but she didn't want to take chances. He took ragged and heavy breaths, his eyes were dark and dangerous, his large fists were clenched tightly. "And I wish you weren't dumped on me years ago," he said dangerously. "Now get out of my sight before I dump you back on them!"
Emma's eyes burned with unshed tears. She glared coldly at the man in front of her. This… this- idiot was her father? A father who didn't want her. Sparks flashed from behind her father. The air burned hot around the two. Emma started seeing red. The air was hot and thick like they were inside an oven. Emma snapped back to attention when she heard Cash stifle a gasp. Once Emma looked around the room returned to normal. The man shot her a disgusted glare before returning back to the fridge.
The new pencil pressed hard against the paper in front of her. The edge which used to be sharp was now dull and smeared. The lead traced upon the mask of captain America, effectively making the previous line thicker and bolder. Emma was lost in thought. Mindlessly improving on her sketch of Captain America while thinking of her broken family life. A mother who poured all she had into her work, a father who didn't like her and was never home. He didn't care for his daughter or wife. All the money he received was spent on hotel rooms and drinks, instead of his family. What a loving place to grow up in.
"Ooh that's pretty good" Hazel slid into the seat beside her. "If that wasn't your geography project you've been drawing on, I'd recommend turning it into the school art show."
"I hate him," Emilia growled.
Hazel quirked an eyebrow at Emma's paper. "Who? Captain America?"
Emma rolled her eyes. "My dad. He came back last night."
Hazel' eyes met Emma's brown ones. "He's back? But he hasn't been there for three months. Why's he back?"
Emma shrugged. "I dunno. I don't know why he doesn't just leave for good. Divorce mom and spend the rest of his days in hotel rooms and bars."
Hazel sighed. "I hate him too."
"He said something last night Hazel. I don't know what it means." Emma said quietly. She bowed her head a bit while her eyes looked up at her friend. "He told me I was dumped on him. He's said stuff like it before…. But…"
"So you were unplanned? That happens." Hazel said in an understanding voice.
"That's what I've always thought!" Emma's head snapped up. "But then he said he would 'dump me back on them'"
"Back on who?" Hazel wondered aloud. "Are you sure that's what he said?"
"Positive." Emma buried her head in her hands. "I guess I should forget about it? He was probably drunk anyways."
"Don't think about it too much Emma. he probably meant nothing by it."
They were quiet for a minute before Emma spoke again, her head was still buried in her hands. "The sparks- it happened again last night."
Hazel frowned. "We really need to research this." at Emma's groan she added, "Oh common! You can't avoid that library forever!"
Emma made some weird noise between a groan and a sigh. "Libraries hate me."
"Libraries don't hate you! You're in the school library right now!"
"The public library hates me!"
"Maybe you should stop running in it then! You wouldn't get kicked out all the time if you weren't knocking over shelves."
Emma lifted her head to give Hazel an Incredulous look. "Telling me to stop running is like telling my dad to stop coming back. We never listen."
"But you can make sparks appear out of thin air! That's not normal, Emma!" Hazel yelled. The librarian shot her a nasty glare and several students looked their way. "Sorry," Hazel said nervously. The room slowly returned to normal.
"Fine. we'll go to the library. But I doubt we'll find anything new." Emma huffed. Her eyes flitted back to her Homework assignment she had doodled on. She picked up her pencil and began drawing once again.
Hello, dear readers! Welcome to my first ever Avengers universe fan fiction! Imma gives a quick disclaimer, this story takes a while to pick up. So PLEASE bear with me!
For all of you who are only reading this because I wrote the Emilia Lupin fanfic… hello there! And cheers to you! The next chapter to that story will be coming out very soon.
But no matter the reason you're here, you should definitely press that review button because it means a whole heck of a lot to me! See ya next chapter!