Disclaimer – I don't own Young Justice. This was written for the Superhero profile on Wattpad's "I woke up Super" contest where the prompt involved a character waking up with super powers because of a freak accident which the character doesn't remember, but there are supposed to be further prompts down the line, so there is no telling when this will get updated.
Super Obsessed
Waking Up
Dixie was obsessed with superheroes.
While other thirteen-year-old girls obsessed over celebrity idols like Oliver Queen, or his ward Dick Grayson, Dixie obsessed over superheroes like the Flash and Robin. She knew far more about superhero gossip than she did celebrity gossip, but found herself mocked by her classmates for being so slow. After all, she was going to be repeating seventh next year, but the comparisons to Harley Quinn were definitely uncalled for.
Unlike other girls whose walls became living shrines to such celebrity idols, Dixie's room because of a shrine to everything superhero in this world. The walls were covered with the official posters released by the Justice League of each superhero and their sidekicks. The shelves were filled with the official figurines of each superhero, but she had two of each sidekick except for Robin. Of him, she had three and planned on getting more.
More specifically, there was nothing of the superheroines on the walls or shelves of Dixie's room. They'd never once taken on a sidekick, thus squashing the dreams of a thirteen-year-old wanting to become a superheroine herself. Then again, Dixie didn't crush on any of the superheroine's either, oblivious as she was to the quirks of her own obsession, thinking the girls at school far more obsessed than she'd ever been.
Dixie lived in a small peaceful town but wanted her parents to move to Gotham, where Batman and Robin were located. Her parents asked her, "why would you want to move to Gotham when where we live is so peaceful in comparison?"
Peaceful, however, was boring.
The most exciting things in town were the local swimming pool, the movie theater and the abandoned and supposedly haunted hospital. The popular girls which drove Dixie nuts with their celebrity gossip hung out there during the summer, which left honestly the haunted hospital. Again, her parents wouldn't let her go and stay the night in that place, due to how rundown the place was, yet there lay the choice spot for adventure, and pretending to be a superheroine.
Dixie didn't believe in ghosts, but maybe she should have.
What happened that night remained an honest fog in her mind. In part, it involved the girls who constantly harassed her, calling her mini Harley Quinn despite the fact Dixie couldn't ever imagine herself obsessed with someone like Joker. Dixie's older brother dragged her to the movie theater because he wanted to go on a date with his girlfriend that their parents didn't know about, only to forget about her to go into one of those cheesy romance movies he used to hate instead of the superhero movie he'd promised.
She, of course, had to run into Maddison. And of course, Maddison had to dare her to go to the haunted hospital that night. Perhaps the dare came about due to Maddison being bored to death with the normal routine during the summer, but Maddison and her clique of four friends headed to the haunted house, entering through the place the older kids mentioned. It was about then that things became fuzzy, and the next clear moment in Dixie's head was waking up the next morning.
Her Robin themed alarm clock went off, her fingers reaching out to turn off the alarm clock. Her eyes remained glued shut, so she didn't see her digits ghosting through the alarm. She did know that her alarm wasn't turning off, and thus let out a sigh as she sat up on her bed. The vague memory of what seemed like a dream, of going to the haunted hospital, of falling through the rotten boards of one story to the room below painfully, to the visions of ghosts flowing around.
Letting out a yawn, she headed downstairs, where her brother sat at the kitchen table. He turned to her, hissing. "Where did you disappear to last night?"
Dixie's eyes blinked. "What do you mean?"
"Jan and I looked everywhere for you. I even bought you a ticket even, yet you didn't come in with us."
"I wasn't going to sit with you and your girlfriend."
"Jan isn't my girlfriend."
Dixie's attention turned to the news, which her mother was watching. Her mouth pushed together, noting that the new reporters were covering the haunted hospital. "What's going on?"
Her brother turned, frowning at the screen. "A fire broke out at the old hospital. It was slated for teardown anyways."
"I'm so glad I never, ever let you go into that place. There are rumors about chemicals from those evil experiments they did ten, twenty years ago remaining. No telling what those would have done to you."
"Superpowers?" Dixie's eyes widened, making her mother and brother turn to her as if she'd grown a second head.
Her brother Eric cleared his throat. "Yeah. One doesn't always get superpowers from stuff like that. It's got to be a pretty lucky coincidence that something like that happened."
Dixie's lips pushed together, wondering if she'd managed to develop fire abilities, and caused the destruction, as she remembered now that she indeed did go there last night with Maddison and her friends. Maybe Maddison was also dead, and she would no longer have to deal with being bullied, yet in the back of her mind, Dixie mentally kicked herself for wishing something like that, even on Maddison.
The phone rang, and her mother picked up the phone. The woman listed for a bit, before turning to Dixie. "It's for you."
"Who is it?"
"Maddison. She sounds rather upset."
Dixie found herself cursing her luck, but attempted to keep a straight face on. She reached for the phone, placing it to her ear. "Hello?"
"Dixie! I think I killed them! I think I killed my friends!"
"What do you mean?"
"I tried calling every single one of them, after what happened last night. I remember catching fire, and everything around me."
"You must be imagining things." Dixie mentally kicked herself. "Why is it that Maddison is the one who ended up with cool powers, let alone powers at all."
"None of them are home. Something happened, I can't remember, but something really bad happened."
"How about we meet up somewhere? Like, maybe the library? So we can discuss this."
"Yes. I'll meet you there."
"I'm going to the library."
Dixie hurried back to her room, only to hear her mother say, "I'm so glad she's making friends."
"With Maddison?" Her brother piped up. He was still shaking his head when she left.
When Dixie arrived at the library, she found Maddison hiding in the back of the room. "How do you know it was you, and not me?"
"Because…" Maddison held out her hand, which lit on fire. "This keeps happening."
"Perhaps being around a bunch of flammable material isn't such a good idea?" Dixie quipped.
"And how are we supposed to leave? If they see me, I'll be shipped off."
Dixie grabbed Maddison's arm in annoyance, beginning to pull her towards the front desk. "We've got to hurry."
"No."
Maddison pulled back, and suddenly both girls found themselves falling towards the wall. Except, they went straight through, landing on the ground outside.
Note - Apparently I forgot to edit this to note that Dixie is an OC, because I was unaware that's the name used for gender swapped Dick Grayson. I was reminded by an anonymous reviewer who completely missed the fact the story is written in third person limited and that the factual error in this chapter was not only intentional, but done by my actual OC. She's THAT obsessed with superheros and THAT dense regarding the real world.
