AN: So, back last December, someone mentioned a superhero au. I figured I'd at least write the origin story. I might continue this, I might not, but for now, it's a start. Both for little Laura, and the possibility of a fun fic, if I decide to come back and return to it.
Disclaimer: I do not own Carmilla.
Laura's two when she first discovers her powers, much to Mr. Hollis' chagrin. He and Samantha had been out for a date night- nothing big, just dinner and a movie, a small handful of hours where the two of them could momentarily forget the responsibility weighing on them at home (and hopefully drive out the repeated Barney Christmas songs Laura insisted on playing on repeat three months early). They loved their child, more than anything else, but she could be a handful and they needed a break.
A break that was ended in the first half hour when they received a call from the poor girl down the street they had hired to watch her, the teenager half hysterical and babbling something about wings.
By the time they got home, three windows had been broken, half of the furniture had been over turned, and sitting on top of the highest shelf, that even Mr. Hollis himself needed a step stool to reach, was tiny little Laura, a small pair of golden wings fluttering from behind her shoulders and molting feathers everywhere.
The wings weren't the last of it. Not at all, not in the slightest. In fact, they were the easiest to deal with, if Mr. Hollis was being honest with himself. The wings could be tucked away under a jacket or cloak, and after the first few days the molting stopped and the occasional lose feather could easily be explained away by the griffin toy Samantha made for her, the feathers Laura had lost incorporated into the wings. Even with the impromptu flying lessons Laura decided to give herself from time to time, the wings were the easiest.
The ability to tell when someone was lying, and the undeterred determination to find out the truth that came with it was a lot harder, and made Christmas those few months later quite a bit of a disaster. That and the extraordinary strength they found out she had developed when she picked up the car to get her ball, those were what made it hard to deal Laura's new 'skills.'
For the first three years they just guessed. Maybe she was some genetic mutant, maybe the water supply was radioactive, maybe she was some magic creature who had been switched at birth in the hospital with their human infant- for the first three years, they had no clue what had changed their daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Hollis spend hours poring over comics and scientific articles, the closest things they could get to sources about what might have caused this. Unreliable, but all they had to go off of, especially in terms of learning how to train their little girl.
Laura enjoyed learning how to fly, though it terrified Samantha out of her mind the first time she came home from the store to find her daughter jumping off the second story banister. Into her father's waiting arms, with a pile of pillows surrounding him just in case he missed, but still. Her ability to tell the truth from lies was almost natural, needing no nurturing for her to master it. Still, games of 'Truth-truth-lie' became common after dinner events, Laura crowing excitedly whenever she properly sensed the deceit her parents had tried to sneak past her.
Strength training was the issue. Laura never wanted to learn how to keep herself in check, and for a two to five year old, trying to explain why she couldn't just pick up whatever she wanted whenever she wanted was hard, almost impossible. They patched up different parts of the house four times before they decided to just leave it and do it when she was older- she never meant to put the holes in the walls, and was always sorry when she realized what she had done, but that didn't change the fact they were there and treated oak for the floor didn't come cheap.
So for three years they just guessed and did their best to train her. But then a letter came in the mail, a letter with pictures of little Laura flying through the forest outside of their house, and instructions to meet at an old diner downtown came with it.
Mr. Hollis almost went alone, a gun he had bought from an irreputable dealer hidden in his coat pocket to deal with this threat to his family. Samantha stole it the night he came home with it and hide it, refusing to tell him where it was.
"He might be a threat," she told him as she tried to calm his anger- not at her, but at the person threaten their child- "but we're not the villains in this story. We can't be."
Instead she wired a camera into their coats, to record everything the person they were going to meet said, and went to meet him.
Which was the best choice they had ever made, because James LaFontaine, while he had no answers, had a child just like their own, and knew of a few others Laura could be herself with.
His own child, who had declared quite loudly that they wanted to be known as just 'LaF,' knew things. None of them were sure how they did it- how they could look at a machine and tell what was wrong with it in seconds, how they could list the chemical breakdown of an item or liquid or gas after a couple of minutes examining it, how they could just almost make sense of the world around them and bend it to their will in such ways that it terrified their father.
They demonstrated their power right then and there in that little diner, reaching over and grabbing Laura's stuffed griffin and, after a quick turn, declared the feathers to be human. An impossibility, but one that was stated with clear authority in the matter, so much so they couldn't deny the fact that they were right.
Laf's Father just ruffled their hair and continued on to tell them about the others. Tell them that their daughter wasn't alone, that, even if they weren't quite the same, there were other children like her. Children she wouldn't have to hide from, children she wouldn't have to lie to, children she could be herself with, if she so desired.
He leaves them with questions, far too many to answer, but with the hope of finding answers- another address, another date, a place they could come if they wanted to introduce Laura to the others. Introduce her and get her started on training, because while none of them knew what was going on with their children, the parents of them all had agreed to keep them all secret, keep them all safe, and the best way to do so was to train. Train and learn control, so they didn't expose themselves to the outside world where lies about a funny costume or 'movie magic' would work to keep them safe.
He gives them the chance, the option, of making their child known to others, yes, making her part of something bigger, something they might not be able to protect her from, but he offers them the chance to find out and make sure she's not alone.
When the date on the card arrives, their little car pulls up in front of the large old house, parks next to the others, and, together, the three of them walk inside and meet the people who would become little Laura's very best friends, the only friends she had has since she had sprouted her wings, and who would one day look to her as their leader. Their leader in life, on missions, and against the darkness that threatened them, them and the world, that was their entire reason for existing.