She wants to go home, but nobody's home
That's where she lies, broken inside
With no place to go, no place to go
To dry her eyes, broken inside
- "Nobody's Home" by Avril Lavigne
"Whatchahell yoo doin bitch?"
Kauri awoke at the sound of a very drunken voice, and a swift kick in the stomach. Her eyes flew open, and she made an attempt to sit up.
"I seh watcha doin?"
"Stop kicking me, Eric!" Kauri snarled. "I… I was upset about something… I must have fallen asleep…"
Eric tumbled drunkenly beside her on the landing of the stairs. "Sonabish buss inna aparmen," he muttered, slurring his words so thoroughly that most people wouldn't have understood him. But Kauri had become so used to speaking to Eric when he was drunk that she could practically speak Drunken Slurring as its own language.
"Who broke into the apartment?" she demanded, looking alarmed. Then it dawned on her. "Syndrome?"
"Sonabish wih bushy reh hair…" Eric managed. "He buss inna aparmen… himee inna face…"
"Did he, now?" Kauri said, almost absently. "You deserved it."
"Dinnit," Eric slurred sullenly before slumping off into a drunken stupor.
Kauri sighed heavily and stood, catching Eric's arm and dragging him up the next flight of stairs. He didn't awaken.
After a lot of bumping around on the stairs, Kauri finally reached her apartment door. She dug for the key in her pocket, found it, and pulled it out, shoving it so violently into the doorknob that it could have pressed charges for rape. The door swung open with a loud creak and revealed a very dingy looking flat. The furniture was all old, probably originally nice but beaten into submission after many beer stains and a lot of collapsing and being thrown onto it. Kauri dragged Eric to a chair, lifted him by the armpits, and dropped him into it. He continued to snore loudly while Kauri went into the bathroom to shower.
The shower was dysfunctional and only gave hot water every other five minutes, so Kauri had forced herself to adjust to icy cold showers. Standing in the biting stream of water while scrubbing her hair, Kauri thought back on the events of the day - or was it the previous day? She had no idea how long she'd been sleeping; there were no windows on the stairwell to her apartment, and the apartment's windows were always covered by the drapes. It was as though Kauri was afraid to see the sunlight. Maybe she was.
Kauri glanced down at her stomach, which had several bright red marks running across it where Eric had kicked her. They would probably turn into ugly, blackish bruises eventually. Kauri was glad her costume hid her stomach from view; she was also glad for the visor, which hid her eyes from the public. She'd gotten a black eye three weeks ago and had had to go to a fight with a supervillain. There had been no sign of the black eye while she battled; but when she pulled the visor off, back at the Parr home, they had all noticed and demanded to know what had happened, and if she was okay.
Kauri scrubbed her face, hard, with a washcloth, as though this could wipe away the ugly bruises and scars that had mottled her face from various attacks. She began to cry, long and hard, into the washcloth, and prayed to God, or whatever entity had created the world, that Eric didn't wake and hear her. He always hit her when she cried. He told her it was a sign of weakness.
She remembered, suddenly, painfully, how only a little while ago, when she had burst into tears in the back seat of her car, Buddy had comforted her. Dammit, she thought with an angry sniffle. You turned him down! You refused to live with him! Why the hell did you do that, Bex? Why? You don't want to stay with Eric… you know Buddy'd take care of you… he's been doing it almost all his life, after all… damn you, Bex, damn you and your stupid honor and pride!
Kauri threw the washcloth aside angrily and scrubbed her face raw with her own hands. She still felt as though all the grit and pain and hideous bruises could be seen across her face, but she knew they were all safely stored inside her own mind. She wished she knew some way to find some sort of metaphorical washcloth and scrub all the ugly inner scars away.
Superhero work did that… but that was only temporary relief. Once she took off the supersuit, she wasn't special anymore, she wasn't important; she wasn't worth anything to anyone… especially not to herself.
Kauri turned the shower off. She had no idea how long she'd been in there, but she was concerned about water bills. She had barely enough money to support herself and Eric as it was. She stepped out of the shower, grabbed a towel, and marched into her bedroom.
She was just reaching into her dresser to get some clothes when a signaler attached to her wall went off. She paused long enough to stare at it and see that it was flashing red, before charging over to her phone and picking it up. "This is Static," she said in a low voice, praying she wouldn't wake Eric."
"Hey, Stat, it's Frozone," said the voice on the other line. "Your pal Syndrome's causing some problems downtown. Mr. Incredible's already on his way, but we thought you'd wanna take the jerk down yourself."
"Thanks, 'Zone," Kauri said with a grin. "I'll be there in a minute."
She hung up the phone and walked, taller and prouder, to the other side of the room, where her clothes lay in a heap. She pulled them off and found her supersuit beneath. She had it on within the space of two minutes. Leaping to her feet, she charged out the door and down the stairs to the parking lot.
She was no longer weak little Kauri Bexer. She was Static, and she was just about to show Syndrome exactly what he was dealing with.