There are many things that Tina Hawkins would never stand for, and bullying is one of them.
Tina had taken her break at the shop later than usual, so ended up walking around town as the various schools broke up for the day.
Maybe I should pop over and see Jackie She thought, then shook her head. Better not, I'll only embarrass her.
"Oi, Davies!"
Tina jerked her head up in the direction of the voice, and saw that it came from someone clearly on the lower end of the IQ spectrum and built like a football player. Tina frowned, she couldn't imagine Jackie being friends with this boy.
Her frown only increased as the familiar raincoat didn't even seem to acknowledge him. What were those two playing at?
"Going to play with your imaginary friend again!?"
Tina stopped dead still in the middle of the street, she now saw this situation for what it was, and she was not going to stand for it.
Except, Jackie didn't react. Tina couldn't see her face from here, but her walking pace didn't change, neither did the position of her shoulders. She gave no sign of even hearing the brute.
The brute's friends started to laugh as he barrelled straight through the crowd towards her.
"Don't ignore me!"
But that's exactly what she carried on doing.
The bully, having had enough, grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, making her face him.
"What have you got to say now, huh?"
Jackie didn't even blink, and Tina saw something that honestly shocked her. Jackie didn't care.
Jacqueline Davies; the girl who'd ended the war with a blast of ice, the girl who had braved a trip to the North and South Poles to save HOG, didn't care that she was getting bullied.
That didn't sit right in Tina's eyes. The Jackie she knew would be in this bully's face, either coming back with a cutting comment or just flat out threatening him. However, this version of Jackie, didn't.
"You deaf or something?" Asked the bully, before giving Jackie a shove. Jackie took the shove well, and once she was out of reach she began to walk away.
"What makes you think you can walk away from me?!" Snarled the bully, grabbing Jackie's shoulder again.
Tina had seen enough at this point, so put on a disapproving glare she usually only ever reserved for Billy, and stormed over.
"Stop right there!" She voice cut through the sounds of chatter like a knife and the bully stopped what he was doing. Everyone else stopped as well and stared, wondering where on earth this would go.
"How dare you." She said, reaching the bully. He stood at roughly the same height as Tina, but he almost seemed to quail under her gaze.
"What makes you think you can go around abusing someone in the open like that?!"
"I-I wasn't." Tina had to admit, the bully was a decent actor. "I was just trying to get my pen back."
"Don't give me that. Your teachers might fall for that act, but I certainly won't. I saw the whole thing from across the street!"
Out of the corner of her eye Tina saw Jackie stiffen, and she almost wanted to sigh. Of course what would get Jackie to react would be the fact that someone saw.
The bully on the other hand, dropped his act and his face turned into a sneer, but Tina's eye quickly saw that he was shaking slightly.
"Yeah, what's it to you?"
"Personal vendetta, now get out of here before I find out who your parents are."
The bully opened his mouth to laugh, then stopped when he realised that Tina was serious. He took one last glare at Jackie before taking off, his gang laughing behind him.
Tina let out the breath she didn't realise she had been holding, then noticed movement out of the corner of her eye.
"Jackie."
The young ice mover froze in place, then turned to face her.
Tina seemed to be at loss for what to say, then finally came out with something as the crowd lost interest and moved on.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
Jackie shrugged. "Never came up."
Well, at least she wasn't denying that it was a problem.
Tina's stance softened. "Jackie, we're your friends, you can come to us about stuff like this."
There was a guarded look in Jackie's brown eyes that almost broke Tina's heart. She was just like the ice she wielded, seemingly see through and strong, but get close enough and you see how complex and easy it is to break.
"It doesn't matter."
"Doesn't matter? How so?"
"It just doesn't."
Tina paused to gather her thoughts, trying to work out the best way to approach this without scaring off the teen.
"How long has this been going on?"
It was a long shot, and to Tina's dismay, it fell short as Jackie only strengthened the wall around her.
"It doesn't matter. I'd better go home now."
Without waiting for Tina's reply Jackie turned and left, presumably heading for home. Tina stood in her wake, trying to figure out how to handle this. She wouldn't stand by as Jackie was bullied, that was for certain!
With that in mind Tina turned on her heel to approach the school, she had something to tell them.
Tina slammed the door of her house shut, letting out her frustration. The school had been less than helpful. Because she wasn't related to any of the children they had every reason to not listen to her, when they finally did there was a lot of shuffling of paper and those dreaded words.
"We'll look into it."
'We'll look into it' Pah, they don't plan on doing anything to help the children they're supposed to be looking after!
Tina's wings sprung out of the carefully concealed holes in her clothes out of her frustration. The membrane of the limbs twitched and shuddered in her frustration as she tore around the kitchen, sorting out her evening meal.
The result wasn't spectacular, but Tina didn't care as she ate, her mind whirring as past as her wings.
There had to be something, she wasn't going to stand by as Jackie got bullied.
A thought came to her, does her mother know? That was a good point, but possibly straying a little far into Jackie's personal life. Contacting the school was fine, but her parents, that might be pushing it.
Tina continued down this line as she ate, no longer tasting the food. Maybe she could just talk to Jackie mother. The Burgess Branch and the rest of the Davies clan didn't exactly get along, after they'd put their daughter into some harrowing and even life threatening situations.
Just a talk, to smooth out relations. Justified Tina, and if Jackie's school life comes up, then that's just how it is.
Mrs Davies had been less than happy when she learned that it was someone from HOG on the phone.
"What now? Anything else you want to drag my daughter into? You almost got her killed!"
"That was never our intention, she came to the base under her steam. We would never have allowed an under eighteen year old to fight."
"Then why did you?!"
"Mrs Davies, I'm not saying what we did was right, and I think that now is the time to start mending bridges."
"Oh, so you think you can order me around as well?!"
"Mrs Davies, please. We don't want to have this kind of relationship with you. Believe or not we all care about your daughter-."
Tina was cut off by a snort on the other end of the line, but continued speaking regardless.
"-And we do not want to have this kind of antagonistic relationship with you. All I'm suggesting is that we meet up for a coffee somewhere."
There was a pause on the end of the line, then.
"Fine."
It was pure coincidence that they ended up in the same coffee shop where they'd gone after the meeting back in February, where Billy had gotten incredibly hyper on caffeine. The memory still made Tina smile and groan at the same time.
Mrs Davies could almost be an older version of her daughter. She wasn't as gangly and her face was more heart shaped than Jackie's angular features, but other than that...
Mrs Davies eyed Tina warily as she approached, watching as the taller woman sat down at the table.
"How are you?" Asked Tina politely, feeling the coldness rolling off this woman as though Jackie was in the room.
"Fine. How about you, Miss...?"
"Hawkins. Tina Hawkins." Tina held out her hand, which Mrs Davies warily shook. Good, she was at least willing to listen.
"So, what is this about exactly?"
"Exactly what I said over the phone, I want to smooth things out."
Tina sipped her coffee, waiting for Mrs Davies reaction.
"And how do you plan to do that?"
"Well, I thought, start off with a conversation, get to know each other a little."
"I suppose we'd better get on first name terms then." Mrs Davies straightened her shoulders. "I'm Charlotte."
"Pleased to meet you Charlotte."
A few awkward seconds.
"What do you do?"
"For a living?" Tina raised a curious eyebrow. "I co run a bookshop with another member of HOG."
"Do I know it?"
"Possibly, I've seen Jackie in there a few times, even before we knew her heritage."
"Ah, you must be Bookmark." A ghost of a smile appeared on Charlotte's face. "It's one of her favourite places to go after school."
"Is that so?" Tina was also smiling. "That would explain why I see here there so often."
"Has Jackie not mentioned it to you?" Charlotte seemed honestly curious.
"No, she hasn't. We don't often talk about that kind of thing. It's mainly upcoming events and the newly introduced combat sections."
Charlotte's eyebrows went up into her fringe and Tina backpedalled.
"It's nothing serious, we never get hurt, and even if we do, both Nigel and I have First Aid experience."
"Hmmm." Charlotte still seemed unconvinced. A thought seemed to occur to the woman, and she tapped her mug nervously before saying it.
"Has Jackie ever talked to you about school?"
Tina could guess where this was going, but chose to remain oblivious.
"Not really. We've asked a couple of times, but she says she's doing fine."
"Oh, never mind then."
Tina also tapped her glass nervously, here goes nothing.
"Is this to do with Jackie getting bullied?"
Charlotte looked at Tina in shock. "How do you know about that? You said she never mentioned it."
"And she still hasn't. I saw it happen the other day."
Charlotte's expression softened and she sighed.
"It doesn't surprise me."
"You mean you knew about this?!"
"Of course I did. I'm her mother. It's just that school is useless at dealing with them."
Charlotte looked down at her coffee. "I just wish she'd talk to me about it. Or anyone. I thought she'd tell you lot at least. She seems to think the world of you."
There was no trace of bitterness in Charlotte's voice as she described HOG.
"Well, she's certainly learning to relax in meetings. She and Billy get on like a house on fire."
The fire analogy brought a smile to Charlotte's face. "So I've heard, did they freeze some of the equipment by any chance?"
The small smile disappeared from Tina's face as she remembered that incident. The pair of troublemakers hadn't even looked sheepish as Tina and Nigel told them off, the two youngest members were becoming as thick as thieve when it came to practical jokes.
"They didn't even look ashamed, they just laughed. I never thought Jackie would turn out to be a prankster."
"Oh you should have seen her when she was younger. She was always getting Daniel to pull pranks with her. You couldn't step into a room without worrying that you were going to slip on a patch of ice."
Tina could visualise it, and her smile joined Charlottes.
Charlotte for a moment stopped smiling and looked at Tina critically.
"You've done her a world of good, you know."
"Even though we've almost got her killed?" Tina tried making a joke, and it fell flat as Charlotte's face hardened.
"Aside from that. She never really seemed to recover from Daniel's death, and she never made friends her own age. Still hasn't."
Charlotte looked Tina straight in the eyes. "Even so, I can say that you, Jamie and Jack have changed her. She's not just surviving any more. She's living."
"Very poetic of you."
"It's the most accurate way of describing what's happened. I'd almost forgotten what it looked like to see her smile."
"I didn't realise that it was that bad."
"I'm exaggerating, but not by much."
Charlotte tapped her mug again, a thought having come to her.
"You say you saw her getting bullied the other day, what happened?"
Tina frowned and put down her mug. "It was the strangest thing, this boy was shouting at her, pushing her, and she took in stride, it was almost as if she didn't care."
Charlotte nodded. "That doesn't surprise me. It was how some actually concerned teachers said it was like."
"I wasn't going to stand by and watch however." Tina continued. "Once he started becoming physical I stepped in and told him off. Once I was down I noticed that Jackie was trying to slip away, when I called her out on it she said that it didn't matter and walked away."
"Hmmm, Jackie never did like anyone fighting her battles for her." Mused Charlotte. "When I did tell the school she, well, she didn't say anything, but she was leaving frosty imprints on the chair when I told her."
"So that's it then, she acted coldly because she was angry that I got involved?"
"Possibly, you'll have to ask her yourself. There are times where I can't tell what's going on inside her head."
"I'll ask her next time I can get her alone." Said Tina, definitely not planning on letting the matter drop with the teenager.
The watch on Charlotte's wrist beeped and she looked at it, sighing.
"Well, I have to go." She said standing up. "It was nice talking with you Tina."
"It was nice talking to you too Charlotte. I hope we can do something like this again."
"You know what, me too."
Tina's chance appeared at the next meeting.
Nigel was the most experienced with self defence and swordsmanship, so he led the sessions, strangely with Billy. The Australian also had a lot of experience in fighting, having come from a long line of accomplished fighters.
Once practice was over Tina quickly noticed the Jackie was lagging behind, clearly waiting for Tina to disappear before she did. Jackie even went as far as openly planning a new prank with Billy.
Tina however, was patient. After telling Sally that she needed to talk to Jackie about something, Tina stood on the other side of the door, waiting for the teenager to come through the door.
Finally she did, still in deep conversation with Billy, but Tina was undeterred.
"Jackie, a word?"
Jackie froze mid sentence and looked at Tina.
"W-well, I-I- I've got to get home."
"I'll explain to your mother. This can't wait."
"Uh oh, looks like Tina's got it in for ya kiddo." Billy nudged Jackie in the side. "Not much point fighting it, she's gonna get ya eventually. See you later."
With that Billy also left, leaving Jackie no choice but to talk to Tina. She shoved her hands in her pockets and looked up at Tina.
"I've told you, it doesn't matter."
"To you perhaps, but we care about you, and we don't want you to suffer."
"I'm not." Insisted Jackie.
"I saw that boy shoving around! Are you telling me you don't care about that?"
"Yes I am, because he doesn't matter."
That threw Tina off. "What?"
"That's why I don't care. Because they're just people trying to make themselves feel better by picking on someone who they see as weaker. If they resort to that, then they don't matter in my eyes. It's their issue, not mine."
Tina blinked in surprise. There was wisdom to Jackie's words, no doubt about it. It was clear that she had been thinking on it as well.
Tina's stance softened. "Look, as you say, to you it doesn't matter, but I do have to ask; how often does it happen?"
"Every now and again."
Tina folded her arms and looked down at Jackie. "Jackie. The truth."
Jackie's shoulders slumped. "Fine, nearly every day."
"And you're sure it doesn't bother you?"
"It's a little irritating sure, but it usually only happens on the way to and from school."
Where the bullies can't get reprimanded.
"Look, if it ever gets too much, you can talk to us you know."
"Sure." Said Jackie, but Tina wasn't convinced.
"I mean it. If you feel that it's too much, you come and talk to us. We may not be your family, but we are your friends, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
That last sentence seemed to strike a chord with Jackie, her eyes watering. Jackie looked down so Tina wouldn't see, but she didn't get there quick enough.
Tina didn't say anything, instead wrapping her arm around the teen's shoulders. Jackie stiffened under Tina's touch, whether it was from the heat or the unexpected contact Tina couldn't tell.
"There's no shame in telling people how you feel. I know it's easier said than done and it does take baby steps, but it's doable."
Jackie's shoulders seemed to tense up, then they relaxed and leaned slightly into Tina's arm. A sniff from the teen seemed to surprise the pair, but Tina didn't let it show. Instead she pulled the smaller girl into a hug and let her cry on her shoulder.
All too quickly Jackie pulled back, wiping her face roughly.
"S-sorry. I'd better go." Before Tina could say or do anything Jackie had run off.
"Baby steps Jackie." Said Tina, knowing full well the teen could hear her in the echoing corridors. "Baby steps."
She hadn't opened up like Tina had hoped, but it was a start.