in case of emergency
A Villains of Valley View oneshot
by mew-tsubaki
Note: The Villains of Valley View characters belong to Chris Peterson and Bryan Moore, not to me. Bringing some overdue Jarling feels~ ;w; Read, review, and enjoy! *Note: This is set directly after s2e3, "Dojo Mojo."
- ^-^3
Her butt buzzes barely a minute after she gets the cuffs on a would-be jewelry thief in Centropolis.
The local police and even the thief stare at Starling with large, surprised eyes, but Starling slaps on her award-winning smile—which never fails to dazzle—and does a little curtsy with her cape. "Could be an emergency from Captain Valor," she suggests, as if all heroes touch base via cellphone and not by their powers or some other, high-tech means.
The cops tip their hats in thanks to her and usher the young hero better get going then. The thief, at the mention of the leader of the League of Heroes, pales and goes quietly with the local LEOs instead.
Starling, the moment attention is off her, darts up into the air and searches for a quiet, empty spot atop a roof—any building will do, but she needs privacy. And she finds it, behind a billboard they're in the process of switching over right now. Starling recognizes this billboard, even; her face was plastered across it last year when they launched her new sneaker line.
In the shadow of the billboard, Starling catches her breath and pulls from a secret pocket at the back of her belt her cellphone. She knows it's unlikely to be any of the other heroes, and as for family—
—but then she sees the area code, and her breath hitches.
That's the Valley View area code.
Starling hesitates for a second, but her desire to hear from Jake again beats out everything else, and she swipes to answer…what turns out to be a video call. Starling furrows her brow at the face on her screen. "You're not Jake."
"Thank gods for that," Amy grouses. Her expression is flat, but there's a telltale twitch by her cheek; she so wants to roll her eyes right now.
Starling frowns, both at Amy's persistent dislike for her older brother as well as for Jake's absence. She bites back an annoyed sigh and gets down to business. "I know you and I left things—well, we've agreed on being 'frenemies,' but." Starling twists her lips around. "When last I saw any of you, it was to assist you in taking out that Shadow girl. Don't tell me she's returned? Or is there someone worse in the picture?"
Stunningly, Amy frowns, too. "No, it's not Shadow or any of the other villains."
"If it's not, then I know this isn't a social call. And this better not be some ploy to let that crazy psycho stalker fan of mine you call a girlfriend talk my ear off. If you have this number saved instead of only memorized—"
Amy reddens and shoots her a tiny glare. "She's not my—!" Then she pauses, takes a calming breath, and tries again. "Look, this is kind of serious, Starling."
…uh-oh. To be this normal in a conversation and even use her actual name and not resort to name-calling, Amy's behavior only raises Starling's hackles.
"It's about Jake."
She tenses. "Is he all right? Is he hurt?" The hero holds her phone closer, trying to peek around Amy to catch a glimpse of the eldest Madden sibling to no avail. Judging by the punk-rock interior that matches her usual fashion sense, Amy's calling Starling at home from her bedroom.
"He's physically fine." The villain pauses with a wince. "Well, okay, so. He's got a bruised ego and did end up with a few bruises from me, but he seriously needed to have his ass handed to him after how he's been."
Starling pulls a face. Go figure only Havoc believes fighting fixes everything…
Amy deflates with a sigh, though, looking much less like Havoc and a lot more like plain, ol' Amy as she continues, "…Starling, Jake's… He probably wouldn't admit it if you asked him, but he's incredibly lonely. And I'm calling because, much as I hate to admit it, he wasn't that way when you were around."
Her words strike her, hard, harder than one of Havoc's punches in one of the last times they went head to head. Starling's shoulders sag, and she runs an unsteady hand through her hair. "Jake and I both agreed not to…" She can't even finish the reminder, because the thought's too hard to bear.
A hard line appears when Amy clenches her jaw. She's probably heard the same words out of Jake's mouth a handful of times, too, but she doesn't care about that, and she doesn't care for Starling's reminder either, least of all when Amy spills the beans on precisely how bad it's been with Jake: from Starling's reformed villain love giving up on going good to turning into a jerk to pushing around a fellow classmate at a dojo and even, Amy shockingly admits, behaving in a way the past Amy would've condoned, by letting some of his powers leak into a real match in front of non-supers. "As I said, your boyfriend only came to his senses after I reminded him he was risking us all—and then I handed his ass to him on the mat."
Starling purses her lips at Amy's bragging, because it's a little hard to believe, the idea of super-strong Jake losing to anyone, be it Amy or this Milo kid, but Starling can see the point Amy tries to make. "We can't," she says lamely.
"I know that's the very 'grown-up' promise the two of you made, to try to protect everyone involved. But are you really going to tell me you haven't broken that no-contact rule a few times already?"
"…it's…been a while," Starling admits.
Amy doesn't smirk; she's too tired to do anything but give the tiniest of triumphant nods. "Thought so. Look, I… I don't know what you two are to each other right now or what you plan to be in the future, but I know that you were friends first, before other feelings entered the picture." She pauses here, waiting to catch Starling's eye.
When Starling meets her gaze, the girls share a look of understanding. "It can be hard when other feelings do," Starling confesses with a small chuckle.
Finally Amy rolls her eyes. "Tell me about it." As if on cue, a familiar "Amy~!" comes tromping up the stairs outside her room, and Amy turns as red as her Havoc costume. "Uh. Gotta cut this short before she sees you—"
"Yes, please!"
"But, Starling—" Amy narrows her eyes at the hero, on the verge of glaring. "He's hit rock bottom. Normally I'd say let him stay there…"
"No, I hear you loud and clear, Amy."
"Hi, Amy! Oh, mY GODS, IS THAT STA—" Amy drops her phone as Hartley tackles her, but the line disconnects a second later; one can only wish that Amy can wipe the call history before Hartley can copy the number down…!
With one call ended, Starling stares at her phone in hand, debating starting a second.
Amy has a point, especially if Jake's shenanigans at the karate dojo are true… But would Starling calling him now be helping him, or rewarding him? Is Jake going to turn good again, with her…or is he better off without her, working towards these goals on his own?
Like with Amy's number, Starling doesn't have Jake's saved (not anymore, that is), but she does have it committed to memory, and she caves to entering the number in the appropriate field in Messages. Then, when prompted, Starling has the chance to send him something, anything.
The only thing is, now that she could reach out, her thumbs freeze over her digital keyboard, at a loss for the right words.
And, really, Starling knows there are no right words for right now. Not for the gigantic pause they've put on them, and not for Amy blabbing about his behavior. Not that Starling approves of how Jake handled himself or that it took that much cajoling and interference from Amy before his bubble was burst, but Starling knows how it feels. There are some days where she'd much rather get a little rough, a little villainous even, with a villain than simply hand over a thief without powers to the cops.
So if there are no words, then what to say…?
That's when it hits her, the miracle of smartphones, and she smiles to herself as she reminisces of old text chats filled with nothing but emojis between the two of them. Starling settles on sending Jake a single sloth emoji—he'll know when he sees it, that she's encouraging him, saying, Hang in there—and she watches her screen for a full two minutes until that "Delivered" underneath her message changes to "Read."
Starling breathes a sigh of relief, and she daydreams of a world where she's not a hero and he's not a villain or maybe none of this even matters anymore…
But then her phone rings. And her breath hitches.
It's the Valley View area code, and it's not Amy calling.
Starling chews on her lower lip, because she knows Amy has a point, about breaking the rules occasionally, but rule-breaking leads to this, and this Starling can't handle…so her phone rings.
And it rings.
And it rings.
And it rings.
And it rings.
And it rings….
- ^-^3
Gotta love me some Jarling angst! 8D Esp when you consider I'm a Cloneling fangirl, are any of you even surprised by now? (Altho tbqh I just feel that Hartmy gives us all the positive warm&fuzzies, so therefore Jarling must be aNGSTTTTT. XD) ANYWHO. I hafta say, it was hard watching that ep, seeing Jake just…not be himself; as mentioned in the fic, he echoed what early/pre-Hartley!Amy was like, and it was so sad. But I think Amy makes a great point, too, that before Jarling happened, Jake and Starling were likely friends first, so Jake losing touch with p much the one person he's close with…it actually made some sense for the writers to go this direction, having him act out. But I LOVED seeing current Amy, who's grown bc Hartley has clearly rubbed off on her -w-, being the one primarily to rein him in. Milo was also more palatable in this ep, *lol*. But yeah. I just. My first thought after this ep was, "What would Starling think if she saw you like this, Jake?!" Hence also Starling worrying about rewarding his bad behavior…but also admitting to herself that she wants to lash out, too, sometimes (I could see it). GAH. I want more Starling in this season…! Dx Altho funnily enough, writing this gave me a new Cloneling idea, oops. Random notes: "local LEOs"—a "LEO" is just "law-enforcement officer," for anyone who doesn't know (I watch a looot of procedurals); I included some Amy swearing bc Disney is too G-rated and we all know Amy swears XDDD; and! AND! Starling waiting for two minutes at the end is a nod to my 1st Jarling fic, "Two Minutes for Two." Uwu (Go read if you haven't already~)
Thanks for reading, and please review! Check out my other VoVV fics if you liked this~ And, as with my other VoVV fics, reblog this fic on tumblr to show your support!
-mew-tsubaki c: