Something worth noticing
Hartley didn't think much of the messed up things Amy said at first. She found out who Amy was fairly early on, and before that, she had the whole bad-girl rebel, doesn't-care-about-anyone-or-anything, vibe going on (and isn't Amy the most mundane, 'average girl' name they could have possibly picked for the definitely not in any sense normal girl).
After she found out Amy was actually Havoc, the things she did and reacted to were expected. Hartley was looking for all the signs of Amy being the evil Supervillain that she was, so it was only natural that Amy didn't like hugs, or showing any form of vulnerability, or that when upset, powers quickly came into play without anyone holding back against each other despite being family. They thought little of breaking things, and hurting each other, and emotional manipulation or blackmail.
Amy was a Supervillain. It's was only natural that she didn't know the first thing about friendship, and saw being 'nice' as weak, or said things like 'nothing good comes from human touch.'
If Amy wasn't Havoc, she would have thought about it. If Hartley wasn't looking for the evil in her friend (so that she might be able to temper it), if Amy wasn't a Supervillain, she would have been concerned.
But Amy was a Supervillain with a family of villains, so she didn't think anything of it except of it as proof of her evil, but then Amy was her actual friend, and 'I would never hurt you, Hartley,' and Hartley knows her (she dare say even better than her family). Hartley knows that (when her family isn't watching) Amy can be kind. She is fierce and loyal, and she's not a good person, but she's the best person Hartley has ever met.
It's only after her first year of having Amy as her best friend, a year of watching Amy grow and change and soften in leaps and bounds- a year of Amy taking to hugs and handholding like she's starved for them- that it hits her when Amy says it again so bitterly on Halloween, "I told you nothing good comes from human contact."
It hits her hard, right in the gut, that that's wrong. Nothing good can come from human contact because, before Hartley, contact only came with fists and threats and bad things. Amy flinched and braced against hugs at first because they confused her (she admitted that to Hartley a while back), and they confused her because she never got them before.
She lived in sewers and abandoned subway tunnels and ate out of garbage cans and always had to look over her shoulder. If she did anything considered soft or weak, she was ridiculed and spat at and targeted, even by her family.
And it doesn't matter that Amy was a Supervillain (it just occurs to Hartley that there was no choice for her), she's also a person. For anyone else, that's abuse.
It hits her hard, because she likes Amy's parents and her brothers, and they've made so much progress since they first showed up, and maybe it's a cycle. Maybe villains are only villains because that's all they know how to be, and it doesn't sit right with Hartley.
Heroes are supposed to be good and villains are supposed to be evil, but her best friend isn't evil at all. She's the most loyal person Hartley knows, and she would sacrifice herself in an instant for Hartley, and when her family isn't watching (ready to mock her) she is the softest, kindest, person she knows. Amy is good when she doesn't have to be bad, and she adores touching Hartley once she stopped expecting the bad to follow.
Hartley aches at the thought, that, in the back of her mind, she expected all these abusive signs and didn't think anything of it- even thought that it was right and that it was deserved.
It's not right. Her sense of justice screams at her, and she thinks maybe society and the heroes have it wrong (for the first time, she can see herself becoming a villain- she wants to break this broken system and demand that they pay attention).
A/N: Just some drabble I thought up. I'm working on another one but I'm not sure it will ever see the light of day.
I know this fandom isn't very big but I hope someone finds and likes this. Please let me know what you think.
~Silver~
