Chapter 11: 1.10 Aftermath

Clash: We should talk

Clash: It could’ve happened to anyone.

Clash: Seriously, people are just being dicks. Let’s patrol. No stream, we can talk it through. I’ll tell you all the embarrassing stuff that’s happened to me.

Clash: Please?

Clash: Okay. Well. I’m here if or when you want to chat. Shit happens, it’s not that big of a deal. Promise. Stop getting in your head about it.

Clash: Spotlight?

 

Ava sighed, looking down at her Hero Association phone, the two-days’ worth of text messages from Clash. Who would’ve figured Clash was a sweetheart? She’d gotten hints of it during their patrols over the past two weeks, but mostly her cocky, disrespectful attitude had been what showed. 

Unfortunately, part of the plan was to go off the grid—completely. It was the expected reaction of something so horribly mortifying happening to an amateur not used to coverage like Spotlight. It would be suspicious for her to show up the next day and act like everything was fine. And while she’d grown to like Clash, and trust her in some small way, that didn’t mean Ava was willing to bring her into the loop. Loose ends were loose ends.

And after what Ava had done, this ordeal better have been worth it.

And it was. 

It worked exactly according to Brooke’s plan. Ava was Capital City’s newest flash-sensation. Now two days later, things had calmed somewhat, but that first day—that morning after, when the spark had caught flame and the news had spread not so much like a wildfire, but the bang of dynamite—had been insane. She’d turned off her social media notifications, but the sheer number of Tweets sent her way was downright comical. There were even reporters trying to get in contact with her through her Hero Association phone. Which she was declining, of course.

She couldn’t meet  Brooke’s eyes.

She knew. She definitely knew. Ava didn’t know how she could be so certain, but she was. How would Brooke have discovered it? Ava didn’t know. She wouldn’t have thought Brooke would tune into the stream, but she must have. Maybe she wanted to see if Ava’s acting efforts were genuine enough, and whether they’d need to play damage control the next day, but either way, Brooke had stopped into Ava’s stream, and she’d found out just how ‘real’ Ava’s moaning had been. Brooke had probably known as soon as she heard. They were best friends; they knew each other better than anyone.

Brooke could barely meet her eyes, too.

Which was a normal thing for her socially-averse friend, but her glances away had never been accompanied by blushing. That’d been the most obvious indicator. The smoking gun, so to say, even if it could be explained away with hopeful naivety by assuming Brooke was merely awkward by the circumstances.

Brooke had heard Ava get herself off in front of a live audience. 

And good god, Ava had gotten herself off. It had been explosive. It’d been twitching. It’d been the most mind-numbing, body-wracking, coursing flood of pleasure Ava had ever felt.

If any doubts lingered about Ava’s nature—a needy attention whore who desperately wanted her body to be lusted over—they had vanished that night. Knowing people had been listening in had served as an aphrodisiac. Something stronger. Ava’s moans had been over the top simply by the fact she’d been adrift in a sea of pleasure. She’d had to reign her whimpering, spasming orgasms back, even, to downplay how much fun she was having. To make it ‘believable’.

The denial of her nature was gone, but the shame remained. The shame was what had her lower body shaking with pleasure to begin with.

The truthfulness of Ava’s event had probably helped to set the internet on flame—and on flame it was. The news outlets could only pay so much attention to such a salacious scandal, so the internet was where Ava’s fame ran truly wild. The thread on Super Central, the premier safe-for-work supers discussion forum, was already forty-six pages long. Over a thousand messages. It had been locked twice for moderation. It was still seeing posts every few minutes.

The Superlewds discussion thread was even more active. For all that the public lusted over superheroines, few events like Ava’s bubbled to the surface. Even costume malfunctions were rare. Something like a superheroine fucking herself on stream, in quite clear, loud detail? Even without visuals, the perverted fan base had struck gold. Ava went from a nobody on the site to their darling, growing star.

It was almost comical how much fanart she received.

Some of them were pretty accurate to what had happened that night.

Some gave her a few ideas.

Ava responded to most. The Superlewds user attention_whoreoine was Spotlight’s number one, most perverted fan—and after what had happened, there was a lot of competition. The Spotlight tag went from three images to over thirty; and considering they’d only had two days to work, the number was astounding. As an amateur artist herself, she knew how much work a completed, detailed rendering could take. Less for some of these experts—really, how were they so good?—because skill meant faster production, but still most of a day’s work, or even two. They must’ve started working the moment the news dropped.

Ava was flattered.

Unfortunately, her surge in fame didn’t mean she escaped from her daily responsibilities as a citizen of Capital City. She still needed to show up to Paradise Pizzeria and work her scheduled eight hour shifts, as the much more mundane ‘Ava’.

It was, perhaps, a good thing Jacky had inferred Ava had a crush on Spotlight, because that would have been the only explanation for Ava’s flaming cheeks every time the topic got brought up—and it got brought up, more than once, and not just by Jacky looking to get a rise out of Ava. She could tell the event had been a sensation city-wide by the fact her coworkers were talking about it; it meant all across Capital City, similar conversations were being had.

It was more coverage—though not through mainstream channels—than she’d gotten for helping Dusk Hunter. There was a vaguelly upsetting irony in that; that fucking herself on camera was more noteworthy than helping takedown a S-Class villain that had terrorized Capital City for months. But that had been the whole point, Ava guessed. The axiom on which their plan had been based. So whatever.

Her powers had strengthened accordingly.

The jump was even more pronounced than the previous. Large enough that her and Brooke’s testing of her limits became a bit unwieldy—before, she’d been weak enough to use everyday items around their apartment to get a sense of how strong she was. Now, having once again doubled—therefore almost four times stronger than she’d started—things were becoming difficult to test in a subtle way, while remaining at home. They’d likely need to find a new location. And real weights, instead of books and random items.

The other emerging aspects of her constructs had also taken better form. Now instead of a vague sense of perception through her constructs, if Ava focused her attention on them, she could feel through them almost clearly—as if it was an extension of her skin. She still failed to find a use-case for that ability, but it existed. The stranger one, the way a ‘disregarded’ construct started to do what it wanted, had gained even more autonomy. Left to its own devices, her constructs would reach out and grab at things, securing them in place, or otherwise explore their surroundings. Brooke suspected that Ava would eventually be able to call constructs into life and forget about them, and that they’d do her bidding without any mental overhead at all. Which would be extraordinarily useful, especially as they became stronger.

Eventually, the accepted ‘shame’ timeframe had run itself to the wick, and Ava could reasonably show face again without anyone being suspicious. The first person she reached out to was obvious.

 

Spotlight: Hey. Wanna hang out, or something? Not a patrol. Just talk. Sorry for ghosting you.

 

She’d formed a friendship with Clash over the two weeks they’d done off-and-on patrol and streaming sessions, but it was Clash’s concern for her mental wellbeing that had won Ava over completely. That she’d ignored Clash’s messages ate at her, but Ava hadn’t wanted to sacrifice the legitimacy of the act.

The answer didn’t come right away. Though it was fairly late at night, and Clash’s daily responsibilities likely over, not everyone kept their Hero Association cellphone on them at all times, for obvious reasons. But an hour later, Clash replied.

 

Clash: Sure! In civvies? Where do you want to go?

 

Ava paused. She’d said ‘not a patrol’, but she hadn’t meant they’d show up without a mask, and in civilian clothes.

But she hesitated. Sharing your identity with another super was hardly a rare thing, but still not something done lightly. Ava found she trusted Clash.

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Spotlight: If you don’t mind. There’s a coffee place at 55th and 3rd Ave?

Clash: Coffee at 10. I like it. Burning that midnight oil, still.

Spotlight: Some things never change

Clash: When?

Spotlight: I’ll get ready and head out now? Going kinda crazy locked up in my apt

Clash: I’ll be there

Clash: Call it a date

 

Ava huffed. Still a flirt. Some things never change, indeed.

 

###

 

Seeing Clash in regular clothes was definitely weird. And she was easily recognizable, though that was on account of Ava knowing to look for short red hair in this cafe. Out in public, Ava would probably have passed over her; an eye mask did a surprising amount to hide a person’s appearance. Plus something about the costume, the bigger than life persona it afforded the wearer. Clash seemed too mundane, too normal, dressed in a black t-shirt and scuffed jeans. She wore a black choker and a thin silver necklace.

How is she hotter not in a skintight costume? Unruffled and casual fit much better on Clash—not that her costume fit ‘unwell’.

Clash had made it to the cafe with surprising speed. Ava wondered if she lived nearby. On Ava’s entry, their eyes locked; Clash had been waiting for a girl with long blonde hair to walk in, the same way Ava’s eyes had sought out short red.

She held a hand up and grinned. Ava returned it, her face already coloring.

She slipped into the seat across from her, forgoing ordering quite yet. “Please tell me you didn’t listen to it.”

Clash’s smile faltered, and she grimaced. “I don’t want to lie to you. The curiosity got to me. And I don’t have any self control.”

That was a phrase she’d repeated with some frequency. Ava sighed. “I didn’t expect you to haven’t.” She covered her face with her hands. “God, it’s so embarrassing.”

“A little bit—” Ava snorted, “—but it happened, it’s whatever. It’s already dying down. Life moves fast in Capital City. Give it a week, everybody’ll have forgotten.”

Ironically, the words weren’t reassuring, because they were accurate. If Ava wanted to stay in the spotlight of a city with such shifting, brief attentions, then her fiascos had to be constant and diligent. There were a hundred big-name capes in Capital City, and Ava needed to claw a position from those ranks with cleverness and dedication. Seeing what her battle-plan was … that meant more of what she’d done a few nights ago.

But she took the reassurance for what it was. She stopped hiding her face behind her hands and sighed. She looked up at Clash, face pointed mostly at the table, and huffed. “My Twitter and Instagram literally quadrupled in size. So no, I don’t think it’ll ever be forgotten.” She sighed. “But I’ve gotten over it. It’s hardly the end of my career. If anything, it’s been good for me. Publicity’s hard to get.”

“That’s a good way to look at it.”

“But my next stream back … I don’t even want to think about it.”

“I’ll be there. We’ll play it off together. It’ll be fine.”

The confidence in Clash’s voice—and the easy offer—made Ava study her for a second, then blush.

“Um, Ava,” she offered.

“Paris.”

“Thank you for this,” Ava said, gesturing around. “At first, ignoring it was easier. But I really wanted someone to talk to, once I’d kind of gotten over it.”

“Sure. No else knows you?”

Spotlight, she meant. Her identity. “My roommate. But um,” Ava shrugged.

“Doesn’t know what it’s like being in the public’s eye, even a little bit. I mean, I don’t much either, but I’ve been on the news a few times, stuff like that. I get it. A bit.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward lull.

“I really thought you, of all people, would make fun of me.”

“Oh, I will,” Paris said. “But only once the embarrassment settles from ‘I want to die’ to ‘this is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me’.”

“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Me? In highschool? Self-control’s a pretty important part of not making an idiot of yourself.” Paris quirked an eyebrow at Ava, and Ava laughed.

“Yeah, I can see you getting yourself into some … situations. You said you’d tell me a few?”

Paris wrinkled her nose. “I hoped you wouldn’t call me on that … but I guess we can commiserate with each other.”

Ava listened, and laughed along. 

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