Summary: Starla moves in with her sister. Things get better. Then she notices her new neighbor and not in a good way.
Based off this prompt/idea by @caffeinewitchcraft
This one has been reworked a bit. Still the same story though, just fixed how Starla notices Duke, basically. That’s the biggest change.
*****
"That would be a literal blessing," her sister says, sighing into the phone with hope that pierces through the static of low reception.
"Well," Starla sighs, hand on her hip, looking at the stacked boxes in her apartment, artfully ignoring the eviction notice laying on the kitchen counter. "I kind of don't have a place to live past Thursday, so I don't have much of a choice."
"Well, you're always welcome to come take the guest room."
Starla rubs the bridge of her nose. "I can't afford any rent, though."
"You don't need to pay rent, " Melissa insists, words garbled by the piercing sound of a crying baby. There's some rustling, sound muffled as she deals with the crying newborn. "You're my sister,” she continues, voice softer as she soothes the baby, practically cooing. "It's no problem and you'd be doing me a huge favor anyways, with the kids."
"Okay," Starla says, nodding to herself, like she has options and a choice. "Let's do it."
So she moves in.
It’s what’s best for both them, what with Starla’s apartment block being torn down to place a strip mall, and with Melissa having two new babies that she was raising solo. This was better for both of them, and it would help restore their bond that had been neglected since they had both reached adulthood and thrown themselves into work and romance.
This was good.
Starla moves in easily, happy to be closer to her sister and niece and nephew, but missing the busyness of city life.
She’s a babysitter now. Glorified, with her lack of rent, and definitely overpaid, but still a babysitter.
It’s exhausting, so maybe not so much overpaid or glorified. Maybe she had underestimated the amount of work and attention two babies took.
Watching one baby is difficult, but two? It’s the only thing that fills her day, and it does a fantastic job of doing so. It takes time, and after only a few days, she’s become adept at holding them both at once and caring for both of their needs.
She’s becoming a good aunt, she thinks. A solid second parent to the tiny babies who will never meet the man tied to them by blood. It’s hard, but she loves them and that makes it worth it.
It doesn’t take long for her to familiarize herself with the neighbors.
Casey from down the block walks her two Shepherd mixes twice a day every day. Mat from across the street brings his sons to the park three days a week. Leslie jogs at six in the morning before work. Jake brought her a welcoming tin of muffins when he noticed that she’d moved in, a joint gift from him and his wife. Kay from the end of the road hosts a weekly hang out that she kindly sent her an invitation to alongside a welcome note.
None of them are who catches her attention, though. It’s Duke, who is her new direct neighbor who catches her eye. She’s never bumped into him or anything, but she’s acutely aware of his existence.
She’s-- she doesn’t mean to spy, but she’s sure that he’s no normal neighbor.
She’s fairly convinced that he’s a Super, actually.
No one in the neighborhood suspects, no idle gossip whispered when she questioned about the new neighbor who hasn’t bothered (or noticed) that someone new has moved into the house next door. He’s fairly secluded among everyone.
He doesn’t go to Kay’s hangouts. He’s just home to sleep, everyone says. He’s not a social guy. He does, though, travel into the city pretty often for hours at a time. Some of it is on a schedule.
Some of it is not.
Starla has... perhaps checked the news when he does, to see how often it lines up with city Super sightings, but it doesn’t enough for obvious eyebrows to be raised. But she knows that Supers don’t always go out in suits when they’re working, so it’s an iffy measurement from the start.
It doesn’t damn or clear him.
Not much would. But she’d find what she had to. If he was low-level, she’d be fine with it. It was the high tiers who couldn’t escape from their work. Who’s work followed them after they shrugged off the suit and the mask and the name.
It was fine if he wasn’t dangerous. She wasn’t planning on outing him. She just needed to know if he was safe.
After she learned that, she’d leave him be.
It’s his fault for being obvious. He comes home bruised and battered from an office job. He has odd hours. He’s left for the city at night a time or two, speeding out of his driveway in a hurry. No one has ever been in his house. No one has said anything more then hello or good morning to him. He was a ghost. A picture of what it looked like when someone was trying to be invisible.
It was suspicious. It had her gut rolling in unease.
Scones are how she decides to start. it’s polite to bake goods for neighbors and scones are bland enough he probably won’t hate them. It’ll open the door of her getting closer.
The twins are napping when she gets the chance to start throwing the batch together. She hopes they sleep for the hour or so it’ll take for her to throw it in the oven because she’s starting it from scratch. They don’t, of course, or more specifically, Cassie doesn’t.
She abandons the bowl of unmixed powders with liquid poured over the top like a faulty volcano to scoop up the crying baby. “Hey baby,” she coos, swiping a finger over a soft, velvet cheek as she bounces softly. “Whatcha crying for, huh?”
She settles fairly quickly, her large eyes drifting down. Carefully, Starla sets her back into the rocker and returns to baking, sacrificing time for silence.
They sleep through the rest of mixing and shaping into triangle-esque blobs. It’s after she sets the timer that they wake again, and she’s quick to go over and give them another feeding, and a diaper change for Benjamin.
Caring for them both had seemed impossible, at the beginning, but now it was as easy as breathing.
Her life is turning around, rising from the bland routine it had fallen into. A brightening comet that lights her night sky.
Things were much less stressful now. She enjoyed her day to day, which she didn’t before. She’d loved the city, but it hadn’t been kind to her and the eviction notice was just the straw that broke her. That sent her away. The suburbs were nice, too, though, and she was close enough to the city to be satisfied.
It was safer, too.
Or, it was statistically. She’d never suspected her apartment floormates or coworkers to be Supers. Now she was determined her neighbor was one. Now she was worried about it.
Back at her apartment, a ripped-up street was just another Thursday. Rubble blocking a road was normal. It hadn’t disturbed her too much. Life was boring.
It wasn’t now. And not just because of the twins. She had a mystery, too.
She likes mysteries. Puzzles and games and books. She likes to guess who the villain is, in thriller stories and in mystery books. She guesses right sometimes and she doesn’t on others, but she likes attempting. At trying to slot together all the little clues and dissecting the truth from a heap of mostly inconsequential evidence.
As a kid, she’d wanted to be a police officer. Her dad had watched a lot of crime shows and she’d liked watching them fit pieces together to bring justice. It looked fun, when it was on TV.
Then she grew up. She learned that police work was a lot more boring and restricting than the shows made it out to be. Cops were just second-rate overlooked heroes. They got all the paperwork. None of the glory. They did the stakeouts and the waiting. All of the parts that were a slog. Heroes got the benefits. Her fire had been snuffed out. but she still loved the idea of it.
She still likes solving mysteries. And even if she didn’t-- she doesn’t like the idea of someone dangerous living next to her family.
What if a fight followed him home and a Super battle broke out? If Supers started fighting that close, there would be nothing she could do.
It was best she figured out what kind of Super her new neighbor was . If she was lucky, he was just a nonpowered, try hard vigilante. Which was kind of illegal, but not particularly dangerous. But that was if she was lucky. If she was unlucky, then they were in danger just because of their proximity to him.
Living in the city, she’d seen too many new reports of mangled office buildings, smoking apartment buildings, has seen too much of the wreckage fighting leaves behind on the streets and the buildings and the people. It had so much impact on people. It was a very destructive thing to happen.
There was a reason why most of city budget goes to upkeep and repair. Super battles break everything and because they’re doing good, they don’t face punishment.
Starla is pretty indifferent to Supers. She knows that they’re expensive and destructive. They’re good too. Now she just doesn’t want that near her sister and the babies.
She was going to figure out just how much danger they were in. Exactly how much.
She was going to figure out Duke’s secret identity.
*****
Done! This one was a struggle to do for some reason. I think it’s a tad better now, though.
Hello! I hope you're having a great day bud :D (-
Alr, hear me out. What if Connie and Ebenezer (Including their lovely children's) were in the beautiful garden and Starla are making some Flower crowns for her mother and father? :3 {Forgive me if my English is bad!}
THIS IS SUCH A CUTE IDEA OH MY GOSHHH?
I need to write a flower-crown story now 🥹💕
Thank you so much for the wonderful idea, I hope I did it some justice and that you have a wonderful day too! 💕
Rereading “A Christmas Carol” and got to the part where Scrooge sees Belle’s daughter and has…a mini crisis about the fact that he could have been the a father to her children.
Soooooooooo that made my heart hurt. Sooooooooooooooo
I gave an older design for Connie and Scrooge’s baby girl, Starla, a shot. She takes a lot from her dad!
Headcanons for Orin/Constance vs. Ebenezer/Constance
Mentions of sex/mature themes. This is an 18+ post. Minors, shoo and DNI!
Orin/Constance
Meets Constance at work, realizes her father is a landlord, and starts romancing her.
They both enjoy the theatre and ballet, so mainly bond over the arts and discussions of business (both being bankers, with Orin more business-oriented and Constance more mathematically-inclined).
He proposes to her in a bar after her college graduation. He is very drunk. It’s a whole scene. She accepts, of course, as is expected of her.
Lost their virginity to each other on their wedding night, though Orin had some experience with other girls kissing, blowjobs, etc.
Both were ‘late bloomers’ - Constance never really thought she’d find a partner until Orin began courting her! Men don’t tend to like ladies who are silly and like math/analytics more than ... embroidery? Candle-making? Other 1800s things.
They spend 1-3 nights a week in bed at the start of their marriage.
Despite his abuse, Orin never cheated on Constance. He did, however, coerce her into acts with others against her will.
Connie is bisexual, and upon finding this out, Orin uses this to his advantage to urge her to woo men and women alike to earn favor amongst New York elites.
He has a somnophilia kink.
Orin wants a son at first, but Connie does not want children.
Ebenezer/Constance
They knew they loved each other in less than a week, likely because they had both come from relationships that didn’t work and knew what they felt like.
Ebenezer confesses first! He’s nervous as hell, knowing she came from a traumatizing relationship, and doesn’t want to take advantage of that (even unintentionally).
‘Courting’ (living together, in love & sleeping together) for two years before they’re engaged. Unlike with Isabel, he takes his time this time because he wants to make sure she’s ready and comfortable.
Their first time being intimate, she rides his thigh while he sits on the loveseat in the sitting room. After she comes, he realizes he’s in deep, and is certain that he’s smitten.
From then on our, they spend about 5-6 nights in bed with each other.
He proposes to her on a picnic in the countryside, so she doesn’t feel ambushed like she did with Orin. Gives her a ring of gold and pale blue sapphire.
They have sex outside immediately after on the picnic blanket. This becomes a habit.
Ebenezer is paranoid about her getting pregnant after losing Jen, but Constance is more open to the idea than before. Unlike Orin, she can picture Ebenezer fathering her children.
One year after marriage, they have a daughter named Starla.
