Project: Null
AO3
[Chapter 1] - [Previous chapter] - [Chapter 4]
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Everyone was in the base, just relaxing. Well, almost everyone. Abyss wasn’t there, but that wasn’t surprising. They hadn’t seen her since she first showed up, the Justice League explaining that there was some stuff going on in her personal life that she had yet to settle.
Wally wouldn’t lie and say that he wasn’t at least a little curious as to what their newest member was spending her time doing, but for now, he supposed that he shouldn’t expect any answers.
The Justice League did tell them to expect Abyss showing up today, however…
“Think she knows we don’t have a mission?” M’gann asked. “I’d feel bad if she showed up just because of that.”
“The Justice League would probably have told her there wasn’t,” Robin said, shrugging. “Though it would be slightly funny if she showed up in costume.”
The team had started to theorize on her powers a little bit, based on the costume she was wearing and what she showed during the fight. Most of them seemed to think she was like M’gann when it came to her powers and that they were more mind-based, what with her being able to shut M’gann out in a way that could hurt and how she seemingly controlled that blade feather with her mind.
The bird-like get-up had been interesting, considering Robin, the one on the team who actually calls himself by the name of a bird, doesn’t go as full out as she did, and she didn’t even call herself a bird name!
“Where do you guys think her name comes from?” Wally asked. “Abyss, that’s pretty random, isn’t it? I mean like, Aqualad, aqua, mentored by Aquaman etcetera,” Wally shrugged as the team looked at him questioningly. “Abyss just seems pretty random, doesn’t it?”
"I guess, but it probably ties into her powers," Robin said with a shrug. "I'm more curious about whether or not she will share her identity with us."
"Considering what happened last time, I doubt it," Conner said, rolling his eyes at the two.
“B-09 Abyss”
Wally perked up in his seat at the sound of the zeta-tube. All conversation about the girl who had beaten Conner ceased and Wally could almost feel a shiver run down his spine at the thought of a possible confrontation between the two.
Still, he did turn his head to look, curious as to whether she would show up in her costume and-
He had to stop himself from doing a double-take. If it weren’t for the system saying her name, he wouldn’t have been able to tell it was the same girl.
The lightly curled, colorful hair from before was completely straight, and a dark black color, almost shining a midnight blue in the light. She wore a high-waisted pale pink a-line skirt, with what looked to be a velvet-like fabric, a tight white halter top, and a pale pink blazer that was long enough to reach the end of her skirt. She even wore a white medical mask that matched, along with a white purse. The only thing that really resembled the Abyss from before, was her striking bluebell, almond-shaped eyes. They were livelier than they had been when she was here before, sparkled as if she had been given new life. She had a brown paper bag in her hands, and her eyes darted around the cave nervously. She looked uncomfortable.
"U-uhm," Abyss visibly winced at her stutter but refused to meet any of their eyes. "I-I wanted to apologize, for what happened the last time I was here so I..." she took a breath, before finally meeting their gazes. "I-I've baked macarons. I, uh, I used to give my classmates macarons on the first day of school, so I thought maybe I should do the same for here, except for the fact that it isn't my first time meeting you all and I had a really bad first impression, a-and it's not like this is school, I mean obviously, I graduated early and uh, I-" she squeaked, as she seemed to realize she had begun to ramble, and her face reddened in clear embarrassment. "oh kwami," she whispered, her eyes widening as they once again darted from place to place.
Wally could see the clear mortification on her face, even if half of it was covered, though he would have been lying if he said that he hadn't found her ramble a little endearing.
The rest of the team blinked. This was nothing like she had been a few days ago, and it was hard to make heads or tails of.
"It's quite alright," Kaldur said, being the first to recover from the personality whiplash. "You said you baked macarons?"
Abyss nodded, hesitantly stepping forward and taking a seat, joining the others in the lounge. She pulled out a box from the bag and opened it to show a colorful variety of macarons.
"I uh- I didn't know if there were any preferences here so I made a couple of different flavors." She pointed at the colorful treats and told them the flavors; Strawberry (her personal favorite), coffee, passion fruit, pomegranate (an experiment, she told), and salted caramel.
"You said you baked these?" M'gann asked.
Abyss's eyes widened before she nodded hastily. "I have a habit of stress-baking, and macarons take enough time and concentration to distract me for a while, so," Abyss shrugged. "I wasn't planning on making this many different flavors to begin with, but then I just began thinking about this and before I knew it I had made a new tray, and then another, and then another until I had to back to the store to buy more ingredients for the filling," she paused, looking around awkwardly. "and new fruit."
"I love baking too," M'gann said excitedly. "though I don't think I could make something as complicated as this though."
"I've had a lot of practice," Abyss admits, bashful. "but I could teach you. It's not as hard as TV wants you to think it is." It wasn't clear, but even Wally could tell she was somewhat smiling under that mask of hers. There was an awkward moment before Abyss coughed, her smile gone. "Uh, what are we doing today?"
Conner still seemed displeased with her, Abyss shrinking in on herself.
“Today we’re simply bonding,” Kaldur answered, probably taking pity on the girl as she squirmed under Conner’s glare. “Maybe you could tell us a bit about yourself.”
“Oh, uh, sure,” Abyss said, hesitantly sitting down on the couch, as far away from any of the members as possible. “Uh, ask away.”
It was awkward, oh so incredibly awkward, but Abyss kept avoiding eye-contact and seemed to only curl more in on herself as the others looked at her.
“I couldn’t help but notice you have a slight accent, where are you from?” M’gann started asking, and Abyss’s eyes widened.
“Oh! Uh, Paris, France. Officially, I’m in the states for work.”
“Your English is pretty good!” M’gann complimented, and the tension seemed to leave Abyss slightly as she whispered out a quiet thanks.
The questioning continued like that, with the members asking Abyss questions, and her then answering, though some of her answers seemed more careful than the others, particularly the ones that could give hints to her identity.
“Why do you keep your identity secret?” Conner asked suddenly, the first question he’d asked the entire time. “We know why Rob does it, but why do you?”
Abyss looked around the group wide-eyed before focusing her eyes on her lap, where her hands were neatly folded.
“Um… it’s just always been like that, I guess. I’ve never… deliberately told anyone my identity before. The only people who know are the Justice League and my former mentor,” she answered. “So I guess I’m not really comfortable with sharing that kind of information. Maybe I will one day though.”
The last part was tacked on quickly, like she was afraid they would attack her for not doing something she wasn’t comfortable with, which was surprising, considering she wasn’t comfortable with M’gann being in her head, and she made that pretty clear. Not that Wally blamed her for that last one.
Conner was still angry at her, but that wasn’t a surprise either. He was an angry fellow most of the time, even if it was getting slightly better with some time.
“Why are you against the mindlink?” It was M’gann who asked, shockingly. Wally had expected it would have been Conner that would ask.
Abyss recoiled as if slapped, and the lights started flickering again. Her hands shook in her lap and she avoided the imploring eye contact of everyone.
“It- I-” she let out a sigh, took a deep breath, holding it, before letting out another sigh, the lights returning to normal and her hands stopped shaking. “I don’t know if you know about it or not but- uh- there was a villain in Paris for some years. He’s gone now, but he used to be pretty active. He would- He would turn people into akumas,” Abyss clenched her fists, continuing to avoid their gazes. She paused, realizing they had no idea what it was. “Akumas are… how to explain this, they are two things. Uhm, when Hawkmoth, the villain, would start an attack, he would send out an Akuma, a magical butterfly that turned people into akumas, like a villain or a monster.”
Her eyes welled up and the lights began flickering again.
“He would- He would target people who felt negative emotions. Any negative emotion would do. He would go into peoples' minds and promise to help them with whatever was wrong,” tears started to fall down her cheeks and she hastily wiped them away. “He akumatized a baby,” she laughed humorlessly, before calming herself down. “So uh, that’s why I’m not comfortable with someone else, uh,” she gestured to her head and laughed again. “In here.”
It was ghost-quiet in the base now. No one said anything, but Abyss didn’t seem too keen on continuing answering.
“I- I would never-!” M’gann started, but Abyss just shook her head.
“I know,” Abyss said. “But that doesn’t change anything for me.”
“Were you… ever akumatized?” Wally asked hesitantly.
“No, but a lot of the people closest to me were,” she said, as she started to fiddle with her fingers. “I started repressing my feelings after the first year or so, after I had almost been akumatized twice. I’d rather feel nothing at all than to have my feelings be used against me.”
There was something about the way she said it, with such finality, as if she would never budge on this. Wally supposed that it made sense, if she was with the Justice League, then that must have meant she was a hero and had some form of morals. Becoming someone who then hurt people…
Wally wouldn’t question it. He hadn’t gone through what she had, but he at least knew how to empathize.
A pin could have been dropped in the lounge, and you would have been able to hear it echo through the cave. Awkwardness filled the air as Abyss avoided looking at any of them, focusing instead on the walls and decorations of the cave. Her eyes found the kitchen, and Wally noticed that they seemed to light up, but as soon as she noticed Wally looking at her, her gaze snapped away, pink revealing itself just at the edges of her mask.
“Sorry, it looks like I’ve made things awkward,” Abyss said suddenly, the tension in the room only growing with the sound of her voice. “Uh, maybe look at things this way. I’ve learned a lot from my experience with Hawkmoth. Was it something I wish I could have lived without? Yes, absolutely, but thinking about things that didn’t happen won’t do me any good. So I’m fine, really.”
The awkward and stifled silence changed to stunned as Abyss rambled. She simply continued on, not noticing.
“If I let myself get stuck in all of that, I’m never going to grow from it, and I’ll simply be the same emotionless girl with pretend happiness who only existed to help others,” she seemed to catch herself, suddenly, her eyes widening as she registered what she said. Abyss started to cross her arms in front of her, her head shaking. “Not that I was never happy, of course, I was plenty happy, I’m very lucky and have gotten many opportunities, it’s just sometimes hard to enjoy that happiness when you can’t let yourself feel the sadness either, right? The negative side of your feelings are still important to feel, even if they aren’t as enjoyable as the positive ones but-” she cut herself off, taking in a gasping breath.
Wally found it impressive really, that she was able to talk for so long with a single breath.
“I have grown a lot from my experiences, and for that, I appreciate them, though I am very happy to now be somewhere I can allow myself to feel more freely, if only slightly,” Abyss said slowly, as if concluding her statement.
She felt weirdly wise for someone her age, though…
“How old are you?” Wally asked, and he could have sworn the glare sent his way from Artemis told him he could have had better timing.
Abyss just seemed to smile, if the way her cheeks pushed up indicated anything.
“I’m 16,” she answered gently. “I was 13 when Hawkmoth started attacking Paris.”
“3 years,” Kaldur said. “Did you have any heroes that could take care of it?”
“Two,” Abyss answered. “Ladybug and Chat Noir. There were others that came and fought on and off, but those two were the first to fight, and the only two who fought against him consistently.”
“You didn’t join them?” Conner asked with less sneering compared to before.
Abyss paused, looking at Conner calculatingly before answering. “I was asked to help a couple of times, but not because of my powers if that’s what you’re really wondering. I was the first Multimouse,” she explained.
"Wait, so if you didn't use your powers, how did you fight?" Robin asked, intrigued.
"Uhm, Hawkmoth got his powers from something called a miraculous, a magical piece of jewelry. Our heroes fought using those too. Ladybug asked me for my help, gave me a magical piece of jewelry and suddenly I was Multimouse for a bit."
"Why did you quit?"
"I didn't feel like it was safe to continue, I was worried someone would figure out I could more than I let on. I wasn't a main hero and someone else was chosen not long after. Either way, Hawkmoth is defeated and gone now."
"We didn't know there was a villain in Paris," Robin frowned.
Abyss paused, looking at them as if cautious, before looking down at her lap, fiddling with her fingers. "Our mayor wanted to keep it on the down-low. Reports of every attack stayed in Paris."
Everyone could tell that Abyss was uncomfortable with the topic, but Wally was the one to take pity on her.
"So, have you ever played Ultimate Mecha Strike 3?"
-_-_-_-
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