Writers Month 2021 #1 - Protectiveness
Writers Month (August) 2021
Day #1
Word: Protective / Setting: High School AU
Fandom: Yo soy Betty la fea (YSBLF)
Characters: Betty, Armando, don Roberto
Pairings: Very subtle Armando x Betty
Warnings: None
Rating: K+
A/N: What do you mean with “who writes about a soap opera? YSBLF? Really?” Well, me for starters! But there is also a YSBLF category in Ao3, so this is not the first fanfiction for that fandom… Anyway, here goes nothing…
Everyone had pretty much already left the school, so not many got to see such a scene, nor heard the commotion.
It all happened very quickly.
Betty’s eyes widened like saucers, hand quickly covering her mouth while Armando Mendoza , the Armando Mendoza, kicked the man on the floor, whle surrounded by other two or three others that were trying to have a go at him. A tall one grabbed him from behind, and the moment Armando struggled to free himself, a third one took advantage of the moment and punched him right in the face. Armando wriggled in pain, but yanked himself free, violently pushing his opponents away.
“Stop, please, stop!” Betty shouted.
But before they could land another blow, another voice yelled at them, and they hesitated too long. Then they looked at each other, and the moment passed.
“Armando, what is the meaning of this?”
Armando braced himself and turned to look at the headmaster.
“I’m sure you will”, the man replied sternly. “And you three, go straight home this instant. If the bell hadn’t rang already, and if those that are still here were not already in need to arrive at their homes, I would leave you in detention indefinitely, right this moment.”
The trio, each one of them with visible bruises on their faces and wrists, averted their gazes, mumbling.
“What are you waiting for? Go!”
They didn’t wait to hear it again, and scurried off. Armando remained still, same as Betty, too shocked to speak.
“I want to know just what happened”, the headmaster said, this time sounding more tired than angry. “No excuses. Miss, you saw what happened…”
“No, father”, Armando said, shaking his head. “You don’t have to involve her in this. I was the one who jumped at them. But I couldn’t just stay still while they… while they…”
He grimaced, perhaps in pain, too, judging by his swollen lip, and the bump on his forehead.
“No, Mr Mendoza, it was– it was my fault. He was just trying to defend me.”
Betty tried to hold the headmaster’s gaze, although she couldn’t help her eyes to lower, while he frowned.
“Whatever do you mean, miss… eh…”
Armando avoided his father’s questioning gaze. Roberto Mendoza looked again towards Betty, then again at his son. He frowned.
What a bizarre, unantaindable situation.
“Miss… Pinzón, were they trying to harm you in any way?”
“Oh no! Not at all, Mr Mendoza. They were just… saying things about me.”
Betty adjusted her glasses with embarrassment, trying not to look at Armando, who was starting to look positively impatient and annoyed, with a trace of something else that she couldn’t pinpoint at the moment. She lowered her eyes, answering “About my appearance, sir. But it’s okay, I’ve dealt with these things before. It’s not like they were saying anything untrue.”
With a start, she catched from the glimpse of her eyes Armando abruptly raising his head, with a fierce scowl. “They were not saying true things. The way they said them, it was…” he shaked his head once again. “It was revolting.”
Betty knew better than to be affected by those comments. She really did. But there were times, like this one, when some people were remarkably more meaner than usual. She adjusted her glasses to hide her watery eyes, because she couldn’t believe that, out of all the hundreds of people at school, it had been the popular, casanova Armando Mendoza the one who defended her.
He believed that what they had said had been revolting. No matter if he found her revolting or not, he at least had found those comments to be. And that made her ridiculously happy.
The headmaster, now looking frankly concerned, talked to them for a little while longer. Armando and Betty didn’t talk with one another, Roberto interceded at every time, and soon enough, they parted ways. Armando went in another direction, claiming that his wounds were nothing and he still had something to do before going home. Roberto didn’t seem happy, but he didn’t argue.
Betty also parted alone. Her friends had gone home quite a while before her, but she preferred to be by herself at the moment anyway. Sighing with content, she was so distracted she almost got rolled over by a car, but thankfully managed to get home safely.
Armando had a lot to think about, too. Except he didn’t want to think about it, because it implied thinking about Betty, and he didn’t want to think about Betty.
He didn’t understand her one bit; but there was something about her…
There was something about her. Maybe it was her horrible, horrible fringe, or those giant cartoony glasses, or the way she even seemed to wear an oversized uniform, but at times he almost felt pity for her. He had rarely talked to her in the past (why would he?), but per some reason, she had been around when a couple of… dire situations happened to him, and she had helped him. She had kept quiet about a couple of embarrassing things that happened afterwards, and, he realized, he hadn’t even been afraid that she would tell them to anyone. She laughed a hideous laugh, and braces did not help, certainly; but at least, even with how little he knew about her, he knew that she was trustworthy.
And of course such an ugly, pitiful creature was constantly being mocked and mistreated, there was no other way around it. That was how things worked.
But there were mean-spirited comments, objective comments… and then there were the rage inducing comments. Those guys had crossed the line alright, in front of him. It had been too much. He started seeing red, and when he realized, his fists were flying. They responded, and he kicked them, and punched them again, until his father appeared.
It was such a strange notion to think about it, but he felt–
He stopped on his tracks. And then he resumed walking quickly, brushing it away.
Protective. He felt protective towards her.
A/N: tbh, Armando already behaves like an (immature) teenager most of the time, so no problem there! And Betty is such a sweet girl already, that it also doesn’t change much. Also, can I say that it is t a x i n g to write in another language?… I’m still not that good at making it flow properly… Anyway, thank you for reading, YSBLF needs more fics.
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