Ana slightly regretted having her debut being the day before she had to go to college… and work..
Her body was incredibly sore and there were various different bruises and scrapes littered all across her body. She was wearing long enough clothes to cover them as not to cause suspicion, though she was sure no one would've batted an eye anyways.
Even though she knew exactly why she now looked like an abused pin cushion, Tiffany still prodded and coddled her Ana throughout the day; asking if she was alright, if she needed her books carried, asking every ten minutes if she wanted to go home.. At first Ana was happy for the support, but after a while Ana found herself getting increasingly frustrated with her friends' antics.
"Tiffany, I'm fine!" Ana exclaimed after Tiffany had asked Ana if she needed to lay down for the twentieth time, handing her an energy boosting vitamin tea at the same time.
Tiffany visibly flinched at the volume of Ana's yelling, getting the attention of a few students passing by.
Ana immediately felt a pit of guilt form in her stomach as she saw the hurt look on Tiffany's face.
Ana sighed and rubbed her face, her eyebags feeling more prominent as she became more stressed. "I'm sorry." She said, making the tension in Tiffany's shoulders relax a bit. Ana lowered her voice into a whisper. "Sure I'm a little banged up, but I don't need you to act like I'm overly fragile, I can handle myself!"
Tiffany looked equally as exasperated.
"You fell off a building Ana!" She whisper hissed.
Ana hissed for her to be quiet, probably gaining a lot more attention than Tiffany was at this point.
"I'm fine!" Tiffany made to open her mouth again to argue, but Ana cut her off. "Listen, I'm going to be doing much more dangerous stuff than this, and probably get much worse injuries-" Tiffany's face got much paler. Ana put her hands on Tiffany's shoulders. "This is what I signed up for. I'm prepared for the danger that comes with this and this is something that I want to do. I understand that you're worried about me, but seriously, I'll be fine." She pulled back from Tiffany with a slightly more optimistic tone, "Besides, I have superpowers."
Tiffany huffed unhappily but she backed off and Ana accepted the vitamin tea and breathed a sigh of relief.
The two of them made their way down to the cafeteria in silence, occasionally glancing and picking up fragments of their peers conversations, a feeling of giddiness surging through Ana as she heard the main topic of their gossip and whispers.
"Did you hear about that new hero?"
"Twister totally declared them rivals, this could be entertaining."
"Guys, Twisters like, a massive terrorist…."
Ana glanced at Tiffany with a slight happy stim each time, her actions and excitement enough to get Tiffany out break out of her mother hen persona for long enough to show happiness and excitement for Ana as well. The two of them managed to contain their excitement long enough until they got to their usual seat in the outdoor area of the cafeteria, Tiffany sitting down with a plate of chicken alfredo and Ana with a large plate of spaghetti and garlic bread, as well as a slice of angel food cake.
Tiffany glanced at Ana's meal, for once not complaining about her meal choice since her transformation, instead looking lost in thought for a moment before she asked, "Did Megumi say how long you would be craving calories like this?" She took a sip of Ana's tea as Ana thought for a moment.
"If what I remember is correct; the craving and weight loss don't really go away, if anything they get worse the more I use my power, so I need to eat a lot more than usual so my body can keep up with the amount of energy I need in order to produce a bunch of rings." She told Tiffany quietly.
Tiffany nodded, going back to her own lunch for a moment before Ana asked her, "Why? Does it still bother you that I'm eating a lot more now?"
Tiffany blinked. "I was never really bothered by it.. Just, at the time you had been in a huge accident and I didn't know anything about what happened. I was just worried that that may have been the way you were coping." Ana gave Tiffany a soft smile. "Ah, well- geez I didn't think about it that way," She said bashfully, kicking her feet a bit. "You're always worrying about my Tiff." Tiffany rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well someone's got too."
Though she didn't say it, Ana could hear the underlying meaning of her tone, further confirmed by the sneer on her face that she was thinking of Ana's family, that hadn't called or visited her ever since she left her hometown in Denmark to head to JHU in Maryland. It's not like Ana didn't call or send things back to them, she did; none of them ever responded, so Tiffany and the crew at the diner were the closest thing to family she really had.
The thought of her family made Ana's mood fall a bit as she wondered what they would say after finding out she was a super.
"You're a what?! No- Delilah, you're a- a freak!"
"What do you mean you keep your identity secret? What's the point of having this power if you don't let yourself gain anything from it?"
Ana snapped out of her trance when she felt a hand on hers. The warm touch made her flinch and her eyes shot up to see Tiffany staring at her with a concerned expression. "I know you don't want me to worry," She said quietly. Ana sighed. "It's fine, I just.." "I get it." Tiffany said firmly, a fire present in her eyes. Ana sighed and rested her head on her fist. "They still haven't called." She said finally.
Tiffany pursed her lips and gripped Ana's hand tighter, but didn't say anything. Finally, she said, "Well- screw them!" Ana snorted; they'd had this conversation many times before. "Just because they're blood doesn't mean they can treat you like this! Bunch of snobs.. Honestly!" Tiffany gripped. Ana chuckled and gripped her hand back. "It's alright, my dad still sends me money every once in a while, so I know they're all still alive." Ana told her.
Now it was Tiffany's turn to snort.
"Yeah only when he's feeling guilty!" Ana bit the inside of her lip at that statement. It made sense, her father never sent her money on a consistent time or date despite the fact that Ana always knew him as a timely man who only stuck to a strict schedule, so him sending her money at random times of the month, especially during the late afternoon, must've meant that he at least missed her.
Ana tried not to let the memory of the two of them being practically inseparable when she was younger make her sad anymore, but part of her still wondered if the picture of her high school graduation on his desk was what reminded him of her absence.
Ana shook her head. "I'm not letting this get me down today!" She exclaimed. Slamming her fist down on the table, slightly startling Tiffany. "There's a new hero around these parts." She said with a sly smirk that made Tiffany roll her eyes. "So I've heard," Tiffany said with a slight smile. The two leaned down so they couldn't be overheard by any of their peers. "And like- everyone's talking about her." Tiffany said with another playful eyeroll.
The two tried to act serious for a moment before eventually devolving into a fit of giggles as the excited chatter continued around them.
--
The talk of the new hero didn't stop even by the time Ana found herself in her last class of the day, which ended up turning into a study hall for those who didn't care to talk about the new hero. Ana was buzzing with excitement and pride while all of her classmates theorized about who this new hero was and what their motivation was. Even her professor who didn't look like she had been excited once in her entire life was entertaining theories and discussion about what this new hero could mean for the rest of the world, even if Ana did flush a few times when she commented on her falling off of the building, but hey- other than that everything had gone smoothly.
She was so engrossed in thought that she didn't notice Sanchi, who looked like she had been trying to get Ana's attention for some time.
"Oh!" Ana exclaimed, then grimaced as she realized those who were talking around her had stopped to look at her probably thinking she had something to interject. "S-sorry, sorry.." She muttered, turning back to Sanchi. "What is it?" She asked in a whisper.
"Rob asked me to give this to you. Said you left it in the lab the other day." She replied holding a book up to Ana with an eyebrow raised and a hand on her hip.
Ana was confused. She didn't remember leaving a book in the laboratory; and she was about to say so until she saw the look in Sanchi's eyes. Something was off. So instead, she took the book with an odd feeling in her gut and muttered a quiet, "Thank you."
Sanchi nodded stiffly before swiftly leaving the study hall, and a perplexed Ana inside it.
Ana looked down at the book and examined it. It was a book on advanced physics.. Odd, Ana thought, she didn't study physics. Ana's eyebrows furrowed further as she remembered the look on Sanchi's face. It didn't feel right… She and Rob knew she didn't study physics.. Ana tried to shake off the feeling, she didn't like feeling weird about her friends. Ana flipped through the pages. She didn't notice anything out of the ordinary until-
Ana noticed a small piece of paper inside of her textbook.
She flipped through the pages to find where the little piece of paper was in case it was a bookmark, and looked at the pages it had been in between. Electromagnetic energy… Didn't ring a bell.
Ana picked up the little piece of paper and saw that it was a small folded up note.
Curious, she set the book down and picked up the note, unfolding it as the chatter around her faded into nothing but background white noise as her heart stopped upon reading the note.
I know what you are. We know what you did. Meet us in the fifth robotics laboratory after school.