Chapter Text
Hello all-
I’ve been absent from this fandom for a bit, but I’ve been considering this AU for a while. I’ve gotten in a bit of a rabbit hole about the Troubled Teen Industry (very sad and disturbing, I implore you to look up what has happened to many survivors of these schools and encourage education about the realities of this industry within your communities if you live in the United States). However, it’s made me want to write a little story about VILE and an AU of Carmen’s experiences there. In true Jkit45 fashion, this likely could become an original novel, but I wanted to post on Ao3 where maybe some CS fans are still lurking so y’all could enjoy it.
It is T rated and written for a younger audience than my normal works, but still deals in some heavy themes. The characters are minors and I don’t want anything too terrible to happen to them, but things will be implied. However, I do encourage you to keep in mind that this will cover themes of abuse—mental, verbal and physical, as well as mentions of previous violence.
The idea of all of these kids having “abilities” and being collected by VILE from their perspective countries to be trained into little operatives and released into the world upon adulthood is an idea I’ve been toying with for a while. Thanks to the lovely @Estillis for the endless indulging of all my brainstorming on this.
If you haven’t checked out her CS fic, perhaps a raincheck then, I highly recommend you do so! It’s a lovely and completed CarmenxJulia longfic. Without further ado!
Chapter 1:
Her name was Black Sheep and she was thirteen years old. A young adult, the cop had sneered when he’d shoved her into the backseat of his patrol car. Someone who should know better about right and wrong.
Of course she knew that pick pocketing was wrong. It wasn’t her fault that Ladies’ Way, the girls’ group home where she’d spent her life thus far, was bleeding money. It wasn’t her fault that she was hungry and had a sticky-fingered knack that her housemates didn’t have. It was summer break, and summer break meant that they no longer went to school, and no longer going to school meant that there were no more breakfasts and lunches provided by the state. She was hungry. They all were.
It wasn’t her fault, she tried to tell herself as she curled tighter into the corner. It was cold in the jail and her frame was too small for the striped clothes to fit her. She hugged her knees to her chest. At least they’d kept her away from general population—she was too young for that. They’d beat her to a pulp, the cops said, so she had to stay in her own cell.
Waiting for her orphanage or the state to bail her out, Black Sheep didn’t know. She knew she had stolen the ring from the woman on the street, and she’d been sloppy, and the cop on the corner had shoved her down on the sidewalk and handcuffed her and brought her straight here.
She was going to juvie, probably. That’s what the police said, and she figured she better get used to the idea of it. The judge would decide her fate.
Her face pressed into her knees, and she wished she was less stupid. When she’d been left at Ladies’ Way when she was a baby, whoever had left her, presumably her parents, had also left a large donation. They’d wanted her educated and to live in a safe place because they’d been unable to take care of her. Apparently Ladies’ Way had had good funding once. But now the well was dry and she was hungry and she just wanted to sell the ring and get some money so they could all walk to the corner store to get food.
Nobody else could swipe things like her. She’d never been caught before. She’d been sloppy. Her hair had caught on the woman’s purse.
Stupid, stupid. She pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to stint the tears. Just another foster kid in jail. This was her destiny anyway, wasn’t it? Ladies’ Way wasn’t a good place anymore, and whoever left her there had never come back to check that she was being properly cared for. It didn’t matter. She was a criminal. She didn’t matter.
Black Sheep wasn’t her name, but it was what they’d always called her. She was Jane Doe. Around a year old when she was dropped off without a name and without DNA in any missing child database in the United States. Jane Doe had stuck, and Black Sheep soon after. A girl who talked to fast and walked to her own beat, they said. She preferred it to Jane.
Black Sheep wasn’t sure how much time passed. Her legs and back ached from sitting on the concrete, and the building darkened as she assumed the sun set and no one had come for her. Somewhere in her mind she thought maybe they would have and the realization that it was now night felt like a sharp poke in her chest. She forced the tears back again. A criminal had to be brave.
The lumbering figure of a woman approached her cell and Black Sheep didn’t move. There was no reason to. “Get up, kid.”
After a moment of pause she did as she was told, pushing herself up on stiff limbs and hugging her arms around her chest. She was so tired, the fatigue settled into her limbs and a headache pounded behind her eyes.
“Stick your arms out.” There was a small slot on the red door, covered in chipping paint. She did as she was told, “No.” The harshness made her startle, “Behind you. Arms behind you.” Black Sheep maneuvered herself, pressing her wrists through the slot for the cold metal of cuffs to be attached. The claustrophobia was strangling. She wanted to go home.
She wanted to go lay in bed. But bad kids didn’t get to go home.
It was awkward walking with the woman grabbing her arm so hard that her fingers surely left marks and being dragged into a room. Another hulking woman sat at the table. Her hair was dyed green and it amused Black Sheep. It was a welcome break from the stiffness and lack of color in the jail. The cop released her from the cuffs and told her to sit. Black Sheep rubbed her wrists and sat on the hard chair, “Give us a minute.” The woman told the cop.
She nodded and left the room, shutting the heavy door. Black Sheep fidgeted with nerves, rubbing her wrists and trying her best to stay calm. She quickly rubbed her eyes, trying to remove any evidence that she had been crying.
“I hear you’re a little pick pocket.” The woman drawled, “Unnaturally talented at it.”
Black Sheep said nothing, merely looked at her hands. If she talked she was going to start crying, and she didn’t want to cry anymore.
“Well, my name is Coach Brunt. And I am one of the faculty members at a school. A special school. A school for kids like you, who’ve got abilities that would get them arrested normally. But we like people with special abilities.” She spoke, her tone wasn’t unkind, and it was enough for Black Sheep to look up and meet her eyes.
“A school?” She swallowed hard. She’d heard of the reform schools that sometimes kids would be sent to instead of juvie. Maybe that’s what this was.
“A school. Good education. Most criminals don’t get that. Without an education you’ll be rotting in prison. How old are you?”
Black Sheep cringed at that. She probably was going to prison, wasn’t she? She was a bad kid.
“Uh….thirteen.”
“They say your grades are good. That you’re smart but you make stupid decisions. That true?”
“Yes, ma’am.” She muttered, unsure what else to say.
“Well, kid, you can’t just go around stealing from people and expect it to all be okay. Especially not without an education on what’s right and wrong. You do have some abilities, they say, don’t you?” Coach Brunt leaned in, her face reminded Black Sheep of a bull dog, a flat nose and deep creases on the sides of her lips.
‘Abilities’ didn’t sit right with Black Sheep, and she shrugged. Characters in comic books and cartoons had ‘abilities’, she was just strangely skilled because she had to be. They didn’t eat otherwise. There was a difference. She might have been a kid but she was old enough to know that.
“Some people have abilities, you know.” Coach Brunt leaned closer, close enough that Black Sheep felt her breath on her face. She averted her gaze to the top of the table.
“I….I don’t know.”
“Listen, what’s your name, kid?”
“Uh…Jane….But everyone calls me Black Sheep.”
“Listen, Black Sheep. I was like you. Troubled.” Brunt leaned back dramatically in the chair. Her chest was broad, the width of two men, and she flexed her hulking arms. Black Sheep was surprised that her muscles didn’t rip the sleeves of her shirt, “You could say I’m stronger than the average broad. That was my ability. Getting into trouble left and right. Then, my school found me, and gave me a place to grow up. To become an adult. To work. A place where kids with abilities and a knack for getting into trouble get to have a purpose. So….I want to cut to the chase here. You’re a little shit. You’re undisciplined. You can end up in juvie and age out of the system and be on the streets, doing drugs and being a little slut.” Coach Brunt spat on the word ‘slut’, and it made Black Sheep want to cry a little more.
She wasn’t a slut. She was only thirteen! She’d never even kissed anyone! She’d never done drugs in her life!
Eyes still planted on the table, willing her emotion down, willing herself to stay strong. Another tear escaped and she quickly wiped it away.
“Doesn’t sound very good, does it?” Coach Brunt drawled at her, the hint of a southern accent in her voice.
“No, ma’am.” Black Sheep swallowed.
“Didn’t think so. Your other option, your only other option, given your talents. Abilities. And the reckless abandon with which you use them. It’s to come to our school. It’s a school that gives teenagers like you a second chance. It’ll teach you to use your skills and you’ll meet other kids like you. With abilities like you. Doesn’t that sound better?”
Black Sheep felt relief flood her. Maybe she wasn’t going to juvie or prison. She wasn’t going to end up on the street. She was going to go to school.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Why were you stealing?” The woman demanded, and there was something in her eyes. A flicker of anger that Black Sheep had seen in other adults. A flicker that told her not to cross this woman who was big enough to smash her to dust.
“I….We have…We don’t have money….we don’t…we don’t always get to eat…” The cops had already told her off for it being a sob story, but Black Sheep said it again. It was the truth! She’d been told to always tell the truth and that things would go better for her. Maybe that was wrong, but another try seemed worthwhile.
Coach Brunt softened a bit at that, “There’s always a hot meal at VILE Academy, kid. That you’ll get. If you work hard, and turn your life around, and use your abilities properly, things will be good for you. Can you do that?”
Black Sheep nodded again, “What about Ladies’ Way?”
“You’re a criminal now, kid. You can’t just live at a home and corrupt the other kids there.” Another gut punch. She wanted to cry. What about her friends? The kids she’d spent years living with? What would they think was happening to her? Though, there didn’t seem to be time to consider those questions.
“Good. Good.” Coach Brunt stood, “I’ll make arrangements.”
-
And then of course, Carmen, one day, burns the place to the ground. Thanks for reading!
It’s def AU territory, but imagining VILE as a little cult churning out supervillains is a rather fun YA novel premise that I’d like to explore.