Chapter Text
Charlotte would always remember the first time she met Henry and Jasper. They were 11 years old in their elementary school playground. She was having a hard time making friends, and being the only black girl in her grade wasn’t exactly making it easy.
Her sister Reiya told her to just be confident, and if people didn’t like her then it was their loss. Reiya was a lot older and she knew a lot about the world, therefore Charlotte took whatever she said quite seriously.
So 6th grade Charlotte Page walked right up to a red headed girl and asked her if she wanted to play together on the swings. The girl told her there was absolutely no way, since Bysh Bilsky was there. The big bully had been hogging the swings all afternoon. Charlotte decided that that simply wasn’t fair, and she had to do something about it.
“Hey, excuse me, do you mind getting off the swings, so that other people can have a turn?” She asked. Her parents had taught her to be polite; anger would never get a young girl anywhere in life.
“Nuh-uh, they’re mine!” The older girl said.
“But you’re a 7th grader, it’s just not fair. Maybe we could work out some kind of agreement so that everyone gets a turn-”
Bysh did get up from the swing set, only to push Charlotte to the ground.
“Hey!” A blonde boy ran in to stand in between the two girls. He was followed by a curly haired boy clutching tightly to a bucket.
“That’s really mean, you can’t push people!” The blonde said. Always the hero, Henry Hart. Even before he became Kid Danger, there was something in him that seemed to attract these dangerous scenarios and pushed him to try to save people.
“So what if it’s mean. I’m big, she’s small. And so are you.” She stood up, evidently towering over the little boy. She was only in the grade above them, but she’d been held back a few years and must be at least a teenager by now.
“How would you feel if I pushed you, you wouldn’t like it very much would you-” he began, attempting to reason with her.
“I dare you to push me!” She screamed, taking a step closer.
“What no- I’m not going to push a girl.” He protested, looking between Bysh and Charlotte, who was still on the concrete floor of the playground. She had sat up now, one hand caressing her elbow that had been scraped during the fall.
“Push her! Push her!” The curly haired boy started chanting.
“No, I don’t think I can actually pu-” his friend tried to object.
“Push me.” Bysh demanded.
So he did. Well he tried. Being a scrawny 11 year old, he was unable to push the much bigger and older girl. In retaliation, he was shoved to the ground right next to where Charlotte was laying.
“Anyone else want to try?” Bysh yelled, and started chasing around some of the kids on the playground.
Charlotte looked at the blonde boy laying beside her, with pretty brown eyes, and thought that he was awfully brave, if a little stupid, to stand up to such a bully.
“Hey,” the blonde boy smiled at her, propping himself up on his elbows to look at her.
“Hey.” She replied.
“I’m Henry.” He stuck out his hand. At the bottom of his palm was a red scrape from the fall. It was only slightly bleeding.
“Hi Henry. I’m Charlotte.” She took his hand. “Thanks for uh, sticking up for me. Not a lot of people would have done that.”
The curly haired boy ran up to them. “Eww, don’t touch her Henry! She has cooties!”
“Cooties aren’t real, Jasper.” he retorted.
“You don’t know that!” he whined.
“I have a little sister, and she doesn’t have cooties.” Henry groaned, getting to his feet. She followed his movement and stood up too.
“Hi, I’m Charlotte!” She introduced herself to the new boy. He didn’t take her hand.
“Don’t be like that dude!” Henry said, “Charlotte, this is my best friend Jasper.”
“Hi…Charlotte,” he said, not meeting her eyes.
She looked over their shoulder to find that the red headed girl from earlier had ran off somewhere. Guess she was stuck with these two then.
— —
Charlotte Page thought it was awfully unfair that she was only 12 years old while her sister Reiya was already 18. One summer day her parents decided to drive Reiya up to college, so until they got home, Charlotte got to stay over at Henry’s house. It was the first time she had been to his house, but his parents seemed nice enough, if a little peculiar. Jasper was there too because he said his parents wouldn’t notice him not being home. Charlotte thought that was a bit weird of a thing to say, but there was a lot about Jasper that was weird.
The three of them sat on Henry’s couch and they watched a DVD of the old spider-man movie, munching on microwaved popcorn. Jasper really loved superheroes, he was the one who insisted on the film and he got super excited during every action scene. Charlotte thought it was pretty cool, but she didn’t think she’d ever actually want to be a hero. It seemed dangerous, and there was an awful lot of fighting and violence. The only thing she really loved in the movie was the upside down kiss, though she’d never admit that to the boys who gagged and rolled their eyes during the scene. Charlotte didn’t want them to think she was weird or too girly, and she joined in on making fun of the kiss.
Then a little girl with bright, almost ginger hair came down the stairs and stole Henry’s bag of popcorn.
“Piper!” He yelled.
“Henry!” She yelled back.
“Give me back my popcorn!” He got up.
“Nuhuh! Youngest sibling gets dibs on everything!” Piper proclaimed.
“Mom!” He groaned.
Their mother was in the kitchen, texting away on her phone. “Henry, give your sister what she wants.”
“But-” he whined.
“Ha, take that!” Piper giggled, running up to her room with the popcorn bag in her hands.
Henry huffed and fell back into his seat. “I wish my sister was moving away for college.” He groaned to her.
Charlotte held out his popcorn to him. He gratefully took some. “Thanks Charlotte,” he smiled.
“Charlotte’s such a long name.” He observed, after he stuffed a mouthful of popcorn into his mouth.
“Nine letters in total!” Jasper remarked.
She shrugged. “I dunno. It’s the name my parents gave me.”
“Too long,” Henry shook his head. “Let’s just call you Char.”
“Char?” she asked.
“Yeah, a nickname. Friends give each other nicknames.”
Friends. They talked a lot in school and on the playground, but now he admitted that they were actually real friends.
“Well in that case, we should call you Hen,” she insisted.
“But Henry’s not that long of a name,” the blonde reached in for another handful.
“It’s only two syllables, like Charlotte.”
“Syllable?” Henry asked.
“Yeah, syllables. When you sound out words. Hen-ry. Char-lotte.” She explained.
“Jas-per.” The curly haired boy joined in.
“Yeah see, even though your name has more letters than mine, it has the same amount of sounds.”
“Huh. That’s so cool.” He said. There was a soft sparkle in those chestnut brown eyes. It might have made her stomach flutter. “You’re really smart Char.” He added.
Char.
She liked that nickname. Quite a lot.