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Charlotte wakes up earlier than usual. Not from an alarm, or hunger or even a need to pee (she’s only human!). No, she wakes up because her phone won’t stop going off, chiming and chirping with notification after notification, she thinks it might break down on her.
Confused, tired, and especially confused, she sits up and pulls it out of charge. Every app she’s ever owned where someone could send her a message floods her Lock Screen, notification after notification popping up left and right. She can’t even read them with how fast they pop up and then are replaced with a new message.
She tried to shut her phone off, but it won’t turn off from the overload of messages. Charlotte puts her phone to the side, shaking her head. Never in her life has she been texted by more than, like, four people — her mom, Henry, Jasper, and on the rare occasion, Piper. And she’s too tired to even try and figure out why people are suddenly interested in her.
The constant rings of notifications cuts out, replaced by a stupid movie theme — Henry’s custom ringtone, that she never bothered to change back to the default ringtone.
She picks up her (hot) phone and answers the call. “Hello?”
“Charlotte you’ve got to get over here!”
She furrows her brows, but quickly suspects whatever is freaking out Henry must be connected to why her phone is blowing up.
“Uh, why?” she asks. “And where? It’s like, six am, why are you even up so early?”
“Just get to the Man Cave, now!” And then he hangs up.
She sighs, but gets out of bed. Whatever stupid thing he and Ray did that was somehow affecting her personal life clearly needed to be settled, now.
Everyone’s in the Man Cave, up and dressed and freaking out. Even Piper — Piper! When the elevator doors open and she steps out, they all whip around and stare at her.
“Uh, what’s going on?”
“You haven’t checked your phone?” Piper asks.
“I think my phone’s gonna die.”
Piper shakes her head in awe. “I envy you.”
Charlotte raises an eyebrow at her, then turns to Henry.
“Can someone just tell me what’s going on!”
Jasper steps forward, smiling, rocking on his heels. Strangely excited, unlike Henry, who looks two seconds away from a heart attack.
“You remember Cactus Con a few weeks ago?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Well…” He pulls out her phone and turns it to her: a twitflash post from some Kid Danger fanpage, of a picture of her…and Henry. Except he’s Kid Danger. With their arms around each other, looking off to the side.
Oh no.
Oh god no.
The caption says: ‘Kid Danger’s secret girlfriend??? Who is she!!!! Living my DREAM!!!!’
“Oh my god,” she gasps, eyes wide.
“You’re internet famous!” Piper declares.
Charlotte gets a glimpse at some of the comments, people freaking out, speculating, and then freaking Sydney mentioned her! She’s gonna kill him!
“Oh my god!” she cries.
Jasper pulls his phone back, jumping excitedly. “I know! Isn’t it so cool!”
“No!” Both Charlotte and Henry shout.
“This is bad, this is really, really bad!” Charlotte starts to pace.
“Good job guys,” Ray says sarcastically. “How long before someone figures out Charlotte’s best friend looks a heck of a lot like, oh, I don’t know, Henry Hart!?”
Charlotte freezes. She didn’t even think about that! She only hangs out with two people.
“Focus Ray, our chenry dreams are coming true!” Jasper proclaims.
Charlotte and Henry glare at him. “We’re not together,” Charlotte insists.
“It’s taken out of context!” Henry adds. She turns and glares at him too. He looks less close to heart attack and way too chill about potentially revealing his secret identity.
“Oh, the news just picked up,” Piper announces.
They all turn to the screens, where a KLVY ‘breaking news’ segment starts playing. With the stupid picture in the corner! This town really needs to get a hobby.
“Good morning, Swellview,” Trent Overunder starts. “We’ve got ourselves an overnight sensation! Last night, a new picture of Swellview’s own Kid Danger went viral. Why? He’s taken!”
A very dramatic text box reading ‘Kid Taken’ flies in under the picture of them.
“That’s right, Trent. Pictures of Kid Danger with some chick from Cactus Con four months ago have been circling all over the internet!” Mary Gaperman says.
“Fans and internet users quickly identified Kid Danger’s secret girlfriend as a local teenage girl named Charlotte something.”
“Oh my god,” Charlotte groans. “Turn it off!”
The screen freezes and she turns around, everyone quickly changing their expressions to fake casual. Jasper and Schwoz had been excited, Ray and Piper something between confused yet intrigued, and Henry…Henry wouldn’t stop smiling at her. She’s gonna kill him.
Idiots! All of them!
She’s gonna have to figure this out herself. And soon. Before people start connecting the dots of Charlotte and Kid Danger, to Charlotte and Henry. Or that Charlotte works at Junk-N-Stuff, and they follow her around, and they find out the Man Cave is there.
She just needs to find a perfectly logical reason as to why she’d have her arms around Kid Danger, and him the same.
Jasper and Piper argue in the background about baby names, of all things, with Schwoz chiming in every once in a while. And Ray and Henry banter or argue or whatever about something super not important. Honestly, it’s like she’s the only person with a brain. The only person who can focus on the crisis at hand!
She usually is. She just never expected it to be a problem that she’s the center of.
“Piper!” Charlotte calls, effectively shutting everyone up. “You’re internet famous, yeah?”
Piper grins. “Not as much as you. You’re trending, everywhere!”
“Oh my god,” Charlotte groans. “Whatever. Can we, like, make a video or something? Where I vehemently deny having any involvement with Kid Danger? Would that work?”
Piper shrugs. “Maybe. But it might be sus.”
“Why? Why would that be sus?”
“Uh, because Kid Danger is famous, famous,” Piper explains. “And anyone would kill to be in your position. So you’d either have to be, like, gay or a major hater to not want to be with Kid Danger.”
Ugh, Piper had a point! Even though Charlotte has no interest in Kid Danger…she can admit that, before she knew he was Kid Danger, she maybe, sort of, kind of, liked him. In the celebrity-public figure-superhero way! But she’s so over her Kid Danger crush!
“Well,” she drags out, thinking. “What if Henry did it?”
They all look at Henry, who clearly wasn’t listening, startling at the sudden attention. “Hm? What?”
“Kid Danger needs to make like a PSA saying you have no clue who I am and you were just helping a civilian,” Charlotte explains. She looks at Piper and asks, “Will that work?”
Piper shrugs. “Probably.”
Probably will have to do.
“Heya, Swellview. Uh, Kid Danger here, to address the rumors. I do not know that young lady from the pictures — Cactus Con was a crazy day with a lot going on, and she was just a civilian in need of some help. I don’t even remember what happened to her, that’s how forgettable she is!” Kid Danger looks off to the side, then shakes his head. “Anyway. I don’t know her, bye!”
The video plays on the news once an hour. Charlotte gives her phone away to Piper to deal with all her accounts. As long as things die down, she doesn’t care what Piper does. It’s not like she ever uses her twitflash or envygram or anything like that.
Instead, she hides behind the counter of Junk-N-Stuff, grateful that no one ever actually comes into the shop. Hoping it all actually blows over. There’s a reason she likes to stay behind the computer, planning missions and finding intel instead of actually being out there. She superheroed once, and never again. The glory was not worth the gross. And she also hates glory! Hates being famous and sneaking around.
The bead curtain ruffles, followed by, “Hey, Char.”
Speaking of sneaking around…
She looks at Henry with a bored expression. “Forgettable?” she asks.
“I panicked!” he defends. He joins her behind the counter, leaning onto it with folded arms. “Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not,” she insists.
He pouts, sticking out his lower lip.
“I’ll get over it,” she amends.
“It’ll blow over,” he assures her. “Hey, maybe Captain Man will do something crazy and everyone will focus on that.”
She chuckles. The odds of Captain Man doing something crazy are higher than the odds of her eating breakfast everyday (the most important meal of the day, obviously).
“If you say so.”
Henry tilts his head. Charlotte fights down a smile, but fails, the corners of her mouth rising softly. Henry leans closer and kisses her softly. For the first time that day, she relaxes, smiling at him when he pulls back.
“You know, this wouldn’t be as big of a problem if we just told people,” he points out.
“You heard the conversation earlier? Baby names!”
Henry chuckles. “Okay, good point,” he says with a nod. “I gotta get back down there.”
“I’ll come down in a little,” she tells him.
He nods and straightens up. Henry starts to leave, but does a quick glance around before he steals another kiss.
She’s not Kid Danger’s girlfriend. She’s Henry Hart’s.
