Chapter Text
The end of fall brought a cold chill into the shop, but Amelia wasn’t quite ready to close the giant garage doors. It helped keep her from overheating while she worked, and when you’re working with hot engines and tools you can’t help but feel sticky all day. She continued to hold out hope that her father would finally give in and put some AC in the damned place, but deep down she knew he just wouldn’t get around to it.
She was putting snow tires on her last car of the day when her brother approached her. He stood, arms crossed, scrutinizing her work. She knew that he wanted her to acknowledge him first, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Finally, after several silent minutes and a couple of challenging side glares, he gave up, “You know you’ve gotta talk to us eventually, Aims. Can’t keep ignorin’ your problems.”
Amy stopped turning her lug wrench, turning to her stupid little brother with a disbelieving face, “ MY problems? It’s not my problem. It’s your problem, not mine,” She shook her head, returning to her work.
“Dad very well can’t go with his back issues, and I don’t know the first thing about blacksmithing-”
“And who’s fault is that? Not my fault you didn’t go to the summer course,” she interrupted, “besides, can’t anyone else do it? I’m needed here at the shop, I can’t go looking after our cousin’s shop while he goes on a six month road trip. It’s ridiculous.”
“Cut the guy some slack, Clint’s been working his ass off for years at that shop. Poor guy couldn’t even get a date 2 years ago, and now he’s married,” she glanced over to see him looking at her with big, pleading eyes, “please Aims, just think about it? I’ve heard great things about Pelican town down in the valley. Maybe lacking in the night life department, sure, but it’s probably a great place to get over a certain somebody,” he trailed off, knowing he had hit a nerve.
Amelia looked over at her brother, turning his head towards him slowly and contemplating on whether or not she should hit him over the head with her wrench. Deciding she didn’t want to go to jail for murder, she let out a deep breath instead, “I’ll think about it Ollie, but please stop pestering me about it. This is the third day in a row.”
Oliver’s face spread out into a wide green, knowing his tactics were working. It was metal warfare and she knew it. But she couldn’t stand being berated everyday like this, especially by her annoying brother.
Deep down, she knew she was the only one around who could possibly help out Clint while he was gone. People, for some reason, were always looking for swords and pickaxes and whatnot in the valley. She couldn’t understand why, her only guess was it was some sort of novelty value or something down there. Her family had been blacksmiths for ages, metal practically flowed through her veins. She and Clint were the only two in their generation to pick up the actual art of blacksmithing. She had been so interested in making sharp things at a young age that she begged her grandfather to teach her. In fact, She learned how to blacksmith in the family shop that Clint now owned, so she actually had fond memories in the valley there.
That’s one of the very few reasons she was even considering going out there. But other than that, what could the valley really offer her? She liked living right outside of Zuzu city, it was the perfect place, easy to stay in the quiet suburbs or go out for a wild night in the middle of it all. So why would she give up her perfect little apartment and her comfy auto mechanic job to spend two whole seasons cramped up in her cousin’s tiny apartment with very little pay? Even though she kept saying that in her head over and over, something kept nagging her. The memories of that forge, hammering against the anvil with no restraints. The memory of bending the strongest materials known to man to her will. Forging metals made her feel so… powerful .
As her brother walked away, she caught his victorious smirk. Even though she hadn’t said yes, her brother knew her unfortunately well. He knew she would cave, there was no way she could keep resisting the temptation of the shop’s memories; whether they were painful or not. She hated that she wanted to go, even just the tiniest bit. She had sworn she wouldn’t go back when her grandfather decided to give Clint the shop. She didn’t blame Clint, or her grandfather really. She knew she wasn’t as good as he was, but that didn’t make it hurt any less.
~*~
Amy did cave a few days later. She told her boss her situation, and luckily he didn’t fire her on the spot. But that didn’t entirely feel like good news to her, as she was hoping her boss would tell her she had to stay. Then she could go tell her whiny ass brother that she couldn’t go do someone else’s job if it meant she’d lose hers. Unfortunately, everything seemed to fall perfectly into place. Her apartment lease was ending at the end of the month, her father would keep her stuff at his house instead of putting it in storage, and she would have no excuse not to go. That is of course until…
“Well look at that, brother, the bus to Pelican town is broken! Guess I can’t go after all,” She gave her brother a victorious smirk.
He looked pretty defeated at that too, knowing that nobody they knew had a car they could borrow and neither did Clint. Reluctantly, he shuffled through his pockets to pull out his cellphone, getting ready to call Clint and let him know. Her stomach seemed to drop slightly, and she almost felt bad… almost .
He sat for a few seconds while the phone rang, “Hey Clint, it’s your cousin Oliver… yeah I’m good, you? … yeah I asked, she was really excited to come,” Oliver gave her a smug look, and Amy tried not to kick him, “But she doesn’t have any way to get there, the bus is broken yeah?,” a few seconds later his face lit up, giving Amy a great big asshole-esque smile, “Well I’ll say! What great news, well we’ll see you then dude. Congrats again… buh bye.”
Amy was looking at her stupid brother, eyes wide. She had no idea what happened, but she knew it wasn’t good for her. She waited with a bated breath, but he just continued with his shit eating grin. Finally, she pushed him, “Well, you idiot, what’s going on?”
“You’ll be glad to hear it,” although she doubted it, she continued listening, “Clint has a car now. Bought it pretty recently, actually. A good husband ought to have a car, right?”
Amy had tuned out her brother, instead focusing on the fact that she had no excuse not to go now. She wasn’t sure why she felt so opposed to going, but it didn’t matter; There wasn’t a single thing Amy could say anymore to get out of this. She was going to the valley whether she liked it or not.