Chapter Text
Adora Greyson could not sit still in the front seat of her mother’s SUV if her life depended on it. Adora reached for her phone and began fiddling through every song in her road trip playlist. She had made it specifically for the trip but now every song just didn’t seem right. She could feel her mother seething in the driver’s seat at every press of the button.
“Adora, leave it, please,” Hope said sternly, keeping her focus on the road in front of her.
Adora sighed and turned off the music completely.
An awkward silence filled the car as Hope looked over at her daughter. Adora’s brow furrowed as she looked down at her phone. Her thumb was swiping her Instagram feed paying no attention to what was on it.
“Honey, what’s wrong?”
Adora wished she had an answer, but she really didn’t know. She should be happy; she was on her way to her top choice university where her friends Bow and Glimmer were also attending. She also knew her former teammate Scorpia would be attending as well as...Catra D’riluth.
She didn’t quite know how to describe her relationship with Catra. She wouldn’t call them enemies, but she definitely wouldn’t say they were friends, yet she always seemed to be everywhere Adora was, including Brightmoon University.
Their rivalry had started freshman year of high school during debate team practice. The topic was should high schoolers get after school jobs. Adora was for and Catra was against. It ended in Catra accusing Adora of wanting to abolish child labor laws and with Adora calling Catra a dumb face. Ever since then they have been constantly in competition with one another whether it was grades, sports, or well anything really.
However, she knew for a fact Catra was majoring in psychology, while Adora herself had picked kinesiology. They may share a few general ed classes, but Brightmoon was a big school so there was a chance they might not even run into each other. However, something in her chest tightened at the thought of not seeing Catra at school. Adora would never admit to it, but she enjoyed being around Catra, even if she could be infuriating at times. She made Adora want to be better and made things more...interesting.
Adora knew no one in her major and was going to have to figure out how to keep her grades up on her own without the motivation of facing off with Catra to keep her going. What if she couldn’t do it on her own? What if she couldn’t make any friends or Glimmer and Bow moved on without her?
“I’m just nervous about meeting my suitemates,” Adora replied. It wasn’t a complete lie, Glimmer and her had decided to become roommates and share a bathroom with two complete strangers on the other side in order to make new friends. Adora didn’t even know the names of her soon to be suitemates let alone what major they were in or if they would even get along.
“I’m sure you’ll be fine, just make sure to focus on your studies, maybe you can start a study group with them! That could be fun,” Hope said excitedly.
Adora’s mother had a talent of making every conversation revert back to Adora’s studies or accomplishments. Adora had always been competitive, but not as competitive as her mother Hope. Ever since Hope and Mara adopted Adora at twelve years old, Adora's life had been filled with soccer tournaments, debate championships, and quiz bowls. Then Mara got sick and passed away leaving Hope a single mother raising a teenager.
Mara had been the emotional support parent while Hope had always been able to show her love and admiration in other ways such as taking Adora to 7am practices or showing up to every single event an hour early to make sure she got front row seats to watch Adora play. The competitions are what bonded them together, it’s the one thing they had in common and Adora was too scared to let that go, even if it meant having to struggle to live up to expectations.
“You know your mom would be very proud of you,” Hope stated. She paused for a moment to hear Adora’s reaction only to be met with silence. “She would say, Adora I know you’re going to make great friends and memories and be the best you can be,”
Hope, side eyed Adora, who was still silent looking out the window now to a field of nothing.
“She would probably say stop talking Hope you’re just making her more nervous” Hope jokingly muttered to herself, but loud enough for Adora to hear.
Adora couldn’t help smiling at that one, Hope definitely wasn’t the best at emotional support, but Adora knew she was trying her hardest like she did at everything.
“She would probably say make sure you pack snacks, you know how you both get when you’re hungry,” Adora replied.
Hope chuckled softly, “I mean it, I don’t want to pull over at McDonalds because of one of your low blood sugar temper tantrums”
Their laughter filled the car and a little bit of Adora’s anxiety floated away. Adora remembers the second thing they have in common; how much they love and miss Mara.
/-/
Catra D’riluth had finally made it to her dorm room after having to deal with Scorpia’s constant showtunes. Catra refused to let it ruin her good mood. Today was the day that she officially never had to deal with her mother, Sharon Weaver, ever again. No more having to sneak out of the house, no more belittling conversations, and no more having to live up to impossible standards. Most importantly no more being compared to Adora Greyson.
Throughout high school Weaver would compare Catra’s accomplishments to Adora’s. When Catra won the debate championship, it was overshadowed by Adora being voted captain of the soccer team. When Catra broke a school record in the 400m race, it didn’t matter because Adora had won the STEM scholarship award that same day. Adora was a constant reminder that Catra would always be second place, but not anymore. At first, she had reservations on picking the same college as Adora, but it was a good school, and she was done letting Adora determine her academic accomplishments. She knew from Scorpia that Adora would not even be in the same major as her, so the odds were they would never have to see each other on campus.
Catra looked down at the slip of paper that had her room assignment on it. Her roommate was going to be a person named Entrapta and that is all Catra cared to know about her new roommate. Scorpia had tried to get her to room with her, but for Catra this was a fresh start, and she wanted to start this chapter by not being reminded of her high school days. Catra did not like the idea of having a roommate at all in fact, but freshman here did not get the single room option, and again anything was better than being at Weaver’s.
Catra unlocked her door and stepped into her dorm. It was bigger than she thought it would be but that might just be because her roommate wasn’t here yet and she hadn’t laid out any of her stuff. There were two beds, one in the corner left and one on the far right facing parallel to the bathroom door. The bathroom in which she would be sharing with two other students who would live on the other side.
.
Catra decided to take the bed closest to the bathroom and put her sheets and bedding on. A simple maroon fitted sheet with a gray comforter that she bought herself. She hopped into her newly made bed and closed her eyes. For the first time in a while, it was silent, and she felt like she could breathe.
“HI THERE!” A disrupting voice shattered Catra’s newfound calmness like a rock through a window.
Catra decided to begrudgingly open her eyes and saw a person her age with the longest and most purple hair she had ever seen.
“I’m Entrapta, and you must be Catra,” she smiled brightly.
“Hi, this is my side of the room and yours is over there,” Catra says sitting up and pointing over to the bed on the right.
“Cool! I guess this desk will have to be used as a workbench at least until I can get in the robotics classroom which shouldn’t be a problem,”
“Did you just say workbench?” Catra asked her new roommate.
“Yes! Its where I make all my inventions and tech advancements, I’m majoring in computer science, which is fun and all, but my passion is making things and seeing how they tick, I built Emily to help me...”
“Okay just keep your stuff over there and the noise down to a-“Catra paused as the rest of Entrapta’s sentences register in her head. “You built a what?”
“Emily! She’s my little robot, kind of like BB8 from Star Wars only she mostly helps me carry my equipment,” Entrapta takes out a little tablet from her front overall pocket and types a couple commands. Before Catra can say anything else a round little robot creature comes waltzing in slowly, carrying some boxes above the robot's…head? The robot is built like a sphere but has legs like a spider. Two long arm attachments are holding up two large boxes.
Catra’s eyes widen. She didn't know whether to be impressed or concerned or both. “You built that?”
“Emily goes by she/her pronouns, but yes, I did build her from some computer parts, a web cam, what else...oooOoo I found some pretty useful internal hard drives that were over stocked at Best Buy,”
“Okay, I get it you’re a genius, just keep your stuff over there and try to keep the noise down to a minimum, and the robot is not to be left on in the middle of the night, the last thing i need is to wake up to her staring at me in front of my bed,”
“Oh Emily is actually very understanding of personal space it shouldn’t be a problem, but if the thought makes you uncomfortable i will make sure she is off during the night,” Entrapta stated as she began taking boxes from Emily's arm attachments.
Catra couldn't help but notice the absence of Entrapta’s parents but did not want to start asking questions. To be honest she was a little relieved that Entrapta came up by herself. The dorms were crawling with parents helping their kids up the stairs decorating their room, Catra couldn’t help but feel jealous at the sight, but now was not the time to have those feelings. Today was a celebration of her newfound freedom, and a little jealousy was not going to get in the way of that.
“I think our suitemates are here,” Entrapta said looking towards the shared bathroom. “Should we say hi or wait for them to come to us?”
“Having them come to us sounds like a good plan, maybe they won’t come to us at all and then we both win,” Catra replied not moving from her current spot.
“You seem anti-social,”
“I’m not, I just like my alone time and right now I’ve been interrupted twice,” Catra replied.
“I like my alone time as well, I think the probability of us getting along as roommates is at a 70 percent,”
“What about the other percent?” Catra asked,
“Well I’ve only known you for ten minutes, and most roommate disagreements don’t start until after two weeks,” Entrapta explained. “And of course, the small chance you could be a serial killer,”
“Why would I be a serial killer?” Catra asked defensively.
“I’m not saying you are, I’m just saying I don’t know you very well and the statistics of you not being one is not zero, same data goes for our suitemates,”
Catra rolled over on her side facing away from Entrapta, “I promise not to murder you if you let me get some peace and quiet, how about that?”
“Sounds like a deal,” Entrapta said,
Suddenly a soft knock came from the bathroom door.
“I am not here,” Catra said.
Entrapta opened the bathroom door much to Catra’s chagrin. Catra was still facing away from the door, maybe if she lied here still enough they would think she was asleep.
“Hi I’m Entrapta and this is Catra but she’s not really here right now,” Entrapta said to their new suitemates.
“Catra?” The sound of her own name on that familiar voice was enough to prickle the back of her neck and force her to turn around.
Catra could swear she could feel her heart drop like an elevator that had been cut loose, “No no no.” She stood up quickly and glared at the sight of Adora Greyson and Glimmer Moon standing in her doorway.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Glimmer said rolling her eyes
And with that Catra’s good mood had officially ended.