Code Name: Speedy II
Real Name: Amelia ‘Mia’ Dearden
Age: 18
Appearance:
Height: 5’4’’
Weight: 102lbs
Eye Color: Blue
Hair Color: Blonde
In Depth: Old habits die hard, or so they say. This seems to be the case for Mia’s sense of style. Since she has such a dubious background, she’s prone to picking less than practical attire when given the chance. It’s only thanks to Dinah that she doesn’t dress like that all the time. On a day to day basis Mia can be seen wearing anything from Jeans and a sweater to dresses and heels when the powers that be allow. Her hair usually has a mind of it’s own and more often than not is seen scraped up into either a ponytail or bun. She has pigtails too on occasion, but it makes her feel decidedly young.
Personality: Despite being literally infectious, Mia has a personality to match. She’s always one of the first people to jump in with something to lighten the mood, even if it’s frowned upon by the people she’s intending to help. She tries her hardest to keep smiling all the time, and will generally put on a face when around other people to appear positive as opposed to ill. For the most part she does exceptionally well, although on occasion you can see when things are getting to her (frequently more so in the last few months).
You could call Mia antisocial, considering her history with people it makes it very hard to actually trust anyone. She strays away from contact with people her own age wherever she can help it, and prefers to just sit down with a book and relax. That doesn’t mean she’s immune to the pull of friendship though. She’s been a frequently flier in the Arrow clan, recently opting to spend more time with Roy and Connor Hawke in order to pick up on a few tricks of the trade. She has the Teen Titans too, who are almost always happy to pick her up out of her occasional emotional rut.
Abilities: Mia is 100% pure grown human which means she possesses no superhuman powers. She does however , have an uncanny ability for perfect aim. This makes her proficient in all aspects of Archery, and is basically why her weapon of choice is usually a longbow. She has a fair range of martial arts capabilities, but it’s nowhere near on par with half of the other masked heroes running around. She knows enough to survive though, which is the main thing.
Weaknesses: Understandably being on anti-retroviral drugs does make Mia frequently the owner of less than pleasant side effects. Vomiting, nausea, lethargy, fatigue. They’re all part of what she deals with on a day to day basis, some of these symptoms making themselves present at awkward moments. Fighting crime is one thing, doing it whilst throwing up is another. The fear of infecting another human being is her biggest weakness, not to mention her own inability to fight off simple infections as well as she’d like.
History: Star City. It was a nice place to live, much safer than the other towns, except for possibly Metropolis, and was the perfect place for the Dearden’s to start their family. Within six months of arriving Mrs.Dearden was pregnant and nine months later, Mia was born. They were a pretty standard family, lovely mother, devoted father, adorable blonde daughter, nobody on the outside would ever expect that it wasn’t all peaches and cream. Mia knew though. The things that went on inside that house weren’t normal and that was why she volunteered at the local rec centre so often. She was pretty enough to be liked, but smart enough to avoid confrontation. At work…she felt happy.
She never told anyone why she spent so much time at the rec centre, she always hid the bruises or passed them off as sports injuries and she always managed to find an excuse to describe why she didn’t want anyone touching her skin. It wasn’t a nice life, but it was all she had, little did she know that things could get even worse. Her mother died. Mia was never entirely sure what of, but she just knew that if it was just her father and her and that house, she’d be dead within a month too. That was why she ran. Away from the suburbs and to the city centre.
While she was there, she met a man named Richard. He took care of her, gave her somewhere to live and he even managed to convince the poor child that he loved her. He taught her how to offer her services to business men and politicians alike before he sent her off to be his underage money spinner in a dirty hotel room. It made money for her, though the majority of her earnings were taken by Richard. It was degrading and it was sickening, but in Mia’s opinion it was a damn sight better than staying at home. At least these people didn’t hurt her the way her father had.
She retained that outlook until she was fifteen, when Richard sent her to visit an influential politician. The man’s tastes were disturbing to say the least, so it was a mixed blessing when Green Arrow decided to opt for that particular day to pay the councilman a visit. Ollie told her to clean herself up and gave her a card for the Star City Youth Recreational Centre before he dutifully sent her on her way before the cops arrived. Mia returned home to Richard, only to find him waiting to kill her to make sure the trail didn’t point back to him. She avoided a confrontation, namely because she took matters into her own hands and cut her attacker up so badly that he’d require an operation just to make him look human, and to make matters worse she told him that if he tried to follow her again she’d kill him.
Dearden followed the card to the Rec centre and met Oliver Queen. It took her all of three seconds to work out that it was indeed Green Arrow, and within five minutes she had a safe place to live, a job and the beginnings of her first actual friends. Mia moved in with Ollie and thus started her new life. ‘The hero phase’.
A few weeks after moving in, the blonde took it upon herself to pick up one of GA’s bows and try it out. She could barely pull the thing! But her first shot managed to hit the target, not a bullseye, but it was close enough for a first attempt. Buying herself a crossbow, Mia decided to leave the longbow alone for a while until she’d got enough upper body strength to maintain the tension required to fire the thing. She hid the weapon under her bed, leaving Ollie none the wiser until he stumbled across it. That was when she started the begging.
Her ongoing campaign to become the next Speedy was laughable, but she got brownie points for remaining so devoted that she kept asking for over a year. Still GA refused though, he’d put enough children in danger to not have to worry about another one, so Mia stopped pressing the matter. She put her efforts into another form of career progression: High School.
Having missed so much due to her earlier exploits, she found herself in for a long and hard time at High School, even more so than normal since her residence with Ollie depended on her achieving good grades. (Easier said than done) Then of course there’s the rec centre to throw into the equation too, it’s gotten a bit hectic for the poor kid. But she’s still managing to hang in there. So just as it looks like everything’s finally going to sort itself out. BLAM! Mia’s past came back to bite her in the ass. She was diagnosed with HIV and found herself severely questioning her place in the world. She thought Ollie would throw her out (as would the rest of the Arrow family) but he was strangely supportive. He even went as far as offering her a place as his sidekick officially! Mia wasn’t impressed, she thought it was all down to pity, and in the end she declined in order to join the Teen Titans.
Life with the Titans was better than she could ever have imagined; but like all good things it must come to an end. Whilst she did witness some wonderful events, like saving the world and more weddings than she could care to admit to, there was a fair share of tragedy too, which culminated in the Crisis. Hell, the situation got so bad, that her hometown ended up being destroyed! That was when the arrow-family relocated to a small island to retrain and retain their grip (or rather Ollie’s) on sanity. An entire year passed, and once again Mia returned to active duty with the Titans, and yes alright, she’s been bruised, beaten, kidnapped, sworn at and all manner of things since then, but she’s around friends; it makes it slightly more tolerable that way. Besides; who else is going to save the world?