(Disclaimer: Worm is the property of Wildbow. I do not own any of the characters contained in this fiction. Special thanks to Doomlord9 of Spacebattles for this idea.)
Larceny in the Genes
...
Daniel Hebert's reaction upon hearing the PRT's news was not shock.
Shock was different from surprise. He was certainly surprised to learn the face of the apparent leader of the increasingly infamous Undersiders and general nightmares-of-bugs-fuel incarnate Skitter being the same as shy, increasingly withdrawn Taylor, but he was not shocked. Depressed, yes, horrified, yes, but shock implies that, on some level, you weren't actually expecting, on any level, the events unfolding before you to occur.
This was not true for Danny. Because the first coherent line his internal monologue was able to spit out was not I've failed you, Why didn't you tell me, or even I should have known, although those all did run through his mind later.
No, the first line in Danny Hebert's mind was Here we go again...
Twenty five years before that moment, Danny Hebert was shocked.
Annette Rose, love of his life and, up until very recently, living saint in his mind, stood across from him, expression unreadable under the modified gas mask covering her upper face except for her eyes, in a white lab coat painted with red to appear freshly stained at all times, and with arms and legs covered in marble-colored devices that looked almost bolted into her skin, holding a red vial of something likely unpleasant.
After about three minutes of staring at each other, Annie coughed in some attempt to break the glacier. "I...I can explain."
Silence again. Then, slowly, the expression on Danny's face turned to one that he hated, but felt very justified in this situation. "...Shall we start with the fact that my fiancee has been lying to my face since before we met?"
Anne gently set the vial down, her logical mind still clear enough to recognize that breaking it here would be a Very Bad Thing. "Well, actually I don't lie about my life story, it's proven that it's easier to be as honest as possible for spies-"
"Ah, spies, huh? You want to talk about spies? The people who make it their job to, oh I don't know, use people?"
"No! I mean, it's not that you aren't useful, and your affections are very appreciated in keeping this one stable-"
As the downside to having a mind of perfect, what would later be described as computer-esque logic made itself known, Annie's stoic expression briefly broke to one of utter horror before resuming its stony quality.
"Er, that's on a purely empirical note, but I-"
Too late. Danny's nostrils flared, as he made a noise that was somewhere between swearing, a snarl, and a sob.
"E-empirical? Is that all we were? Fucking empirical? 'Oh, don't mind me Dan, I'm just borrowing you for a goddamned science experiment?''"
The facade was coming apart now, as Anne struggled for her next words. "Dan, I just need a few seconds-"
"A few seconds!?" Danny roared. "How about four years? Was that just too short to explain that you're fucking Miasma!?"
The self-proclaimed Dark Dona of Biochemistry was utterly speechless at that comment. After inhaling, Danny continued.
"You know what? I'm not even mad you're some kind of wannabe comic book supervillain. I'm not mad about the gas bombs, the monsters, the blackmailing of god-knows-how-many politicians. I'm mad because you, the lady who's repeated manifesto is respect of academics and equality, thinks you're so high-and-mighty that you decided that your own husband-to-be was so beneath you that it apparently never crossed your mind that 'oh, maybe I should tell the guy who fucking proposed to me that I'm the bitch who the police are offering a bounty on charges of terrorism'!?"
Miasma's lip was quivering now, but Danny was too enraged to notice. "D..Danny, please just hear me out..."
"TOO FUCKING LATE!" Miasma jumped back into the rack of beakers, their contents spilling to the floor with a sizzle, as her enraged fiancée advanced with clenched fists. "YOU'RE TOO FUCKING LATE YOU LYING, SACK OF SHIT EXCUSE OF A BITCH! YOU DESERVE EVERYTHING YOU GET IN PRISON, YOU MANIPULATIVE...murderous..."
The rage evaporated as Danny got a good look at the woman backed against the wall.
"...whore...?"
If Anne heard him in turn, she gave no indication. At least, no indication of apart from the sheer, animal fear and dread in her eyes. One could easily get the idea that the Dark Dona was not seeing her lover, but someone else.
Someone else who came to her in her nightmares.
At that point, a mortified Danny would have just run and left Anne some time alone for them both to calm down before either did something they regretted. Then she began to cry.
This was not the controlled, refined sobbing of someone who just realized they drove away someone they deeply cared for, either. This was the wild bawling of a scared child, the cry of someone who was reliving the worst memories of her life. As she sunk to the floor, Danny's mind flashed to a long and deep scar across her torso, one she almost refused to acknowledge the existence of.
That did the trick. He stumbled back in horror of what he was about to do.
"Oh God. Oh God Anne. Oh God..."
Slowly, tentatively, Danny reached out a hand to his Anne's, only to be swatted away.
"DON'T," she shrieked as she jumped up. "TOUCH ME!"
She growled at him for a second, then the sobs returned as she fell into his chest.
Cautiously, he put a hand around her back, careful to avoid the scar. "I'm so sorry Anne...I'm so sorry."
Slowly, Annette Rose's shaking stopped as she tentatively returned the hug. "...I'm sorry too."
"So...You're a supervillain."
The hill overlooking Danny's house was an immensely picturesque view, great for picnics or, as was important here, secluded conversation.
"I prefer the term Preternaturally Skilled and Intelligent Activist for Social Equality, but yeah. I don't quarrel with the name." Anne's normal, cheery personality had long returned, though it had taken three days before she was ready to talk about it. "Probably as soon as the authorities pull their heads out of the sand and see us, I'm probably going to be hit with the superpowered criminal tag. That the laws are unjust do not matter in the eyes of the law." A pause. "And I liked Vader better."
Danny had to suppress a laugh. "Well, no wonder you were so reluctant to bring that up. It's kind of awkward to proclaim you are someone's father when, uh, you don't possess the proper plumbing."
Anne groaned, but was still smiling. "Yeah..." Her face fell. "About that..."
Danny looked perturbed. "Hey, hey, if you don't want to talk about it-"
"No. No more secrets."
She took a breath to compose herself.
"The reason I freaked out when you corned me in the lab...I know what you're thinking, and no, it wasn't like that. I mean, it was hell for me, but there are people with worse problems than my origin story. Preventing worse things from happening was the main reason I started threatening to turn people into Cro-Magnons if they didn't treat females or science majors fairer." She looked out into the distance, and sighed. "Which is to say, it was still pretty bad."
"You're a nerd, but you're also a guy, so you lucked out. I was a nerd, and I got spat on by the nerds for having the temerity to attempt to infringe on 'their thing' while having boobs instead of a dick (and if you joke about having neither, I will test my latest face mutagen on you). I hated all that fru-fru shit, and what I loved was chemistry, biology, and D&D. With the last being about the only time I could interact with other nerds, and for every one who recognized I was just a gamer who was a girl, at least two thought that I was a living wet dream, and got really upset when they realized the dream wasn't a product of their own minds."
"It didn't get better-I wanted to be a doctor rather than a nurse; my mom used to joke that God split the difference between the fact that she wanted a daughter and Dad wanted someone to carry on the family practice. But of course, female doctors don't happen-but I decided to settle for a pharmacology degree, where I met..." She seethed a little. "...Ronald Leewell."
Danny nodded in recognition. "Ah...your first scheme. Based on the fact that your very expensive cure for his sudden attack of being a Neanderthal caused his balls to shrivel when nobody else's did, I'm going to take a wild guess and assume he has something to do with..." He gulped. "That?"
Anne's hand covered the area where her scar as she nodded. "Yep. He was all of the leers and virgin fantasies I had ever encountered, combined, times ten. There's something not right about that guy...anyway, long and painful story short, I was bleeding out on the floor after he...after he..."
She took another breath.
"After he attempted to cut out my womb while high."
One could feel the weight of the dead silence drop on the world.
As evenly as he could make himself sound, Danny spoke. "If you ever want me to finish the job you started..."
"I'll keep that in mind." Anne shook herself. "He apparently thought that since I was apparently so masculine, I didn't deserve my lady parts. After the blood trickled from the beaker glass to his hand, he apparently realized he had actually hurt someone and ran to cover his own ass."
She looked sick even thinking about it.
"Lying there, on the floor surrounded by medical chemicals, bleeding out...all I could think of was attempting to find some way to heal my wound, some way to stop bleeding out...and as I dragged myself over to the counter, I suddenly had this flash of inspiration...and I knew just how to instantly make a medicine that would cause me to regenerate, almost as good as new."
She sighed, obviously relieved to get her past off her chest. "And that's how I became Miasma. I mean, I didn't choose that name until I decided that what the world really needed was a kick in the ass to prevent something like that ever happening to anyone else again, but that's another story."
Danny furrowed his brow. "So, your knowledge is some kind of mutant power?"
She shrugged. "I guess. I don't know how it's supposed to work, I just think of what I want to do and I get this intuition about what I need. I don't know exactly how I mix my vials either, I just do what my intuition tells me, like some weird blind idiot genius. It helps my schemes that my emotions become disconnected from any raw information I have when I'm nervous, though-although I've put my foot in my mouth more times than I can count because I'm reading off the data."
Danny grinned nervously. "Yeah...I could tell."
Anne chuckled. "So...that's my story, my lovely lab assistant."
"It was a pleasure, my mis-wait what?"
Miasma grinned sardonically. "Well, you're in on the mad scientist's secret, you're not her enemy, you do every little thing she asks on fear of punishment...what else are you?"
Danny had a sinking feeling.
Back in the present, Taylor was now officially panicking. A brief snippet of news had informed her that the absolute worst thing to a public cape had occurred.
We have no further updates on the disappearance of Daniel Hebert, father of the notorious parahuman gang leader Skitter, at this time...
"No. No, nononono..."
Taylor's powers were stretched to the limits as she furiously switched between every bug in her power radius, looking for any clue whatsoever to her father's whereabouts. Bitch's dogs were on the scene as well, as the other Undersiders scouted the Docks as thoroughly as possible.
Much to her own fury, Tattletale was no help. As far as the other dockworkers knew, Danny had just up and left, leaving absolutely no trace of himself or his existence behind. The dogs were somewhat more helpful, in that they led to an out-of-the-way alcove with a hole burned by some sort of super-corrosive acid, at which point the scent suddenly vanished.
This was not a comforting piece of evidence. In fact, some part of Taylor had already resigned herself to only finding her father as a bunch of bleached, corroded bones, if at all. With her luck, the Slaughterhouse 9 had a new acid-spitting member eager to strike against their self-proclaimed rivals.
But she kept on searching, hoping against hope, that she would find him.
She focused so much on hoping and finding, that she didn't see the masked man until she ran headlong into him.
"Oof! Watch where you're going, Taylor! ...Taylor?"
Surprised, she looked up.
Shocked, she ran away, very quickly activating her walkie-talkie to radio an emergency.
Being somewhat of a fangirl (however low-key and casual) of capes before her trigger, Taylor had naturally heard about several, rather infamous villains. Foremost among these were the ones who got away, which tended to be the topic of the day every month or so on Parahumans Online. For example, the leadership of the Elements, a paramilitary activist group that had effectively owned Cambridge and much of Boston for several years until the boss, Miasma, abruptly announced she was retiring ("passing on the torch of true equality to a more peaceful generation", she claimed) and vanished with much of the parahuman leaders...and her bodyguard and lieutenant.
The same bodyguard and lieutenant who was now patrolling the docks. Sodium.
A thousand scenarios as to why the silver-suited normal had suddenly resurfaced and knew her name, all of them very bad, occurred to her. Perhaps his boss was the new S9 member, and he followed her? Perhaps he had become a mercenary and was now working for the innumerable people who wanted her to suffer before she died? Perhaps the theory that he was loyal to Miasma out of love was true, she died, and now he was driven insane by his loss and just picked her at random?
Whatever the case, the man renowned for being able to beat capes and make a show doing so was here, and she doubted he didn't figure out a counter to her powers.
Which is why when Lisa called, she was even more shocked.
"Um...Skitter? You might want to see this. Suffice to say, he's friendly."
Slowly, cautiously, Taylor made her way out of her hiding spot and back to the pier.
There, Sodium had been joined by the other Undersiders, all of whom were in varying states of bemusement and disbelief. Tattletale looked like she was trying to laugh while slackjawed, Regent was collapsed against a nearby column laughing at the absurdity of it all, Imp and Grue leaned against a different column and simply shrugged as they saw Taylor, and Bitch was honestly more interested in showing Sodium how to pet her dogs properly.
And speaking of Sodium, he had his mask off to reveal...
To reveal...
If one asked her, Taylor could not tell you exactly what she felt when he turned around. It certainly wasn't shock, as shock implies some degree of horror and depression. Here, there was nothing but utter elation...and pure, unrefined confusion.
Danny Hebert, a father whose life story was suddenly revealed to be very strange, smiled. "I can explain."
Author's Note: And thus, the addition of a new member to the Undersiders without trigger-trauma or [SPOILER] shard driving him to fight gave the Undersiders a much-needed stable ground and voice of sanity and helped Taylor regain some of her stability and everything was happy forever. The end.
More seriously, I haven't actually finished Worm, on the basis of it being long and I having other things to do. I do know from spoilers that Taylor is staring straight into the Nietzchean Abyss and by the end has to become something of a bully herself to save the world. More realistically, in the hypothetical non-one-shot version of this she has an existential crisis when she realizes she's simply following her (self-admitted supervillain) mother's example and her relationship with Danny becomes rather strained for a while on the basis of the obvious. But that's why this is a one-shot and not a full fic, as I don't trust myself to do her character justice until I read all the way through.
Anyway, first real fic. Feel free to tear it apart, I really do want to be a better writer.