Armsmaster and I stared for a long moment after Straw Hat's, who was named Luffy (definitely wasn't calling him Monkey), declaration. While my heart was pounding a mile a minute at my savior casually declaring his real name to a known cape, Armsmaster seemed to take the exclamation with aplomb.

He tilted his head in a quizzical manner, before asking, "What do you mean by becoming a Pirate King?"

I also noticed that his halberd had dipped a bit into a more defensive posture once more, but I was really hoping that whatever Luffy meant was more of an abstract thing, then going to like Somalia or something. In fact I was pretty sure piracy was way down at this point in history because of a certain aquatic Endbringer.

However, it looked like he was entirely oblivious to my racing thoughts and just answered Armsmaster freely.

"I'm going to find One Piece, we'll reach Laugh Tale and finally be the freeist!" he explained without any kind of guile.

I have no idea what he was talking about, but it sounded more like he was some sort of treasure hunter than a pirate who would rob ships. Apparently Armsmaster agreed with that assessment because he once more relaxed. I guess the fact that Luffy was so infectious in his way of stating the truth as he saw it might be a factor there. Hell, I had only met the guy like an hour ago and he had proceeded to beat the tar out of Lung and was looking for his crew. Not really Villain material in my opinion.

In fact if there had been anyone that looked like villains it would have… been…Tattletale…and the Undersiders…

I closed my eyes and let loose a ferocious sigh in disappointment. In hindsight the four teens were obviously villains. I had never heard of them in the hero circuit, independent or otherwise, but I let my guard down because I hadn't heard of them as villains either. I suppose I could take solace in the fact that they must be pretty small time if I had never heard of them.

While I was having my little moment of epiphany, Armsmaster was still talking to Luffy.

"While it doesn't sound like you are a traditional villain, I do not know if I can condone your version of a pirate operating in my city. However, because you took down Lung I'd be willing to hear your story at our PRT headquarters," he requested.

I knew as soon as he started talking in that formal manner that he had lost Luffy, judging by the slightly glazed expression on his face. Although it looked like Armsmaster had no idea that he was losing his audience. He just kept on talking.

"In addition,we'd like to go over the two of you joining up with the Protectorate and the Wards to-"

Whatever Armsmaster was going to say for his recruitment offer, was immediately shut down by Luffy, who had snapped back to attention.

"No way!" he denied more emphatically than I thought he would.

I blinked, but nodded in agreement at the sentiment. I had been burned by authority too often to want to be under the thumb of the premiere hero organization. Armsmaster seemed completely caught flat footed by our declarations, probably because Luffy had interrupted mid speech.

"I don't think the two of you quite understand how dangerous it is for-" only to be once more interrupted by the crazy boy in the straw hat.

"I already said I'm not a hero! The Protectorate sound like heroes! I like you Halbeard, but I have to find my crew," he said.

Armsmaster seemed to stare at Luffy for a moment, seeming to accept that that was his name to the boy, before turning to me in a questioning manner. I was actually pretty impressed at how he was able to convey that through his power armor.

"I'll have to decline for now as well, I might join the Wards later or the Protectorate proper when I have more credibility," I tried to explain away my need to avoid authority.

"Yeah, she can't join the Warding thing anyway, cause she's gonna join my crew!"

I stiffened in shock at that pronouncement, while Armsmaster seemed even more flabbergasted by it. Desperately I tried to shove off my shock, and felt some of my bugs buzz ominously at that, causing Armsmaster once more to become wary, but Luffy just turned my way.

"Hey Bug Girl, join my crew!"

My irritation spiked once more, but I shunted it off. I would not let these two get to me in any way shape or form.

"Why would you even want me on your crew to begin with?" I asked as calmly as I could.

At my question I was met with one of the most dazzling smiles I had ever seen. I was pretty sure I was going into a weird form of shock from all the emotional whiplash that I had had tonight.

"Shishishi, it's cause you control bugs! That's so cool!" he exclaimed as though he were a child hunting beetles.

I only felt immensely awkward at him describing my powers as cool. I had never thought they were anything but a hassle, even if they did make me special. Other people had much cooler powers, I just controlled bugs. When I explained that to Luffy, he just looked at me as if I was dumb.

"Controlling bugs is cool! You can do all sorts of things! I can't wait for you to meet everyone else, I know there here somewhere, but I'm too dumb to be able to find them easily. I feel like you're not, plus controlling bugs is cool!" was his explanation.

I blinked as I felt my cheeks warm in embarrassment. I hadn't had anyone believe in me like this since…

It had been a long time.

"You said that it was cool twice," because I had to have some way to distance myself.

"That's cause it is!" Luffy responded immediately.

Our exchange was then interrupted by Armsmaster(who I may have forgotten about for a second).

"I really must insist that we all head down to Headquarters, I don't want a parahuman as strong as you Luffy running around without a mask. The ABB will be looking for blood once they get wind of what happened tonight," he said.

It looked as though he was able to get back to his equilibrium of stoicism and was still trying to get us to go with him. I braced myself to try and argue him down, but I shouldn't have bothered.

"Don't wanna."

Luffy's blunt response was said with all the grace of a bull in a china shop and I had the privilege of watching Armsmaster stiffen in what I was pretty sure was outrage. He had been a hero for a long time and having two newbies refuse his request must have grated on him.

However, before anything else could happen I suddenly had a pair of arms wrapped securely around me. I stiffened and was prepared to swarm whoever had dared to touch me, but a glance down revealed that it was Luffy who had stretched his arms to me.

"Hang tight, Bug Girl!" he said with no real explanation as he bent down and his legs seemed to condense with him.

Wait a minute, if he made his legs spring like that, when they snapped back into place…

"Hang on a sec-"

Unfortunately my desperate plea was cut off as we launched into the air and I felt the breath smash out of my lungs at the rate we went. I watched as Armsmaster became smaller and smaller, with a pretty comical stupefied expression in hindsight. Then I was completely disoriented and had no other real breath left but to scream as we started soaring through the night sky of Brockton Bay, occasionally landing to be sprung again.

I lost track of time, not even my bug sense could really keep up with the rate were moving. We could have been launching from one building to the next for only a few minutes, but it felt like hours to my panicking mind.

Eventually we came to a stop and landed on a decently sized office building. As soon as we landed and Luffy retracted his arms, I swarmed him with bugs. I did this while trying and failing to get my sense of balance back. Hopefully I'd be able to power through the nausea that I felt.

Unfortunately the jackass just laughed his weird laugh while dodging my attacks, with his eyes closed.

I wasn't sure how he was doing it, but my fury at having been kidnapped to a random roof by some stranger I had met only a bit earlier that night made me power through the nausea. Now I just had to tag him! If I could do that I'd be able to sting him or something.

Eventually, after failing to tag him with my new amount of bugs, somehow, I began to wind down.

I still felt immensely annoyed at him for taking me on an impromptu parkour run through the city, but I can't deny that I was glad to get away from Armsmaster, it was beginning to get a bit awkward there at the end.

Finally deciding that I couldn't hit Luffy, I decided to sprawl out panting. I'm pretty sure the sight of me was a bit undignified. I'd have to at least convince him to get me down from this rooftop, because I really didn't want to try and sneak through a building.

"Wow, Bug Girl, you can control a lot of bugs," Luffy stated in an utterly serene manner. He wasn't even breathing hard, the jerk.

"I…hate…you…so…much…"

I had tried to use my bugs to distract him and get a hit, but he dodged me just as easily. I thought fighting Lung was annoying, but I could at least hit him. Apparently Luffy was also some kind of combat Thinker. What the hell was with this guy!

"You're not too strong now, but we'll definitely get you trained up Bug Girl! You'd be dead if we took you to Wano with us!" he cheerfully exclaimed, reminding me with a jolt that he wanted me to join his crew.

I got my breathing under control and pushed myself to a sitting position. Still not very dignified, but at least I wasn't sprawled out on a rooftop anymore.

"I never said anything about joining your crew, Luffy," I said with a slight bit of hesitation. He was strong and he really seemed to genuinely want me, sue me for being at least a little grateful, "I have a family here and I can't just up and leave them. Not to mention I'm going to be a hero."

Luffy only nodded in acceptance at this.

"Great! We don't have a dedicated hero in our crew yet! I think Jinbei is the closest, but he does other things too," he went on as though he hadn't heard my rejection.

I sighed and closed my eyes in resignation. Luffy struck me as the type who went to the beat of his own drum, if our interactions with all the other capes tonight were any indication. For now maybe I could stall him?

"I'd need to talk to someone first, and I need to help the Bay to be a better place, get me off of this roof and I'll consider," I said, punting the issue down the line.

"Shishishi, no problem! I'll see you in a bit!"

With that declaration, he once more wrapped me with an arm and we jumped off the building, which was at least ten stories. I may have screamed once more on the way down. Once we landed, my heart dropped back to my chest from my throat. I really really wanted to punch the grinning idiot who had just jumped off a building with me in his grasp, but I had learned my lesson from earlier.

A second later and I was dazedly being brushed off by Luffy and he was strolling away into the night while singing, badly.

I decided that the only thing for it was to go home and decompress and hope he didn't stray into E88 territory or anything, I was so done with tonight.

I'm not entirely sure how I was able to sneak into my house and strip off my costume, but it felt like far too short a time from when my head hit the pillow to when my alarm was going off. Normally I was able to wake up before it, but last night had been so filled with craziness that I almost slept through it.

I groaned as I rolled to my feet and began my normal morning ritual on auto pilot. It was only as I was making a strong pot of coffee that I had my first interaction with my dad. He was a rather tall, balding man with glasses, dressed in sensible clothes for a Union man.

"Coffee this morning?" he asked with a tone of concern.

Shit, I hadn't even heard him come into the kitchen, maybe I was depending on my bugs too much or I was more out of it than I thought. I decided on a bit of a half truth to get him off my back.

"Wasn't able to sleep great last night," I said groggily.

He hummed in acknowledgement before going back to his breakfast, looking through the paper as he did so.

"Huh, looks like Armsmaster got in a fight with Lung last night. Burnt down two of our buildings," the last was said rather bitterly, causing me to wince in quilt as that had probably been Luffy's fault, before I registered what he had said.

"Hang on, Armsmaster's the one who got in the fight?" I asked slightly incredulously.

My dad raised his eyebrows in surprise at my reaction as he looked at me and tried to keep my face as guilt free as possible.

"Yep, at least he caught the guy, too bad he'll probably be out soon," he said with an air of resignation.

However, this time I couldn't respond as I was seething with frustration. Once Dad was done with the paper I skimmed through it myself, noting that there was no real mention of me or Luffy. I wasn't sure if I wanted credit for taking out Lung, but Luffy definitely seemed strong enough to be able to hold his own against the remnants of the ABB. As far as I knew only Oni Lee was still around and if I couldn't hit Luffy with bugs, the Oni Lee sure as hell wasn't getting a shot in.

It just wasn't fair! After all that buttering up to us last night, even if it was a bit forceful, I didn't expect Armsmaster to take all the credit! I tried to calm myself a bit more as I noticed that the bugs in my vicinity were becoming a bit restless. I'd just have to go out and try to set the record straight, although I had no idea how.

I continued my morning routine, this time in a fog of slight frustration, absently saying goodbye to Dad as he headed out to work, mumbling about insurance claims for the buildings from last night. Oh look, there was a twinge of guilt again.

I was like that until I glanced at the clock and realized that if I didn't start moving out now, I'd be late for my bus and miss school. Not necessarily a bad thing, but I had ditched the last half of Friday, I definitely didn't want the Attendance Office calling about my whereabouts and bothering Dad.

With a sigh, I cleaned up the few dishes I had and slung my still slightly fruit smelling backpack over one shoulder. At least it wasn't really sticky anymore.

Everything was fine until I exited out my front door, only to come face to face with a beaming Monkey D. Luffy.

In front of my house.

With me in civilian clothes.

I felt a mounting sense of horror as he raised his hand cheerfully in greeting.

"Heya Bug-" was as far as he got because I had launched myself at him and clapped my hand over his mouth as quickly as possible. I frantically looked around to make sure none of my neighbors had noticed the obvious cape appearing on my front lawn and about to casually greet me. I thought of the fact that my dad had just left from here not too long ago and had to refrain from calling every bug under my control here to try and deal with Luffy.

"Hmm hmm hmm mmm hmg mgm!" he said through my hand, before I felt something slimy hit my palm.

I recoiled in disgust and jumped back from him.

"Did you just lick my hand!?" I asked on reflex, even if the answer was obvious. Wait, no, I had to stay on track, make sure he wasn't here to hurt me or my dad.

"How did you even find me!?" I hissed in building fury and panic.

Luffy merely grinned at me, and I wanted to punch him in his stupid face, even if it'd do nothing to him.

"That was easy! I just had to find the bugs again! They don't behave like normal bugs," he explained.

I stared at him for a moment in dull incomprehension, before what he said began making sense to me. He wasn't trying to attack my civilian identity, he was just an idiot.

"Why!?" I put as much of my frustration in that question as I could, even as my heart felt like it was going to hammer out of my chest.

Oh look, at least I wasn't tired anymore, there's looking on the bright side Taylor. Don't mind being outed by probably one of the strongest capes in the Bay at the moment. He won't tell anyone because he's too stupid to.

Was my thought process a little mean to Luffy? Probably, but I was maybe just a tiny bit pissed that this was being sprung on me. I was also pretty sure I was going to miss the bus now for sure, here's hoping I could get to the answering machine before dad.

With a sigh, I marched up to Luffy and took his arm in my hand. He had ditched the overcoat for the moment, but everything about him stood out. I'd be amazed if we weren't posted all over PHO in the next hour.

Hoping to avoid that fate I began marching him out of view of all the houses. Unfortunately the best place for that was to go inside my own house. Hopefully no one noticed. Once we were both squared away and the door was closed, I spun around to yell at the boy with the straw hat. He might've helped me with Lung, but this was going too far!

However, he started speaking before I could really lay into him.

"I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Bug Girl! This place isn't Wano and I need to find my crew so we can get back to the New World! So far you're the only one I've found," he said with utter innocence.

I sighed in resignation at the concerned look he gave me. Although I was still angry, I felt like I couldn't be angry at Luffy. I'm not sure he really had a malicious bone in his body. Screw it, there's no way I'd be able to get over this for right now. Might as well make sure he doesn't call me Bug Girl again.

"My name is Taylor," I said in resignation.

Luffy graced me with a beaming smile at that, I'd have to make sure that he knew just how messed up it was for him to randomly show up at my door.

"I was wearing a mask for a reason, Luffy. I didn't want to be found when I'm like this!" I exclaimed, feeling my irritation pulling to the forefront again. I'd need to make sure that there were no negative repercussions to having a cape randomly show up at my doorstep.

"But, Taylor-" he whined at me, like a five year old.

I ignored the strange feeling at hearing my actual name come from his mouth. While last night was crazy and hard and terrifying, I had to admit that I hadn't felt as alive as then. There was some sort of thrill in a fight with my life on the line, and the fact that Luffy was able to win and then I was taken on a ride through the city was better than I had thought (I had realized that we had ended up in the Downtown area, I was surprised although when I realized I needed to trek back to my house I was not happy).

"Don't whine," I interrupted, before realizing this was a good chance to figure out what kind of powers he actually had. I'd deal with the fact that my neighbors were going to gossip about me bringing a boy into my house never… I might not have thought that through. Oh well.

"What are your powers anyway?" I asked as casually as I could.

We were still only just inside the front door, but I hadn't really led him into our house proper, he was not a real guest. This was more of an interview to see if I wanted to work with him. If I repeated that enough times I might just convince myself and not try and send all the bees at him.

He didn't seem to mind as he casually placed his hand atop his hat, sending a bright smile at me once again. With a jolt I realized that I hadn't seen many of those smiles lately, they'd mostly been mocking or maybe setting me up for something else.

"Shishishi, I'm made of rubber!" He explained and then proceeded to stretch his cheeks to an absurd degree. "Shee!"

His last exclamation was a bit muffled, but he let go and his face snapped back into its normal shape. That was more interesting than I thought, but before I could comment he continued the explanation.

"I ate the Gum-Gum Fruit and became a rubber man! Although I beat that Lang guy with Haki," he said enthusiastically.

I blinked at that. That was definitely not how I got my powers (not going to think of it), so I was a little confused.

"How does that even work, and what the heck is Haki?" I begrudgingly asked as I crossed my arms.

Luffy just stared blankly at me for a moment, before repeating, "I ate a Gum-Gum Fruit and now I'm-" he started to explain once again, before I cut him off.

"No you know what, it's obvious you don't know that part, what's Haki?" I asked.

Luffy crossed his arms in consideration of my question, looking to be in a more serious mood once more.

"Hm, I know there are three types cause Rayleigh beat it into me for two whole years. Observation, Armament, and Conquerors. I'm pretty good at all three and I only needed to use Armament to take down that Lang guy, he wasn't very good at using any of his own," he explained without really explaining anything at all.

I let loose an exasperated sound at what he said, obviously Luffy was aware of how to do the things he did, but he kind of sucked at explaining it. Then something he said registered to me and I couldn't quite let it go.

"Wait, those Haki things are something other people can use!?" I exclaimed.

I had never heard of a power being one to one. Usually there were some similar themes to some powers, but only Eidolon could really show off something like that and not have to kill somebody else for it.

Luffy just once more stared blankly at me after my outburst.

"Yeah, Taylor, that's how you fight in the New World, I just finished beating Kaido, who easy waaaayyyy stronger than Lang guy, mostly cause he could turn into a dragon and use Haki, and was an Emperor," he said.

You know what? I decided I didn't want to know what kind of crazy enemy Luffy had been fighting before he showed up to interrupt my fight with Lung. I'd just be grateful he did. Now to figure out how we were going to get out of here with nobody noticing. I didn't want anyone to know Luffy showed up, Lung probably definitely saw his face (although I could hope he was too angry or concussed to remember), so it was probably best if we snuck out and went somewhere a little less tied to me.

"Okay, if we're going to do this, I need to set some ground rules," I started, noticing Luffy was once more paying much closer attention. "For one thing, you can't call me by my name when I'm in costume, I suppose Bug Girl is good for now."

I died a little bit inside at having to use that name, but nothing better was coming to mind at the moment. Thankfully, Luffy nodded in agreement, hopefully he would remember.

"Another thing is that we can't be meeting here. This is my house and I have people that live here that I don't want getting hurt," I said as I narrowed my eyes at him. He responded by whistling and turning away. Huh, apparently he couldn't whistle.

"Finally, I'll help out with finding your crew, you helped me out a ton last night and I at least agree with the Undersiders that I owe you," the next part I said under my breath, "even if they are villains."

Apparently it wasn't quiet enough because Luffy looked a bit confused.

"What do you mean you owe me, none of my crew owes me anything," he said as if I had already agreed to join.

I rolled my eyes at his presumption, but made sure that he knew what my stance was.

"I reserve the right to actually join you guys, we'll say this is a test period," I stated.

I was once more gifted with a megawatt smile, and despite myself I felt a bit of some unknown tension fading a little bit away.

"No problem! Welcome to the Straw Hats, Taylor!" he exclaimed with gusto.

I sighed, before uncrossing my arms and feeling my own mouth betray me to turn up a little. I suppose I could have fallen in with someone worse than Luffy, but I'd definitely have to help him blend in a little better.

"For now, let's head to the library, they have better internet than I have here, so there might be something about your crew on PHO, at least if they're all parahumans," I explained as I began to head back towards the door.

However, before we braved Brockton Bay in daylight I turned to my new companion.

"I think you need to be sneakier if you want to roam the Bay though," I said as I looked over Luffy's form, not knowing the battle I was going to have to fight.

I sighed in relief as we headed toward the library doors. It had taken me another twenty minutes to convince Luffy just to button up his shirt. How was he not cold anyway? Brockton Bay wasn't particularly chilly, but it was still a bay in the Northeast of the U.S. We weren't exactly known for our warm weather climate. I was dressed much more appropriately in my usual baggy attire.

Even with that, a lot of people were stealing glances at Luffy while we took the bus, if only because he looked like a tourist who got lost on the way to Florida. It didn't help that he liked to literally press his face to the glass to look at some of the buildings we passed.

"Finally, I should have known better than to come out in public with you," I murmured. Once again it didn't seem quiet enough.

"Shishishi, sorry Taylor, but I had enough of being sneaky in Wano. Kaido and his crew were really strong!" he exclaimed.

Hopefully I'd be able to find something on PHO about Luffy's crew members. That way they could wrangle him and his boundless energy, I was already exhausted and we hadn't even really started.

"Remember, Luffy, we need to be quiet while we're looking in here, we don't want to disturb the other people here," I tried to reinforce this concept for at least the fifth time, but once again, Luffy just kind of stared into space.

He did that as soon as I mentioned that while I was going to use the internet here to help our search, it was a place of quiet contemplation. He didn't seem to care all that much about my explanations.

Sighing, we finally entered the library and the wave of sound faded out as the door closed with a slight whumpf. I turned to look at Luffy, and he was looking around with a bit of interest, but nothing seemed to really hold his attention.

"We'll make our way over there," I said quietly while I pointed to the row of computers towards the back, "remember not to make too much noise, please."

We began making our way toward the back of the library, thankfully it wasn't very full due to it being a weekday. The librarian may have given me a slightly disapproving look, and possibly a bewildered one at Luffy, but she didn't intercept us.

As we made our way to the computers, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a tall woman with luxurious black hair, reading a book. I only noticed her because she looked even taller than me, and also because she had a fairly striking figure.

She was wearing a light purple turtleneck, along with form fitting fuschia jeans, all completed with cream colored heels. Atop her head were a pair of light orange sunglasses and she had a body that Emma would be jealous of. She might have been one of the most gorgeous women that I've ever seen, and I thought Tattletale had looked good.

As if sensing my eyes on her, she looked up from whatever book she was perusing (we were passing the History section so it could be anything). She gave a small smile my way and I say that she had dark blue eyes before they slid a bit behind me and alighted on Luffy who was trailing behind me.

She blinked for a second and I swear her smile widened a fraction as she set her eyes on Luffy. I glanced his way and he seemed frozen for a second, but that was definitely recognition in his eyes. It was confirmed a moment later when the woman spoke up.

"Hello, Luffy, fancy meeting you here," the woman said.

I knew a fraction of a second before it happened that there was no way in hell that we weren't all about to get kicked out.

"ROBIN!"

Hello again everyone, a new chapter! Posted this on SB earlier and am now going through to post on AO3 and FFN. If you haven't noticed, all of the core crew are in Brockton Bay as this fic was slightly inspired by Justice, but only insomuch as it's all the core crew in a superhero setting. Anywho, hey Robin, who woulda thunk she would be reading a history book in a library? This fic is more fun than I expected it to be.

Whelp, that's all for now, if you're feeling kind fave, follow, or review! I read everything and it's been fun in the discussion on SB!

Until next time!