Otherwise known as the chapter where the author realizes her mistakes and makes up her own canon. Just go with it. This was an AU the whole time anyway, so I change what I want :P

*—*—*—*—*

It was obvious to Matt and I that the group that I had been kidnapped, experimented on, trained by, and kidnapped by again, had to be completely dealt with before school started. It was just an additional summer project, like the ones I was working on with Foggy to help me. He read out what I needed to do, and I would do whatever possible without use of my sight. He and Matt offered to teach me Braille, and I only accepted since it wouldn't hurt anything and I had no idea if it would ever come in handy to help Matt out or not, so it was just a good decision all around. I wasn't in any rush though, so lessons were slow and inconsistent.

When the seventh day of my shed cycle came, I couldn't help but heave a sigh. When I opened my eyes that morning, dull light filtered through a detached layer of skin and all I had to do was peel it away in order to expose the colors and shapes I had desperately missed during my six days of blindness. Perhaps that was the worst part of it; I wasn't allowed to get used to being blind like Matt had been. He wasn't constantly gaining and losing a whole sense, he just had to deal with the constant lack of it. But I was never allowed that. The days leading up to my shed were always stressful, because I couldn't help but hope that I would wake up being able to see even though I knew I wouldn't. And then having my eyesight returned like clockwork before I could even completely settle into the lifestyle of being blind— it hurt. It was stressful, annoying. I couldn't decide if it was better to just be permanently blind, because at least then I wouldn't have to deal with the emotional whiplash of the sensory teeter-totter I was constantly on.

I never told any of that to Matt, of course. It would be in-sense-itive.

Bad Hebi, don't make sensory puns.

After peeling away my eye caps and sitting up, I took a moment to just look around and reacquaint myself with the appearance of my surroundings. With the familiarity of color and shapes and objects. Everything was soft, slightly blurry around the edges because of my bad eyesight, but it was there. It was better than being blind.

After a moment of settling back into being able to see, I opened my mouth and let the smell of breakfast waft onto my scent receptors. Matt was in the kitchen— I forgot how his hair was red during my shed cycle, and found myself unable to stop staring for a short moment as he cooked with his back turned to me— cooking omelettes and toast. I smiled despite the loaded thoughts I had been having, happy for the tiny bit of routine. I forced myself up, going over to make my morning tea as Matt finished up cooking.

"Morning," he greeted, turning his head slightly in my direction. He didn't try to make eye contact like he did with most people unless we were having a serious conversation. I stilled for a moment, trying to figure out when that had become a thing. I remembered he had tried to make as accurate of eye connection as possible back when we had first met, but somewhere along the line he had gotten comfortable enough to stop doing that. I couldn't help but smile to myself as I turned the heat up under my teapot.

It made me happy to know that Matt was comfortable enough around me to not feel like he had to act like somebody with sight. We both knew it was unnecessary.

"Hebi?"

Oh, I had stayed in my thoughts just a couple seconds longer than normal. I had missed that Matt had been trying to talk to me.

"Sorry, I was thinking. What'd you say? And you shouldn't be on your feet, it's only a week."

Matt scoffed. "And I was on my feet last week too. I'm fine, stop worrying. That's my job," he flipped he omelette he was working on and ignored my disbelieving snort. "Anyway, I was asking if you wanted to come to the office today. We'll be spending most of the day working on paperwork, so you can just hang out and help Karen or something."

I shook my head, knowing he'd pick it up. "Nah," I opened the cupboards to pull out a few boxes of herbs. Would lemongrass and lavender go together? I wanted to try out a new blend. "I have to go over to my friend's today. He should have something ready so I can read during my shed."

I turned my head just in time to see Matt's raised brow. I had only told him that a friend of mine had promised to work on something to help me seem normal during my shed, but I hadn't said anything more in depth than that.

"How could he make something like that? I'm pretty sure I'd know about anything that could help a blind person read without Braille."

I winced, hating the fact that Matt had a point. Whatever Hank made probably wouldn't work for him, which just made me feel guilty. "I'm pretty sure he's making it to be compatible with my heat vision. I'll give you the full description once I find out what it is myself, okay?"

Matt didn't seem bothered in the slightest, which I expected because he was too fucking good of a person. He just nodded, humming in thought. "That makes sense. Tell me how it goes, and call when you're on your way back home."

"I can take care of myself," I said playfully, grinning at him. "In fact, I can take care of both of us at the same time. But if it helps, I'll make sure to call as soon as I leave my friend's house."

I couldn't quite see past his glasses, but I was pretty sure Matt rolled his eyes at what I said as he turned and plated my food for me.

"Thank you, Boa."

I groaned, picking up my fork and stabbing my omelette in annoyance. "I'm still upset about that! The press just completely ignored what the girl told them and changed my name. 'The witness stated the mysterious new vigilante wanted to go by the name Python. We have decided to instead name her Boa,'" I quoted the line I had memorized in the most annoying falsetto I could manage. The face Matt made assured me that I had succeeded.

"They stuck to the snake theme though, so I don't see why you're upset. Boa is better anyway," he responded.

"If they were gonna change it, they could have been creative instead of just jumping to a different species," I angrily shoved a bite of omelette into my mouth. "Like, they could have said Biach, after the Biach Green Tree Python. Or Retic, like Reticulated Python. At least they didn't go venomous though, that would just be inaccurate."

I pointedly ignored the teasing grin on Matt's face when he sat down with his own food in front of me. I used getting my tea as an excuse to further ignore him for a full extra minute.

I had been grounded for the week after my sneak out, so I was going to be able to go out on patrol for the first time since then that very night, which made me a bit excited. I hid it though, not wanting to talk to Matt about my excitement and not wanting to seem like a little kid about it.

But I was the new person that he contacted first if he needed help, instead of Foggy. Because even Matt knew that I could defend myself better than his best friend, and he didn't want to put anyone in unnecessary danger when there was a safer solution.

"I know you're excited. I can still hear your heartbeat," said guardian ruined my illusion of secrecy in one swift blow, making me groan in despair around a bite of omelette. "You know the deal. Your grades slip, you are off of patrol until they go up again. Twice a week only, at least until you settle in at school. And you listen to me, no going off and doing your own thing without running it by me first."

I swallowed my bite of food, nodding. "Yeah, I've agreed already. Three times."

"You have a habit of not listening," Matt deadpanned, making me chuckle.

"Foggy's coming up, finish your food already."

Matt shook his head with a smile. "I know, I heard him."

"Showoff."

—*—*—*—*—*

An hour and a half later, I found myself once again at Hank Pym's doorstep. He was probably running through a drill with ants with Scott, because the tiny vibrations inside the house were enough to almost give me a headache. It was usually only that bad when I was standing right next to an anthill.

"Oh, it's you," Hope greeted when she answered the door. Normally something like that would sound rude, but from her it just sounded… neutral. She almost instantly picked up on the fact that I was off my shed cycle, her gaze locking with my uncovered eyes. "Huh, hazel. I like the green in them," she said casually before turning to lead me inside. I had to suppress a snort; I was no expert at social interaction, but she was terrible.

Hope didn't lead me to the dining room this time, but to the living room instead. Sure enough, there were obedient lines of ants marching in two different directions, carrying various items on their backs. I raised an eyebrow, watching them for a moment. I was pretty apathetic towards most bugs, not afraid but not interested. Arachnids were cool though, I had always been interested in tarantulas as a pet. And snakes. But after everything I had went through, I knew I'd have to wait until I was able to take care of myself before even thinking about a pet.

"Ah, you're here!" That was Hank, who looked up from watching Scott. The man seemed to be on his phone while using Hank's machine to control the ants, so it was likely just a multitasking exercise. The old man stood up, walking over to me. "You brought the sunglasses right?" I nodded at the man's words, slinging my backpack over my shoulder to pull out the glasses case from the small front pocket. I handed it to him, and the man disappeared down a hallway without another word. I raised an eyebrow, not used to how the man behaved when he was working on a project.

"Umm," I looked over at Hope, who rolled her eyes.

"He gets like this, don't worry. He'll be back out in a moment. You won't believe how excited he was about the challenge your problem gave him, he locked himself in his lab until he had a prototype figured out."

"I still can't believe nobody is talking about Ant Man," Scott complained from his spot on the couch, making me snort and take a seat across from him. Now that I was able to see, I took my time committing his and Hope's faces to memory. Hope was pretty, but severe and intimidating with her professional attire and sharp angled bob. The kind of woman I normally would have pinned as a secret corporate mastermind who controlled her business with an iron fist and her subordinates called a bitch behind her back. She definitely seemed a bit rough around the edges and too uptight, but she had been pretty nice to me so I was gonna give her the benefit of the doubt.

Scott, on the other hand, was normal. The kind of normal that was dangerous, he would blend into almost any crowd and seemed like the type that could get along with almost anybody if he tried. Easy to smile, with a spark of intelligence in his eyes that betrayed his tendency towards mischief. He was probably a petty criminal of some sort, I summed up, but trying to change. If he wasn't on the up-and-up, he wouldn't be Ant-Man after all.

Being homeless really helped give a person the ability to accurately analyze others.

"Have you even done anything as Ant-Man recently?" I asked, smirking. Scott looked up from his phone to meet my eyes.

"Well, no, but still! I'm way more interesting than this new vigilante people won't shut up about. Boa," he spat the name with jealousy, but there was no real heat to his voice. He was just being petty. "This guy's only popular because he helped out Daredevil. I bet they don't even know each other."

"Boa?" Hope spoke up, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. Did that woman ever sit down and relax? "Isn't that the snake-themed guy that helped Daredevil save those two girls from traffickers?"

"Snakes seem to be popular nowadays, don't they?" Hank's voice caused us all to look back at where he was coming back out from his lab. "First Hebi tells us about being given radioactive snake DNA, and the same day she asks for our help a mysterious snake themed vigilante shows up. The witness couldn't even remember if Boa was a man or woman."

I smiled, and I could feel the humor lighting up my eyes. That damn observant old man. The air was silent with Hank's sudden hint, and I darted my gaze to see that Scott was suddenly stiff with shock and there was playful betrayal in his eyes.

"Hebi! How could you, I thought we were friends! Blasphemy! Betrayal! How dare you steal my spotlight?"

"We have literally known each other for a total of less than fifteen minutes. Get over it," I quipped back happily, standing up to meet Hank halfway as he came over to hand me my sunglasses.

I raised an eyebrow at the old man, who gestured impatiently for me to take a closer look at the glasses. I rolled my eyes, pulling the arms back to see that a small device had been screwed to one of the arms, close to the lense where nobody would see it unless I took them off my face.

"Okay. How will this help me?" I asked, slipping the glasses onto my face.

"There's a button on the top of the device, click it," Hank instructed. I shrugged, raising my hand to find that the button came completely level to the top of the glasses arm, allowing me to easily click it down. Nothing seemed to happen. Hank didn't seem disturbed though, grabbing a book from a nearby bookshelf and placing it on the table on a random page. "Now sit down and look at the book as if you were going to read it normally."

I frowned in confusion, but did as he asked.

"And close your eyes."

I sighed, but closed them.

"Hank, what—"

"Look with your heat vision, Hebi. It's the only way to make this work," Hank instructed somewhat impatiently. I huffed in slight annoyance, but focused on bringing my heat vision into focus.

And… I saw squiggles? 'Saw' being a loose term of course, since I was actually feeling the temperature and not seeing with my eyes. "That's weird, there's little spirals of heat over the paper. Is that normal?"

"Of course, it's the whole purpose of the device. It works by targeting ink and raising the pinpoint temperature of the different metals and dyes in the ink. It also helps your heat accuracy, so instead of only being accurate to the sixteenth of an inch you can be accurate to the fourth of a millimeter. If you turn the button to the right, it increases the temperature of the ink so that the contrast is creature, I imagine it's like raising the focus on a camera lense. Turn it to the left for the opposite effect. You can raise the temperature to a total of one and a half degrees higher than the paper it's on, but I doubt you'll need to be that drastic."

I shook my head in amazement, raising my finger to gently turn the small dial to the right. It didn't take long for the squiggles of heat I sensed to become letters, albeit they were slightly hard to read since it was like reading super bold font, but it was just something to get used to.

"The cobra flattens its distinctive hood in order to look larger and scare off— did you honestly give me a snake book to test this out on, Hank?" I opened my eyes to look up at the older man through the very thick purple tint of my lenses. The man shrugged unapologetically.

"Stick to the theme," he said as explanation. "So there, we know it works. And just in case you need to switch glasses for whatever reason," Hank held out his hand, and I took off my glasses so I could see better. He opened his hand to reveal another device, identical to the one I had just tried out, laying in his palm. "This one has a second button on the bottom. That button activates the adhesive on the back, so you can stick this onto any pair of glasses you need it to stick to. Double click to release the adhesive and get it to unstick."

I gently took the tiny machine from Hank, wide eyed. It was already a bit mind blowing that the man had agreed to make just one of them, the fact that he had actually went out of his way to make a spare for me had me speechless.

"There is a catch," the man spoke casually, probably guessing my thought process. General rule of thumb, anyone who was homeless for any extended period of time was wary about accepting overly kind gifts. He probably picked up on that. I glanced up at him, putting my glasses and spare reading machine into my glasses case. "You have to stay for lunch. I know it's only nine, but you can help Scott train in the meantime. He relies on my tech too much. What's the point in being able to land a bullet-strength punch if he can't land a proper punch?"

I smiled, grateful. I slipped my glasses case back into my backpack, taking out the new glass jar of tea I had prepared for Hank and handing it over. He took it with a small grin and disappeared into the kitchen.

"Wait, Hank, what?" Scott stood up suddenly, looking and sounding slightly panicked. The neat rows of ants scattered briefly before getting back under control. Scott started to follow his mentor into the kitchen. "You can't be serious, I can't fight a kid!"

"That kid can beat your ass in five seconds without breaking a sweat. Don't you read the news? Boa took down two armed traffickers by herself. She can handle you without your tech."

"But I've been training with Hope!"

"It's good to switch up training partners."

I glanced over at Hope, trying my best to ignore the none-too-quiet argument going on. "You fight?" I asked her, and she shrugged with a smirk.

"Mixed martial arts. You?" She responded. I smirked back.

"Oh this is gonna be fun. Wanna spar? I apparently have time to kill."

"Oh my god Hope is gonna kill her," Scott's terrible attempt at a whisper made its way to my ear, but Hope and I ignored it in favor of heading down to their gym. Luckily I had planned to train by myself after leaving Hank's place, so I had training gear to change into in my backpack.

It wasn't long before we were both wearing our exercise clothes, gloves and padded helmets secured. Hank and Scott stood a safe distance away to watch, the older of the two men sipping from what I could easily smell was a cup of the tea I had given him just a few minutes earlier.

I waited for a moment, watching Hope's relaxed stance carefully. My feet were spread to the width of my shoulders, and I shifted my weight slightly from foot to foot. I had more patience than Hope did, it seemed, because she attacked first. I grinned in appreciation at her speed, ducking out of the way of her first harsh punch. Instead of rising to the bait and grabbing her arm, I used the opening to dart in close and jab my knee at her gut. She twisted away, my knee just barely clipping her side instead of hitting where I had aimed. Her own kick slammed up towards my head, but I ducked under it and grabbed her ankle to flip her over me and onto her back. She was able to surge up as soon as she hit the ground, her fist jamming harshly into my gut. I ignored it, gritting my teeth against the blow as I twisted myself around (like a normal person, not like a rubber band) her limbs and pinned her onto the ground.

In the end, I had more strength than she did and she had to tap out. I groaned, rolling off her and standing up to stretch backwards with a grimace. "Damn that hurt," I groaned softly. "Alright. Who's next?"

—*—*—*—*—*

After a couple of hours of good training and a delicious lunch, Hebi left the Pym's New York house. As promised, she picked up her phone and called Matt as soon as she left the property. The phone only rang twice before he picked up.

"Hey Hebi, you're on speaker. Foggy and I are working on paperwork."

Hebi smiled, her eyes habitually scanning her surroundings and she walked. "I figured. I just left my friend's house, turns out his daughter is a mixed martial artist so I stayed a bit longer than planned to train, since he insisted on me staying for lunch."

"They know that you can fight?" Matt asked right away, sounding both interested and worried. Hebi chuckled.

"They're trustworthy. My friend already put two and two together, which means that his daughter and her boyfriend learned about it too. I'll tell you more when you get home."

Matt was silent for a short moment before responding. "Alright, I trust you. And how do you have a friend that's old enough to have a daughter capable of sparring with you?"

"He's a grouchy old man," Hebi said, her voice teasing despite Hank being nowhere within earshot. "Last year I ran into him being threatened by some goons with guns, stopped them from shoving him down a concrete staircase. They scattered pretty easily once they saw they had a witness, my friend is on the more high-profile side of things."

"High-profile..?" Foggy asked slowly from the other side of the call. "Do I even want to know how many people you have on your side?"

"You don't survive as a teenager on the streets for two years without connections, Foggy," Hebi answered cryptically, smiling mischievously since she knew how the blonde would react to that. Sure enough, Foggy's long-suffering sigh didn't take long to travel through her phone.

"Yeah, I'm better off not knowing. Good to know you were confronting armed thugs way before you met Matt, by the way. Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy."

Hebi rolled my eyes at Foggy's sarcasm.

"Anyway Hebi," Matt spoke up. "How did it go? Was he able to make something for you?"

The teen hummed in affirmative, her eyes darting to a display window to see a reflection caught in it. That reflection, plus her sense of smell and her ability to sense vibrations through the ground, clued her in to something she had been suspecting for the past couple blocks. She decided to play it cool for the moment, continuing her discussion with Matt as if nothing was wrong.

"Yeah, I tested it out too. It works beautifully, I'll show you later. I'm walking towards time square, got a guy on my tail. Looks like a normal thug, probably saw me walking away away from my friend's place and thinks I have money. I'll call you when it's over."

"Hebi, be careful," Matt managed to say before the teenager hung up the phone and shoved it in her pocket. Hank had opened a New York branch of Pym Tech two years earlier, which is why he had a house she was able to visit. It also meant it wasn't too hard for the right person to see her walking into the house of a high profile rich guy, and thinking that the lithe teenager was an easy target.

Glancing in windows to gauge the guy's frame, Hebi waited until she was in a slightly busier area, yet not quite in time square yet, before casually turning into an alleyway as if she was using it for a shortcut. It didn't take long for the guy following her to take the bait and join her.

Hebi waited until the man grabbed her by the shoulder and slammed her against the wall. Her lack of reaction made the guy pause, but after a split second he raised his hand to show off the knife gripped in it.

"Okay little miss, you're gonna—"

"Kick your ass? How could you guess?" Hebi asked, smirking and wasting no time grabbing the man's wrist right behind the knife he held, and surging forward to send a knee into his crotch. He instantly screeched, dropping the knife and backing up. Hebi held the knife handle between two fingers as if it was a cigarette, not letting her fingertips touch it. "This is a dangerous toy, you should be careful or you might hurt someone," he girl chucked her knife to the side, watching it slide under a dumpster out of the corner of her eye. The man growled, clambering up and running at her. Hebi raised her brows, whistling.

"Wow, I thought you were gonna give up," she remarked idly, easily dodging his tackle. She was about to lunge in and knock him out when a blur of red registered in her peripheral vision.

Matt? Hebi thought suddenly, but furrowed her brows when she realized he wouldn't have been able to make it to her location from the office in less than ten minutes, especially if he stopped to change into his costume. So, not Matt.

The figure was astonishingly quick, leaping forward and slamming an open-handed chop to the back of the mugger's neck. Hebi was barely able to hear a few thwips before white threads shot into the air, wrapping around the man and pinning his arms to his body.

That was when it registered— it was spider-man. Hebi blinked, staring at the surprisingly short vigilante. He was only about her height, which was odd because she had imagined him a little taller, maybe closer to Matt's height. The vigilante turned to her, the surprisingly animate eyes on his mask widening slightly in what she guessed was supposed to mimic worry.

"Are you okay, miss? Gotta hand it to you though, that was a pretty good kick," spider-man's voice was also surprisingly high, it didn't quite sound like an adult's. Hebi frowned, tilting her head slightly.

"I don't want to sound ungrateful, Spider-man, but that was a waste of your time," the teen remarked blandly. The vigilante stiffened in surprise, his blink easy to register as the eyes on his mask mimicked it.

"Uh, what?"

"I mean, I'm well versed in self defense. I even disarmed him before you showed up," Hebi explained, nodding to the mugger. "I only came into this alleyway so I could deal with him without getting anyone else involved. Don't get me wrong, it's awesome to know that you're out there making sure less people get hurt," Hebi shrugged. "But I didn't really need the help. You're better off saving people who haven't spent most of their life being trained in fighting."

"Oh, uh," spider-man seemed a bit caught off guard and confused, tilting his head. "I guess that means you know the drill, right? Call nine-one-one, stay calm, all that good stuff?"

Hebi couldn't help it, she smirked. "I got it, hotshot. I get you're a bit starstruck, you don't meet capable girls like me every day," Hebi walked up and patted Spider-man's shoulder mock-reassuringly. "Go on, I'm pretty sure other people need saving. I'll be fine."

The man seemed to get that she was teasing him, and rubbed the back of his neck a bit shyly. "Ah, well, have a good day. And I wouldn't make it a habit to confront people who are following you like that."

"Yes, that's very convincing coming from someone who purposely throws himself into danger every day," Hebi remarked sarcastically, rolling her eyes. Spider-man just snorted in agreement before webbing away. Hebi stared at the webbed up mugger for a moment, pulling out her phone and calling the cops. Once that phone call was over, she moved and knelt by the criminal, poking at the webbing.

"I was just wondering if I'd ever be able to get a sample of this stuff to experiment with, wasn't I?" She muttered to herself with a gleeful smirk.

—*—*—*—*—*

"Let me get this straight; spider-man jumped in to save you?" Matt asked over dinner. Hebi had called him to assure him that she was alright right after everything was over, but had told him she'd give him the play-by-play later. Which happened to be at dinner, with Foggy and Karen listening in as well.

"It was pretty unnecessary," Hebi said with a shrug, shoving a forkful of fettuccine into her mouth. "I already had the guy disarmed and was about two seconds away from knocking him out when I saw a blur of red out of the corner of my eye. Obviously I paused, thinking it was you-know-who for a second, and the guy just jumps in, knocks the guy out, and webs him up like a burrito. We talked for a few seconds, the poor guy seemed so caught off guard that I wasn't scared and actually had things under control," Hebi informed them. Matt smirked slightly, Foggy snorted, and Karen just rolled her eyes before taking another bite of her food. "And of course, being the fantastic sciency mastermind I am, I took a sample of the webbing before the cops showed up to lug the guy away."

"Aha, I knew you seemed a bit too happy over the phone," Foggy remarked, shaking his fork at her in accusation. "When should we expect you to finish reverse engineering it?"

Hebi's shoulder slumped, and she legitimately pouted. Miss trained-as-an-Assassin-and-kickass-as-hell-for-a-fifteen-year-old pouted. She stabbed her fork into her pasta.

"Never. Or at least, not until I can get another sample or five. Naturally I ran right home after getting the sample, but as soon as I got my chemistry kit out," she meant the relatively new kit she had bought with performance money from the previous week when she was in shed and stir-crazy, "I set it down and it was completely dissolved. The slightly sticky ash left over was useless, I can't get any good information from it. So I'm back to square one— envying spider-man."

Karen leaned forward over the table towards Hebi. "Hey, don't be so sad about it. Why don't you try making something else first? I'm sure there are tons of sciency ideas in that head of yours waiting to come to life."

Hebi poked at her pasta again, thinking. She was silent for long enough that the adults went ahead and started their own conversations.

Karen had made Hebi think. There had to be projects she could start on her own, right? She didn't need to reverse engineer someone else's work, she was more than capable of coming up with her own invention. But what could she do? Where would she start?

She was in the middle of her brainstorming when another man, drunk by the scent of his breath, tripped nearby and was sent stumbling into Hebi's chair. She locked her muscles, forcing herself not to react in a way that would give away her abilities. Because of that, she fell and landed roughly on the ground next to the drunk man, the glass he had held shattered around them.

Hebi grimaced, carefully grabbing the hand Foggy was holding out to her and using it to pull herself up and away from the mess of glass shards on the ground.

"Hebi? Hebi are you okay?" Matt asked, stiff and straight in his seat. The teen dimly registered that he could probably smell the blood in the air. Then, she had to do a double take—blood? Hebi blinked, furrowing her eyebrows and raising her hand gently to her face.

"Oh, Hebi, are you alright?" Karen also asked, crouching next to Foggy with her hands gently on the younger girl's shoulder. Hebi pulled her hand away, seeing a small smear of blood on her fingers. Her face must have been cut by the glass.

"I'm fine, I should probably be looked at though. There might be tiny shards in my face," the teen reported, closing her eyes to see if she could feel anything wrong with her skin. "I don't think so though. I think I just got scraped up a bit."

"Come on, let's get you to the bathroom," Karen insisted, helping Hebi up and leading her to the restrooms in the back of the restaurant.

Looking in the mirror, Hebi found the damage was slightly worse than expected but still not an issue. There were four tiny cuts littered across her forehead and left cheek, with one longer one on her right cheek. None of them were deep, they'd scab over in a few minutes and probably completely heal in just a couple days.

Hebi let Karen gently dab at her face with a wet paper towel, her epiphany making her reaction time a bit slower than normal.

Her blood. Hebi had special abilities because of how her blood was altered. Hadn't she told Matt, way back when they first met two months earlier, that she wanted to find a way to temporarily give people different animal attributes to aid in healing or other things? Maybe she could start on that, even if she was only going into her sophomore year of high school.

And she knew exactly where she could begin.

Her hazel eyes lingered on the small smear of blood on her fingers.

—*—*—*—*—*

"You sure you're okay for patrol?" Matt asked, already dressed in his costume with his mask pulled down over his face. Hebi was already mostly in her own outfit, her mask loosely clutched in her hand. She scoffed.

"Yeah. I was a bit caught up with ideas for experiments, a few papercuts weren't enough to wake me up from my science coma," she told him easily, turning to look at herself in the mirror. Her cuts were already scanned over like she had predicted, the smaller ones well on their way to fading. She looked down, taking in her appearance in her costume for the first time. She had only laid eyes on it once before, and then she went into shed. This was the first time she was able to see herself actually wearing it.

The costume was mostly black and dark green, worked into a slightly scaled design all over. The design actually helped distribute more protection over the design while still allowing for flexibility. The green was spread over the black in small splotches, almost like camouflage — or like a snake's pattern. There were two hidden pockets on the hips, just big enough to fit her burner phone (that she had bought with leftover performance money after buying the chemistry kit) and any other small item she might need to keep in there.

Hebi then slipped on her mask, which covered her neck and her whole head, hiding all of her hair, but exposed the lower half of her face. The large two-way lenses were slightly yellow tinted, and softly slipped upwards into a small point. It was like a cross between Bratz eyes and a much less dramatic version of Spider-man's lenses. Like the web motif on Spider-Man's costume, Hebi's scale motif covered her mask as well. Her costume was only solid black under her arms and down her sides, the black ending over her hips where her pockets were.

"Alright, let's go," Matt had slipped into his Daredevil voice, all gravelly and probably an absolute horror on the throat. He tilted his head suddenly, taking a small sniff. "Are you wearing lipstick?"

"It disguises my lip shape," Hebi defended, walking out to him. "You can never be too careful. And honestly, when else will I have the chance to wear extremely dark green lipstick?"

Matt just shook his head, opening the window and letting Hebi get out first.

"Okay, so you know what the main goal is tonight," Matt started telling her softly. "We got rid of most of the group back when they kidnapped you. I finally managed to track down the three leaders, they'll be trying to hire new people today closer to the docks. Got it?"

"If we run into any crime on the way, I'll take care of it and follow your scent to catch up when I'm done," Hebi recited what he had decided with her the previous day. She knew it was mostly because he didn't want her to have to face the people who tortured her again, but she didn't mind. She'd let him be overprotective in this case, she'd make sure she was there anyway. "The guys will probably strike out again, everyone they've been hiring so far has been taken down by you. People will not be very enthusiastic about joining a group that has the Devil's eyes on them so closely. You know, proverbially anyway."

"Hebi," Matt warned, but she could tell he was trying not to smirk. Blind jokes were their thing.

"You do realize that if I make any friends in school and you meet them, the whole 'Justice is blind' thing is going to be the first thing I say about you, right?"

Daredevil just grunted, fully in Vigilante mode and not nearly as laid back as Matthew Murdock. But Hebi had enough flexibility for both of them— both in the bend over backwards and flip a guy over her head with her feet way and in the I can be carefree while I'm kicking a criminal's ass way.

Half an hour later, Hebi found herself alone in an alleyway with three robbers and a terrified teenage couple beat up but conscious on the ground. One boy was holding the other carefully, both of the boys watching with wide eyes as Hebi slammed her foot into the nose of one of their attackers, followed by her fist in his windpipe. With him momentarily down, she turned and blocked a punch from one man as the last attacker tried to slice at her with a knife. She was about to slam her hand into his wrist to make him drop the blade, but an already-familiar string of webbing caught his hand before she could.

"This is really close to Central Park, aren't you Daredevil's sidekick or something? Shouldn't you be in Hell's Kitchen?" The voice of Spider-man asked as the red and blue vigilante jumped down and landed a solid kick to the chest of the guy whose wrist he had webbed. Hebi huffed in slight annoyance, landing three quick punches to her guy's chest and abdomen before slamming her palm into his face. He went down hard, and Hebi turned to the guy whose nose she had broken to land a kick to the back of his head that knocked him out.

"I'm not his sidekick. I'm his nanny," Hebi replied, keeping her voice a little softer than usual to try and mask it a little more casually than Matt and his gravel voice. "Daredevil has no self preservation, I need to be there to cover him and make sure he doesn't get himself killed. Also, I had this covered," She shook her head, taking a phone off of one robber before walking over to the two victims. "I'm gonna call nine-one-one for you, okay? I need you to stay calm, you're safe now," Hebi turned her head at the sound of thwip thwip thwip to see all three robbers cocooned in Spider-man's webbing. Steaming with slight jealousy, she dialed the emergency number and handed it to one boyfriend before standing up. Spider-man still hadn't left.

"Well?" Hebi asked, tilting her head at him. He shrugged.

"Still wondering what you're doing out this far. Maybe something big that you could use help with?"

Hebi felt her shoulders stiffen. "No," She said forcefully, stepping closer to him so that the victims wouldn't hear and get nervous again. She lowered her voice. "Hell no. Stay in Times square or over in Queens. You're strong, don't get me wrong, but you obviously don't have much formal combat training. Besides, this is personal," She clenched her jaw. "We're gonna wrap up the last of the Dryads, a group of kidnappers and mad scientists that experiment on orphaned kids," Spider-man's shock and disgust was nearly palpable. The guy had to learn to hide his emotions better, there was something seriously wrong when he was easy to read even though he had a full-face mask on. "I only hung back to take care of these guys. If you wanna help, make sure the crimes in this area are taken care of so that I don't get slowed down again. I have to catch up to double-D."

She turned, but Spider-man's hand on her shoulder stopped her for a second. "How personal?" He asked softly. She shook my head.

"Don't ask questions you don't want answered, Spidey," Hebi took that moment to slip out of his grip and run off, hopping between alley walls to get back onto the rooftops, where she then proceeded to follow Matt's scent to a smaller set of docks than the ones she had been taken to before.

Hebi could only reach the last rooftop before the docks, and growled in frustration at the sight of police lights. It looked like Matt got his wish after all; she only got a glimpse of the three balls of slime being herded into police cars, and none of the satisfaction of loading them with bruises.

Damn.

She decided to chalk half the blame on Spider-Man for stalling her with his chatter.

*—*—*—*—*

Another mess? Yeah. Should I even keep writing this? Maybe it will get better once she starts the School arc. I guess. We'll see. Blehhhh. Are you guys even enjoying this?

See you next chapter~