Sink or Swim - Interlude
Daniel Hebert was a man of many things.
Of successes, of failures, of beautiful women and dirty work, of a home and a half collapsed house, and, in the end, of regret and acceptance.
He hadn't told Taylor - she didn't need to know - but he'd stopped drinking, started going to therapy sessions himself, if less regularly than his daughter, and he'd started going to church again. It wasn't much, all told, but if nothing else then getting out of the house on Sundays was good for him, plus it gave his daughter room to work in peace.
In the end, he still wasn't sure if he believed.
Or if that mattered.
What was important was being there when his daughter needed him.
Something he'd already fucked up to the point he wondered if Annette would ever be able to forgive him.
Because his daughter swore up and down that she understood. That she had screwed up too. That it had been her choice not to bring things to his attention. She'd done everything she could to try and assuage his guilt because his baby girl was a good, kind human being.
"Just like her old man was almost a useless drunk."
Pulling on a glass of sweet tea, made the right way, he listened as Alexander flirted with a waitress only a few years younger than him and wondered if that would be ex wife number three in a few years.
A couple months ago he'd have had a beer with his burger.
And one when he came home.
Plus the one he'd have when he got off work.
All to top it off with another one before bed.
Sure, he didn't get blackout drunk and beat the crap out of his kid, but that didn't mean being a lingering, slowly fermenting sack of self pitying stupidity was good for anyone. And Taylor needed him - more than ever before, because there was no way in Hell anyone was ready for sudden, random superpowers.
"Hell, she needed me when Annette died."
It helped that the Applebees was loud and that people were drinking and the televisions were blaring. Amusingly enough, places like this were one of the few locations he could think of since his words didn't go further than his plate. After all, a shrink was there to fix him, to make him functional, it was moments like this where he could actually try to figure out what he wanted to do.
Step one was cutting out the booze.
Step two was breaking his bad habits.
Step three… was laughing when Alexander managed to get the woman's number and slapped in the face.
"So she's a keeper, huh?"
Glancing up, his friend gave him a half drunken grin as Kurt came meandering back over from the bathroom.
"Hey, don't get us kicked out of here. My wife knows I'm out with you guys and we've both agreed to pretend that everyone at least acts like we aren't teenagers anymore."
Clearly joking, the oldest of the trio clapped the youngest on the back as he sat down, turning to Danny and giving him a small smile too.
"By the way, did you speak to Taylor about coming over for a game night or something? The oldest are back in college and the youngest are having a sleepover, uh, next weekend. So it would just be me, Lacey, Sarah, and the two of you."
Shaking his head, the man with so many regrets took a moment to wipe his mouth.
"Sorry, it slipped my mind. You know she's got that, you know, project. It's kind of been eating up most of both of our free time, especially since she keeps sending me to pawn shops and the Boardwalk to pick up random junk." Danny snorted. "Not that I mind, I suppose. Who would've thought my kid was magic."
Surprisingly, it was Alexander that interjected.
"Course she is. We all told you she was smart, that she was gonna do something someday. Just like her mom, huh?" A drunken chuckle answered the man's own laugh. "Don't worry so much, she's gonna turn out fine."
"Maybe." He shrugged. "Maybe not. Annette was gonna be somebody before she married me you know?" Frowning, he fidgeted with his drink. "She ended being a teacher in Brockton Bay instead of Boston. I hope to God I'm not tying Taylor to this shithole of a city like I did her mother."
Grunting, he shook his head more forcefully.
"Forget that. I gotta watch what I say."
"You've gotta cut yourself some slack is what you need to do." Kurt clapped him on the back. "Listen, I know things got rough but they're getting better. You're getting better. Even Taylor, well, you should hear what some of the guys are saying." The larger man snorted. "They've practically decided she's a saint. Or a witch." Pausing, he shook his head. "At the very least they're in awe. Five hundred bucks and she can do anything."
Danny jerked his head.
"It's not a miracle cure. John's still going in for surgery and has chemo on top of that."
With an incredulous look, the oldest of the three friends barely managed to contain his credulity.
"Jesus Christ, Danny, she put hair back on his head with some kool aid. She cured two old bullet holes the Chechens poked in him, arthritis, a lifetime of damage from smoking cigars and drinking whiskey, fixed the holes being eaten in his liver, and even cured his tinnitus." The clearly dissenting man took a drink of his beer. "And between you and me, I spoke with Tommy earlier today, John was starting to, you know, slip up. Now though? He's sharp as a razor. Even getting a bit of muscle back on those old bones." Another drink and a shake of the head. "If there aren't some kind of horrific side effects a month down the road or something, I'd say you've got a miracle worker on your hands."
Went unsaid was just how dangerous such a thing could be. Not just in Brockton Bay, of course, but, perhaps, especially here. Tinkers always attracted attention, but a healing Tinker that could do what Taylor did? Well, even the PRT wasn't above gang pressing a vulnerable cape at times.
"I hear yah."
Danny nodded. He just wished he knew what to do.
"I wonder, I wonder."
Right now he was looking over his bank sheets - after all, he had a good deal of income and expenses to hide now. Flatly, getting caught on taxes would be an easy way for him, and Taylor, to end up being asked some very pointed questions.
"Doing everything in cash helps, but some of the bigger purchases cost me… maybe I could dip into the savings account? Smooth things out? Then I'd be able to let in a trickle of the cash income to help balance everything out."
Now that Taylor was earning her own money he no longer needed to support her tinkering.
'All it took was a week and six more vials of that Rubedo stuff.'
Three grand later, his "seed money", as his daughter insisted on calling, was repaid. And then some. Which was another thing altogether.
"Who would've thought that four words could crush a man's pride so thoroughly."
They had been earnest, simple, and crushed him more surely than almost anything since Christmas break.
'I want to help.'
Swallowing, Danny crushed the desire to go buy a six pack and got back to pouring over his finances.
Again, making as many purchases as possible in cash helped, and he had picked up a thing or two about moving money around to help out the Union over the years, but the simple truth was that Taylor was making purchases that simply caught attention. Silver, outdated and modern chemistry equipment, certain chemicals and substances, and even just large quantities of pure water.
Sure, she hadn't exactly been getting a lot of it, in fact he'd only been in the hole about three grand, maybe a smidge more, but any quantity of materials with any kind of regularity and specificity would have to catch someone's eye.
"For now we can pick up what we need from the pawn shops. That much should be easy enough." Rapping his fingers against the table, he ran a hand through his thinning hair. "But that's for now. She's starting to burn through materials faster and she's going to need more. More space, more materials, more equipment."
To get to the crux of the matter, he didn't have the income, their house wasn't big enough, and there definitely wasn't enough room in the neighborhood to avoid trouble. And that meant he needed to find some way to make sure that his daughter wasn't conscripted by a gang or a dying federal organization.
'At least the gangs would be willing to pay her what she's worth.'
Grunting, he tried to pretend he didn't have that thought.
Money wasn't worth your soul.
"I guess I should speak with Taylor. Before I decide anything, she deserves to know what's going on and what I want to do."
Knocking on the basement door, he jogged down the steps, papers in hand, and found his daughter doing something that made him stand and stare.
There, in midair, was a twisting thread of water.
Moving like it was a living thing, the single contiguous strand, because that's what it truly looked like, a shimmering strand of silk, twisted itself into a dozen impossible shapes. Knots and loops and starburst and even a shimmering, coruscating rainbow when she had the liquid form a great sheet. Thinner than even a sheet of paper, the water formed a shell around a dim light bulb, a moving, flying rainbow took shape there in his basement.
Just looking at Taylor made him smile.
Because, there, smudged with reagents and with her hair slightly singed, she looked… happy. Enthralled even. As she explored an ability given to her and her alone, there was genuine delight in her eyes.
It almost broke his heart.
So much he couldn't bear to interrupt her.
Placing the stack of papers on a nearby table, he shook his head and climbed up the stairs. The last thing he saw was how his daughter had created a three layered set of stars that twisted and rotated within itself, moving the water with her mind even as sweat broke out on her brow.
Walking back upstairs, he fixed himself a glass of water, chuckling as he reflected on how quickly his daughter was changing.
Aside from a boost to her confidence, she had also started working out.
'Now if only she didn't want to run around the city in spandex.'
Shaking his head, he took a seat in his favorite chair and turned on the television.
Objectively, it was unfair to say that his daughter didn't have a plan. She was intelligent, had a power, and was driven. Truly, deeply driven. But that… didn't count for much. Plenty of people had everything she did and more, especially when it came to funding, and they screwed up.
If they were lucky.
If they weren't, well, hopefully they just died.
The simple truth was that there were many, many things that could happen to a new cape. And his daughter just didn't have the kind of power that made people stand up and pay attention in a "don't fuck with me" kind of way. In fact, she was kind of rather poorly positioned as both a Tinker and a healer. So, he that's why he was going over his finances again.
"At the end of the day, the best thing for Taylor is going to be a brand name."
Someone with lots of money and lawyers and the kind of influence that made the gangs leave her alone. Gangs, in this case, including the PRT. That way his daughter would be free to explore her powers, could make more than a living off of them, and he wouldn't have to worry about getting a call to identify her body.
Closing his eyes, Danny tried to forget that particular nightmare.
Tried to forget how he knew what it looked like when Hookwolf broke someone.
And how easily he could imagine that happening to his baby.
