Side-Step DH
Taylor spent most of the day after the battle moping. She often did when her plans didn't go exactly the way she wanted. The news mostly focused on the "biggest single arrest in Brockton Bay history." Danny struggled at first to fully comprehend the scope of it. Nearly two hundred men, and a handful of women, arrested in one day. He hadn't seen arrests that big since Marquis' gang broke up, and his gang turned Captain's Hill into a wasteland when that happened. He still remembered Annette staying home with Taylor. She didn't want her leaving the house with all the shooting that followed New Wave's arrest of the city's genteel crime lord.
Taylor's big arrest didn't come with bullets flying, but Danny recognized some of the talk. A few reporters even said the ABB were doomed. He doubted it, but they weren't completely wrong. A gang is a gang because it has members. Lung couldn't run his crime empire without the men Taylor got arrested. He remained free, which worried Danny, but he lost his hold on the Docks overnight. He might never get it back.
That was probably Taylor's plan. Steal Lung's manpower, and he's just a cape. A big, scary, cape who can cook people alive, but just a cape.
Danny's feelings as the news rolled in were mixed. Pride, to be sure. His little girl had done more for Brockton Bay in six months than the PRT and Protectorate did in years. The last time he felt so optimistic was when New Wave arrested Marquis. Of course, that didn't last, and that's where the fear came in. Most of the city's worst villains remained free and they definitely didn't like Taylor right now.
All the more reason to stay focused.
Despite that monumental success, Taylor seemed unsatisfied. Something about the Undersiders, Danny didn't know exactly what. Sometimes he didn't understand why Taylor didn't go right after them. She seemed to have a real grudge against Tattletale, and Heberts knew how to hold a grudge.
A fact his daughter's continuing distance hammered home. She'd softened up slightly, but they'd yet to really reach forgiveness. If Danny could take back what he did, he probably would. Yet, he didn't quite feel guilty. Taylor needed help, whether she liked it or not. Really, he lamented that things backfired so spectacularly more than anything. He'd underestimated the damage done by Emma's betrayal, and how deep Taylor's paranoia and fear of it happening again went.
She opened herself up to being hurt again. Not just to him, but to Lafter, Dinah, and even Veda. She'd opened herself up, and he'd managed to bungle that trust entirely.
Sorry Annette.
He didn't have the luxury of breaking down. Not again. Life doesn't prepare anyone to be a parent, and it's even worse when the kid turns out to be a cape obsessed with keeping everyone else safe at her own expense.
He'd never be able to stop her.
Things needed to move along to keep her safe. Safer, at least.
The Union building seemed as good a place as any for the conversation. Kati couldn't exactly come to the house, and she insisted that a teenage tinker is still a teenager. Taylor needed her space, and her workshop and factory was that space. A place where she had complete control, good for when she needed to be confident and firm but bad for convincing her of uncomfortable truths. Danny warned Kati Taylor might not react well to having someone suggest she do things, but Kati seemed ready to push forward.
Danny made sure to cover for everything.
He set one of the conference rooms aside – the one without windows - and kept everyone away from that part of the building. The Union warehouse needed a full inventory anyway, so no one needed to be remotely within earshot of the conversation.
After a quick check of the halls, Danny was certain he'd successfully cleared out the building and closed the door.
"It should be alright," he said. "It's just us." Just in case Taylor started screaming.
"Good," Taylor said. She pulled her mask off her face, and snapped at him. "Then you can explain why the fuck you're telling people who I am! It's bad enough people keep figuring it out, the very thing I'm trying to prevent, and you just went and told her!?"
She stabbed her finger at Kati.
Sometimes Danny wished Taylor inherited Annette's temperament instead of his.
"Believe it or not," Kati said, "we have met before."
Taylor turned to face her, clearly angrier at Danny than Kati.
Good, he thought.
Kati sat on one of the old folding chairs, legs crossed. Taylor stood across the table, Green and Orange sitting between the two women.
"I knew your mother," Kati said. "We met at a Feminist Youth conference in '97."
"The organizers mixed their pictures up," Danny said quickly. He poked a finger at his chest. "On their name tags."
Taylor started to glare at him, but froze.
Kati Mannequin wasn't Annette. They weren't even related, but the resemblance was striking between the two tall women with thin builds, long brown hair, and glasses. Their faces looked fairly different, but not so much people couldn't mistake one for the other. Danny remembered mistaking Kati for Annette once himself. From behind it's quite difficult to tell- was, quite difficult to tell them apart.
It's a weird basis for a friendship, but Taylor certainly didn't meet Lafter or Dinah in conventional ways. Her friendship with Emma started after she made a few boys cry for picking on Emma's red hair. Contrary to the popular saying, sometimes you just don't choose your friends. You stumble into them.
Taylor hadn't noticed. Maybe she simply knew Annette better than he did, or maybe she'd already forgotten her face. She didn't keep any pictures of her mother in her room, and Danny hadn't looked at any in a while.
It became too easy to not look at the photos after a time.
"We were both followers of Lustrum," Kati said. "Her here in Brockton Bay, and me at George Mason."
Taylor raised her brow.
He'd seen the reaction before. How Taylor readily switched moods from focused, to angry, to confused, to suspicious. She followed the pattern with disturbing consistency. It's not how she used to be.
"Lustrum was a Brockton cape," Taylor said.
"Lustrum was a charismatic cape," Kati answered. "She garnered followers across the country, including me." Kati smiled a small smile, and closed her eyes. "I won't lie and say your mother and I were particularly close, but we stayed in touch after that humorous little mix up. I saw you about eight months after you were born. I came here with a dozen others right after Lustrum's arrest and you were with your mother on campus. So, while you and I don't really know one another, we're not exactly strangers."
Taylor mulled over the words.
She'd asked about Lustrum not that long ago. Honestly, Danny didn't really know much. Annette never liked speaking about it, except to insist that Lustrum was her friend, and she never wanted anyone to get hurt. He'd always assumed that meant Annette didn't want anyone to get hurt. She'd always been a bit of a pacifist.
More recently though, Danny wondered if she really meant Lustrum didn't want anyone to get hurt.
"That's not the point," Taylor said firmly. "It's my identity. He has no right to tell anyone."
"I forced it out of him," Kati said.
Taylor scoffed. "Bullshit."
There was a time seeing her curse would shock him. Amazing how quickly priorities can change.
Danny braced himself for the fallout this time. He'd been unprepared for Taylor to react so strongly to 'surprise therapy,' but he'd put more thought and preparation into Kati. Taking a page from his daughter, he liked to think. Always have a plan.
Taylor changed because of what Emma did. She'd become more focused, determined. She'd also become more reclusive and quiet. The motormouth child she'd been before Annette's death had vanished in the blink of an eye, and Danny didn't know how he let himself miss it. Spilled milk. The old Taylor might not have struggled to talk to other people, but now?
Taylor needed someone to help her talk to people now. Danny knew firsthand how bad talk and an inability to keep up with the news cycle slowly killed Unions in America. The Dockworkers remained strong in a way, but they'd been a much larger institution in Taylor's grandfather's time. Unions lost public support, and while a lot of that was their own doing they'd failed to properly manage their image and relations. People lost trust and the Unions lost support. Lustrum's movement suffered a similar fate in its own way.
That couldn't be allowed to happen again. Not with Taylor.
She needed someone, and she needed them now. If Danny needed to take the heat off Kati, he'd do it.
Danny pushed his hands into his pocket, being sure not to look unashamed. If Taylor needed to funnel her frustrations toward someone, better him than Kati. Taylor needed Kati more than she needed him.
"Do you know why Lustrum went to the Birdcage?" Kati asked.
"Because of knives and crotches," Taylor replied.
Kati's eyes narrowed.
"Because Lustrum was a coward," she said.
Taylor's jaw slackened, and Danny turned his head a little. Kati hadn't exactly told him how she planned to approach this meeting. She only said she wanted to impress on Taylor the importance of being 'honest.'
"People become disturbed when relative unknowns emerge suddenly and upset the status quo," Kati said. "Lustrum didn't go to the worst prison on Earth because some of her followers went too far. She went to prison because she amassed too many followers, too quickly. When I was your age Feminism was going through its most fervent revival since beatniks and hippies, and Lustrum became the center of it."
"When I was young, I thought it came from humility. Now, I know she simply never set out to be the figure she became. Lustrum didn't want to be a leader, she wanted to be an inspirer. It's easier that way. More freedom to be a firebrand, and less responsibility once the flames begin to burn. She refused to take ownership of the movement she helped create, and the belief she engendered in others. She couldn't be honest with herself, and because of that the rest of us couldn't be honest with ourselves, or her."
Kati narrowed her eyes.
"Your father came to me, but I told Danny my job is to tell the truth. To present the things that matter to people living in a world that moves far too quickly. I won't tell the truth for anyone who can't tell it to me, or themselves. So yes, Danny told me about you. That was my price for getting involved."
Taylor went through her pattern again. Focus, anger, confusion, suspicion.
"And what's in it for you?" She asked.
"A chance to help my friend," Kati said. "Posthumously, though it may be. And if you need a selfish reason to believe me, let's just say I want to get it right this time."
"Get it right?" Veda asked, from Green.
"Lustrum tried to change the world," Kati said. "She failed, because she couldn't cope with how successful she became. She didn't take the reins when they were offered. She didn't watch her words carefully enough. She didn't fight the things other people said against her. She blinded herself to how deranged her own inner circle became. That's why your mother left. She saw it before any of us. Lustrum's failure to lead responsibly and honestly doomed her."
Kati rose from the table.
"You're trying to change the world, aren't you, Taylor? You don't have to tell me. I can see it, but not everyone can. To some people you're just a loose cannon making waves and we need to tackle that now before it becomes a real problem."
Danny didn't wait to see how his daughter reacted. He saw the acceptance on her face. The passing of suspicion into acceptance. She'd put up a stubborn front for a while, but she'd made up her mind already.
It was done.
"If it helps," Kati offered, "think of this as nothing more than advice from someone who tried and failed."
Danny slipped out of the room and left them to talk. He busied himself with paperwork and the day to day affairs of the Union for a time. Before he did it to forget Annette. Now he did it to avoid thinking himself into circles about Taylor.
It's disturbing how easy it is not to think about the things that hurt the most.
Lustrum.
Danny remembered, not that he thought about it much.
Some of the first capes to make national news were women. Armsmaster, Hero, and Legend existed too, but looking back it did surprise him just how many of the first capes were women. Alexandria was one, and Narwhal. Most of the first Wards were girls too, though he only really remembered Miss Militia and Mouse Protector from their number. A few of them died over the past fifteen or so years.
He never paid much mind to how capes got their powers until Taylor got hers. They called them 'trigger events.' Murrue explained it in a bit more detail when Danny asked. He thought Annette might have known about it all those years ago. Thinking back, maybe a lot of people did.
And maybe someone didn't want anyone to know.
He didn't say anything about it, because part of him thought it paranoid. Maybe Taylor got that from him too, but the thought nagged at him. Danny checked the stats, and most of the studies said the majority of capes were women by a good margin. Brockton Bay stood out in fact not just for how many capes it hosted for a city of its size, but how many of those capes were men. So, the thought kept nagging at him.
Not long after capes began appearing, women speaking out against abuse and inequality became more prominent. Lustrum emerged as the face of it, but there were so many. Nearly every girl on campus during his college years went to Feminist Youth meetings, even if they didn't join.
Is that just because women were becoming better educated and more politically active, or did it go deeper? Did the emergence of capes, women who suffered at the hands of tormentors and triggered as a result, cause all of it?
"I don't know," Murrue said. "Shadow Stalker should have known better. Of all people, capes should know the potential outcome of the abuse she put Taylor through."
"The school should have known," Danny said.
Murrue shook her head. "The PRT has gone to great pains to hide the mechanics of trigger events. We don't want people hurting themselves, or trying to trigger. Sometimes I think that's not the right decision, but it is the policy of the PRT right now. Regardless, Shadow Stalker absolutely should have known better. She triggered herself.
She triggered herself.
At the time, Danny only asked why Shadow Stalker would be such a monster. Murrue didn't know any more than he did, but he wondered if maybe she'd answered a different question entirely.
Did the PRT arrest Lustrum, because they feared the truth about triggers would get out if the movement kept going so strong? That all those women capes might become compelled to share their own experiences, the ones that gave them their powers? Is that the truth of what happened to a woman Annette swore up and down would never have encouraged the violence that precipitated her arrest?
The very idea made him more sympathetic to Taylor's steadfast refusal to join the Wards. People like Murrue and Jessica seemed honest in their desire to help, but Danny knew too well how little the rot at the top cared about the earnestness of the roots. The Union teaches you fast how cold the mental calculus at the top of society can be.
"Oh, Danny, you still here?"
Danny raised his head. Lacy, Kurt's wife slash volunteer secretary, poked her head into his office.
"It's getting late you know." She wore an understanding smile, and added, "You told me not to let you work through the night anymore. Taylor, remember?"
Danny forced a smile to his face.
"Right."
He checked the clock and started packing up.
"Everything okay?" Lacy asked. "Does Taylor need anyone of the preferable gender to talk to?"
Danny chuckled and shook his head. "No. No. She's doing alright. If anything, I'm the one struggling."
"They do grow up, don't they?"
"They do…" And when they do, you start to realize they won't need you forever.
Danny bid farewell to Lacy and let her finish locking the building up.
Taylor would probably sleep at the factory in her workshop. She didn't come to the house while she was angry, and if nothing else Danny appreciated it. If Taylor wanted to avoid him, then she wanted to avoid saying anything she couldn't take back.
It meant she still cared, right? She managed to forgive Murrue easily enough. The woman was earnest to a fault. Taylor probably found it easy to accept the whole therapy thing really wasn't her idea.
He'd been a bit bitter at first, but after having time to think decided it for the best.
Taylor found herself good friends. Dinah would stick by her side through hell, and Lafter too. Veda practically thought of her as a mother. He might have to give Trevor a shotgun speech, - he knew that look too well - but the boy seemed the right sort. They'd stick by her, he hoped. Be there for her in the ways he couldn't. Peers are important. The damage Emma did in a mere year and a half testified to that.
But Taylor needed people older than her, to help and guide her. She'd probably hate that though, but Danny remembered being young himself. Everyone young thinks on some level they can fix the broken things around them.
Murrue got Taylor access to the PRT. As much as Taylor didn't trust them, she needed someone in government who could help her in the worst situations. Kati knew how to talk to people, how to get them to see things in the best way. She learned to do it the hard way years ago. Both women between them probably knew a lot of the laws around capes too, and Taylor needed that. She still didn't know how treacherous legal waters could really be.
It's not something Danny could help with. Maybe he didn't have the right. He absorbed himself in his own grief when Annette died. Even after Alan fucking Barnes of all people got him to stop drinking himself into an early grave, he still abandoned his daughter to the wolves. If he'd been a better protector she might not need Murrue and Kati in the first place.
So Danny would do what he needed to do, and if Taylor hated him in the end, so be it.
You have to be alive to hate.
Danny went to Tommy's.
Tommy, of Tommy's fame, greeted him as he sat down.
"Usual?" He asked.
Danny nodded and settled in.
He stopped going to trashy bars after Taylor told him about her powers. A place that let anyone drink and drink well past the point of reason? Not a place he wanted to be, for his own good. Tommy's was a classier sort of sports bar, and more expensive, but the bartenders maintained high standards. They cut patrons off well before things got out of hand and kept bouncers around to enforce it.
It also happened to be close to the PRT building. A decent place to be if anything ever happened to Taylor. He'd be able to get to the building quickly and find Murrue, or someone, who could point him where to go.
Taylor still told him before she did anything really dangerous. Tonight she planned to catch up on her tinkering. Safe enough. He'd have a few drinks and then take the bus home.
"Flatterer." The woman shook her head and pulled out her ID. "I'm not that young."
Tommy smiled. "Give yourself more credit miss."
To her credit, she did look young. Short, with soft features, and long brown hair. Definitely an adult, but Danny could see someone wanting to be careful. Getting slapped with fines for handing alcohol to minors can kill a business in Brockton Bay. He doubted even Tommy's operated on a wide enough margin to chance even small fines.
The woman got her drink and downed it with impressive speed. She must have noticed him staring, because her face turned red and she apologized.
"Rough day?" Danny asked.
She sighed and asked Tommy for another. "Isn't it always?"
"Kids?"
"How can you tell?"
Danny raised his glass and smiled. "Experience."
Maybe it was the drinks, or maybe she just really wanted to talk to someone.
The woman shook her head. "She's not even my kid."
Danny understood the feeling. Nothing makes a parent want to talk about someone else's children like having a cape for a daughter.
"Oh?" He asked.
"She fell in with a bad crowd," she said. "I did too, once. Now I'm sticking my neck out to help her." She raised her head, looking past Danny. She laughed lightly, saying, "blame her."
Her? Danny turned his head, looking at one of the TV screens over the bar at the far end.
A news station, showing Astraea flying over the city.
"Newtype?"
"Yeah, Newtype." The woman raised her glass and drank it.
Danny narrowed his eyes, but smoothed over his features before looking back at her.
Did someone figure it out? He didn't see anyone at the bar watching him. A few watched her, but she was a pretty woman in her twenties in tight pants, so that's par for the course.
"Do you know her?" Danny asked.
"No," she said quickly. "But she has a way of making you feel bad for being selfish. So here I am, burning my own eyes out negotiating with some heartless paper pushers to save the little brat from herself. No offense if you're a paper pusher."
Danny smiled. "None taken." He did push a lot of paper, but he thought of himself as a Union man more than anything.
He watched her, and the bar, for a while longer before accepting the coincidence.
That's his little girl, inspiring people to act selflessly.
He wished she'd think more about herself, something the past twenty-four hours reinforced in his mind.
She told him that she wanted to make a show of force. She wanted to beat the gangs openly, for everyone to see. Silence the naysayers who called her lucky, or who pointed out she ran away from cape fights. She wanted to make a statement that attacking her directly would never work. Forecast would see it coming, and she'd win. If she caught all the foot soldiers while doing that, there'd never be a gang war. She'd be safer then, she said.
So she said.
Despite Taylor's justifications, Danny saw what she'd really done.
Capturing all those gangbangers didn't make Taylor any safer. Not one of those gun toting hoodlums posed a real threat to her. With a Gundam enclosing her body they might as well be using sling shots. It's the capes who threatened her. Capes like Hookwolf, Kaiser, Krieg, Oni Lee and Lung. They were the ones who might be able to break her armor, or confine her in a way that another cape could. Yet, Taylor settled for beating them, and focused on the common hoods with guns.
Super villains without petty criminals weren't a gang, they were just cape teams. Those capes Taylor didn't catch might be able to do damage and hurt people, but they couldn't wage a war to control the streets. They could attack Taylor and go after her, try to hurt her or kill her, but they couldn't sell their drugs or run their gambling parlors. The men Kaiser and Lung needed to do that all got arrested in one fell swoop. They would never be able to shoot up a store, mug a passerby, or kidnap some poor girl and force her into a brothel ever again.
The capes who remained free had every reason to go after Newtype, rather than pick a fight with each other in the streets. But their hold on the city ended when Taylor got most of their goons put away. Taylor let the capes get away, and she caught the rest because it kept everyone else safer. She did it at her own expense.
Danny couldn't help the bitter smile on his face.
All the more reason Taylor needed people like Murrue and Kati more than she needed him.
She'd set herself on the hardest path, the one where she chose to put the target on her own back to protect everyone else.
And she'd never change. Too much of her mother's passion and her father's stubbornness. Maybe that's why he did what he did. The frustration and fear that came with that realization… It never stopped. Every moment of every day he felt it. Once he'd considered sitting Taylor down and telling her.
He didn't.
He couldn't put that on her. She had enough on her mind without saddling her with her poor father's poor feelings.
"You okay?" The woman asked.
"Children." He wanted to change the subject before any ideas might form. "They grow up, and you end up wondering when it happened and what you're supposed to do." Realizing he hadn't done it yet, he raised his glass. "Danny."
The woman gave him a reserved smile. "Kayden."
This chapter will likely be changed in the future. It hasn't aged well and a lot of better things could have been done with it.
