There didn't seem to be too much Taylor could do in the basement while her spiders worked on the costume.

Once she had finished tidying up it was pretty much time for lunch, so she left her spiders working while she ate, before returning to the basement.

As they finished lunch, her dad had given her a strict limit for how long she could spend working on the basement before coming back up, so the inability to do anything herself while her spiders were working was irritating.

What stopped her doing anything productive?

For one thing, while she was able to identify useful parts to Tinker with she wasn't able to identify what to make with them.

Or rather she could cone up with ideas, but they were just too small and fiddly for her to assemble.

Things like tools for her swarm to use, a force multiplier for the limits of insect control as a power.

After all, her range was limited enough that she would have to be in the area, but so far she hadn't seen any signs of possessing powers useful in combat.

No, she would have to rely on her insects to fight.

The second problem was having to let the spiders crawl over her, to measure her for the costume in the most useful manner.

While she could direct the spiders as they worked, there wasn't any 'proceed for thirty centimeters' option, they didn't have any concept of centimeters.

Instead it came down to body lengths, which were different for each spider.

Obvious solution; assign a 'lead' spider who would get the lengths right.

Except when the spiders ran low on silk (something she hadn't thought about until she started to notice spiders leaving the work) they needed to be replaced.

And so whenever the 'lead' spider swapped out, she would need the fresh replacement to first measure her and then the costume so far, before taking charge of the weaving.

It was nearly time for her to head upstairs and she didn't even have an arm finished yet!

(Hopefully the spiders would be able to attach the separate pieces together properly once they were finished, otherwise her idea to have them make a start on a second arm while she was upstairs would be wasted. As would her progress so far.)

And then there was the problem of keeping her costume hidden and safe.

She couldn't hide the parts she was working on or replicating, at least not without wasting time when the spiders could be doing more work, but when they were finished she needed some means of protecting the costume beyond just hoping nobody came into the basement.

For a moment she considered telling her dad, letting him know about having powers and her intention to be a hero, but shied away.

He was already worried about her, about losing her somehow, even without her going out to face the gangs and villains

If she said anything, he would only try to stop her.

Or, in the best case, make her join the Wards.

Something twisted inside her at the very thought.

The Wards were simply the junior branch of the PRT and Protectorate, members of a group that had failed the city and allowed so much pain and suffering.

If they had done their jobs, then he-

Taylor shook her head to try and clear it.

The PRT hadn't done a good job in the city, as demonstrated by the literal Nazi gang, but something about her emotions just then was personal, and the closest to the PRT failing her personally was the museum attack, as far as she could remember.

And it wasn't as though she was close enough to anyone at the school or museum to be strongly affected by what happened to them, even if she had been told.

So why would…

"Taylor," her dad called from upstairs, prompting the realisation that she had let the time get away from her.

"Coming," she called back, waving off the spider currently measuring her wrist size and mentally instructing them to start work on the left arm.

It was important to spend the time she could with her father.

{}

"That should be everything we need for our next offensive," Bakuda stated, about as happily as she ever sounded. "Even if some of the materials were unusable."

"Shall I deal with the waste?"

"No, I'll check on them. I have a few ideas where substandard parts won't be such an issue," Bakuda declared, as though she hadn't made it clear that she would only use the best quality materials in her work.

There was the possibility, Hibiki considered, that Bakuda was trying to ensure she couldn't salvage parts to Tinker with without permission, which was certainly something she wouldn't risk doing.

Even if making sure every part that could be used was used somewhere could only be a good thing.

"I thought you said the crystal was cracked and unusable," Bakudas voice stated, dangerously calm.

"Indeed," Hibiki answered.

"Then how do you explain this?"

The crystal Bakuda was holding looked like the one Hibiki had discarded, but with one major difference.

The crack that had run completely through it, making sure it couldn't be used for anything without risking catastrophic failure, was practically gone.

There was a crack still, sure, but this one was well within the margins Bakuda had (ever so reluctantly) given them (when Lung made it clear that she wouldn't be getting replacements for damaged components and they would have to nake do).

"I… don't know. Maybe… the lights made it look worse than it is?"

It was the only thing Hibiki could think of to explain the difference.

The only other possibility would be if the crystal had healed since she discarded it.

"'looked worse than it is'," Bakuda mocked. "I think what happened is much simpler. You saw a chance to get some spare parts and diverted the materials. You even got the others to help you. How else do you explain these," she pulled out other components that didn't look damaged enough to be discarded, before hurling them all back onto the tray.

Hibiki couldn't help but flinch back at the sound of the crystal shattering and other parts breaking.

"Well fine, there you go," Bakuda stated in a falsely cheerful manner. "Feel free to take all of these broken parts and make something useful from them. I'll be sure to tell Lung about how it's the best you can possibly make with your Tinkering skills. Oh no," she interrupted Hibiki moving towards the workbench, "I didn't say you could work in here. Take it back to your bedroom. You can work in there until you have something to show us."

At first glance it might have appeared a generous offer, letting her work on getting the parts into a workable state to make something useful for as long as she wanted, but she had spent long enough around Bakuda to know better.

At most she would have about three days.

"May I leave my room for the bathroom while I am working?"

"Fine," Bakuda dismissed with a wave of her hand. "I don't want it to be unhygienic as well as worthless."

Hibiki bowed and left, taking the tray with her.

If she was lucky some of the components would be salvageable, and she still had the remains of her clock and alarm to cannibalise for whatever she was going to make.

The lack of tools could be a problem, but at least she finally had a chance to prove herself to Bakuda.

{}

"So, how is work going?"

It wasn't much of an opening, but her dad hadn't said anything much since he called Taylor up, and the silence was starting to wear thin.

"Better than usual," he admitted, glancing up from a newspaper he was reading.

"Go on," Taylor hinted.

"There was a lot of damage from… a few days ago," he continued slowly. "It's in one of the better parts of town, so the mayors office wants it fixed as soon as possible. There's too much for their work crews to deal with all at once so… do you really want to hear all this?"

"No," Taylor admitted freely, "but if we're here, we might as well talk, right? Otherwise what's the point in being here."

"What do you mean?"

"If we aren't going to talk, why are we even sitting here? If you want to just read the paper, what's wrong with me working on the basement more, or reading in my room?"

She tried to keep her voice non-confrontational, just trying to get an answer.

This was part of the reason their relationship was so bad, they just didn't talk anymore.

It took a moment for her dad to process what she was saying, and another to breathe deeply and let out the anger that had been driving them towards an argument.

"I… I'm sorry," he finally stated. "I just… I'm not sure how… without Annette…"

"It's hard for me too," Taylor reminded him. "But that doesn't mean we should stop trying."

"I am trying, that's why we're here now…"

"But we are aren't doing anything. Not even talking."

He sighed, taking a moment to consider.

"If we lost the habit of talking, we need something more… how about a family game night?"

"Does it really count as a family night with just the two of us?"

The words slipped out before Taylor could stop them.

"Well, we could have Emma over when she gets out of the hospital," he suggested, clearly taking her comment as a joke.

"Yeah," Taylor responded slowly. "About that…"

{}

Hibikis first self-imposed task upon reaching her room had been to clear a space to work and set the tray of broken components to the side of that space.

The second had been to search for anything she could use as a makeshift tool.

A set of tweezers and a nail file found their way to her workspace at this point.

A welding torch or soldering iron was obviously too much to ask, even in the house of multiple Tinkers, so she would have to make do without.

It was only when she had everything else prepared that she brought her clock and failed alarm over to the workspace to disassemble.

It soon became clear why the alarm had stopped.

Every single wire had either broken or disconnected from the terminals they were supposed to be attached to.

Which at least meant the more important parts had a chance to be intact.

So, available parts for what was potentially her final Tinker project; one clock sans alarm, the parts a Tinker needed to make a replacement alarm, and whatever she could salvage from the ruined components Bakuda had given her.

She looked at the tray, to try and see what there was, only for her breath to catch in her mouth.

Hibiki reached into the tray, and removed the piezoelectric crystal.

It wasn't exactly in good shape.

In fact it was in a worse state than when she had first seen it.

A deep network of cracks ran all the way through it,

Despite the fact it had been reduced to shards before her eyes.

"The crystal… healed?"

She looked through the other components, none of which had been in a bad enough state to be discarded when Bakuda went through them.

There was still damage from when Bakuda was giving her the impossible task, but nowhere as bad as it had been when she took them upatairs.

"Everything healed?"

How could that work?

The only Capes with access to the components were Bakuda, a Tinker.

And… her.

A smile appeared on Hibikis face.

"So, I can heal components? That should make my Tinkering much easier…"

AN: To be clear about the contents of last chapters authors note, it wasn't that I was too busy, rather that it was physically possible to enter the room with my computer in despite having the chapter ready to go. At least this time it was just being on holiday that delayed releasing the chapter.