Alt-power AU: Cut Free
Author's Note: This is a follow-up one-shot set immediately after the events of 'Cut Loose', a previous one-shot you'll want to read first if you haven't already.
Miss Militia had a secret. This secret was kept from her friends and coworkers as well as the general public, though she didn't try that hard to keep it.
Despite what one might assume, she did not own a motorcycle in her civilian identity, though she knew how to use one. Neither did she own a truck in red, white, or blue. Or any color of truck at all. Or a Jeep, or any other vehicle the public might associate with her patriotic persona.
In truth, her vehicle of choice was a pale blue minivan with a scratch all along the left side. That was the vehicle parked in her designated spot in the apartment complex she called home. It was the vehicle she used to buy groceries and otherwise go about her daily life on the rare occasion that she was home and out of costume long enough to need to do such things. It was hers, and she had no other.
She was not ashamed of her van; far from it. She had bought it upon graduating from the Wards, and it served her needs perfectly. Plenty of space in the back, large, surprisingly reliable, and easily maintained, all while keeping a low profile.
But if Assault ever found out he would be insufferable for a solid month, so nobody who knew her as Miss Militia knew the van was hers.
Or, such had been the case a week ago. Really, with how disoriented and shell shocked a certain someone had been upon first riding in her van, it was feasible nobody who knew Miss Militia knew she drove a van until today. But one person definitely knew now, and Miss Militia, Hannah out of costume, expected the contradiction to provoke a response any minute now.
She glanced at the rearview mirror as she drove, first checking behind the van and then looking slightly down to check on the one-armed girl sitting in the very back seat.
Taylor looked like she had recently recovered from a truly terrible trip to the beach, the kind one only saw in unrealistic movies featuring a combination of third-degree sunburns and a shark attack. Her skin was tender and tinged with a raw redness, newly grown in to replace the skin burned beyond recovery by Bakuda's steam-based bomb. Her left arm ended halfway down the bicep, healed over but incomplete, a compromise stemming from Panacea's 'good enough' rushed job in the aftermath of said bombings. Dark circles ran under her eyes, a product of sleepless nights and grief.
And yet… Her hair was clean and her clothing was new. The stump that remained of her left arm was healthy and the skin capping it fully grown and no longer tender. She sat straight in the car, her remaining hand on her knee as she looked forward, toward the future.
Hannah returned her eyes to the road, watching the other cars carefully as she pulled around a long curve and merged onto the highway. She didn't need to see any more.
Taylor was beaten, but she was not broken. There was a difference. Even it might not feel that way to the girl herself. Not now. Not yet.
"Do you… Is this your car seat?" Taylor finally asked. She lifted her hand to point over the headrest at the garish red child's car seat strapped into the middle left seat of the van.
"No, it was there when I got the van from its previous owner," she admitted. "That was a long time ago, but at first I was too busy to care about getting it out, then I couldn't figure out why it wasn't coming out, then my friend Melissa pointed out that it was melted to the seat, and at that point I just stopped trying." The van had come cheap, cheap enough that she could afford it among all of the other necessary expenses of that time in her life. She suspected the car seat was one of the reasons it cost so little. It was nostalgic, now. Every time she saw it she remembered one frustrating but in retrospect hilarious afternoon.
She really needed to take some time – preferably some paid time off she had stockpiled, not this unpaid suspension that Piggot had her on now – and go see Melissa. It had been… years, actually. So long as she didn't count Endbringer battles.
"Oh." Taylor pulled her hand back.
"If all else fails, there are enough decade-old crumbs in it to sustain us for a while if we get stuck somewhere in the van," Hannah joked. "Do you like croutons?"
It took a moment, but Taylor smiled.
That was all Hannah could ask of her right now. A little bit of conversation, a smile or two. Maybe a laugh or a few minutes where she didn't forget, but could at least put aside the past.
Hannah was an expert on coping without forgetting. If she wasn't she wouldn't be here today. She was glad to finally be passing on all the kindness she had been shown by others in the past. As a hero she helped people, the often faceless and sometimes ungrateful mass of innocents and not-so-innocent bystanders, but it had been a long time since she helped anyone in a more personal way.
The shooting range, a tucked-away little place off the highway a few hours from Brockton Bay, was almost entirely empty when she and Taylor pulled up just after noon. She slid out of the driver's seat and pulled the van's sliding door open for Taylor, offering a hand for her to grip as she stepped down.
Taylor ignored her hand, hopping down and almost stumbling in the gravel. Hannah let that go without comment. She wouldn't have taken the offered help the first time, either. Not when she thought she could go without.
The shooting range consisted of a small log cabin, a few attendees, and a series of trails leading off into a forest of mixed seasonal and evergreen trees. Each trail, Hannah knew, would lead to a different range set in a manmade clearing. It all had a rustic feel to it, one that was a single gaudy deer skull or lumberjack ax in a stump away from overdone.
It was also secluded and did most of its business in the summer months, so it was perfect. She led Taylor up to the closest attendant and gave the name she had reserved a range under. Taylor lagged behind her, keeping in her shadow as the attendant directed her to the trail furthest to the left and ran through the basic safety rules.
"I think that guy was staring at me," Taylor said as they walked into the forest.
"He probably was," Hannah allowed. "And he probably wondered why I only had a pistol with me, and no spare ammunition. People don't usually come out here to shoot small guns." More likely he was wondering about the shy, one-armed girl he was directing to an expensive private shooting range, but her gun was also unusual.
"Isn't that going to be a problem?" Taylor asked. "If he suspects something…"
"He doesn't," Hannah assured her. They followed the trail around a large Oak tree and deeper into the forest. "In a week he'll have forgotten all about two unusual customers, if he even remembers for that long." Secret identities were important for capes, but new parahumans often obsessed over secrecy to the point where it was self-defeating. There was enough strangeness in the world that no normal person would suspect they were capes when there were alternative mundane explanations available.
They continued on in companionable silence until they reached the clearing. Knee-high stumps lined a long, straight clearing. On some stumps baseboards sporting paper targets were set up, some close and some far away. The ground was packed dirt, and off to the side a fire extinguisher and stack of replacement paper targets were set on a table alongside a water cooler.
Taylor stepped out onto the range, her hand trailing over the closest target as she walked further out. Her knife – a small, inconspicuous switchblade Hannah had lying around in her apartment, not the bloody blade she had been given by the Empire – dangled from between her fingers, there but mostly forgotten as she simply took in the sight.
Hannah willed her power – the weapon that never left her – to form a simple bolt-action rifle. "Ready to start?" she asked. "I was thinking you could show me what you can do."
Taylor jogged back to the front of the range, the firing line, and turned to stand beside her. "It's nothing special," she said seriously. "I just… cut."
She flicked her hand out, a lackadaisical gesture, and the switchblade swung loosely. A target halfway down the range sprouted a peeling swipe that dug into the paper and gouged much deeper into the baseboard behind it. No sound, no movement between the blade and the target, just sudden damage.
Hannah was forcibly reminded of a sniper rifle. Her power changed to match the memory, a long, sleek black weapon now held in her hands. "Does it cut like that every time?" she asked.
"Yes?" Taylor offered, sounding as if she didn't understand the question. "It cuts… I think as hard as I could if I was there."
"Harder," Hannah corrected. "Much harder." Taylor had barely swung the blade, but even from this distance she could tell the resulting gash was far too deep for a halfhearted swing. "That's impressive. How far can you go? And how accurate?"
Taylor took a step back, shrugged her shoulders, then stepped forward and swung. The furthest target rocked back despite being attached to its supporting stump, and the paper swung out to either side, cleanly bisected. The baseboard behind it looked one stiff breeze away from doing the same.
"Very impressive," Hannah said seriously. Taylor's power was lethal in the most literal sense, and her aim was, if not perfect, then not limited by such trivial things as having to swing directly at the target.
She wanted to explore Taylor's ability further, but she didn't want to be pushy. "Your aim is good, too," she said. "Want to see if that extends to things other than blades?"
Taylor offered her a tentative smile. "I'd like that?" She flicked the switchblade shut with surprising ease, then pushed her left shoulder forward in an aborted motion made all the more obvious by her sudden frown as she tried to pretend she hadn't just tried to use her left hand. "I mean…"
"I'll help you," Hannah said firmly. She willed her power to form a simple rifle once more. "Take it by the stock…" She guided Taylor through picking the gun up and stepped up behind her to help her hold it correctly.
She didn't think Taylor was going to care overmuch about really learning to use guns – with a power like the one she possessed it was almost entirely redundant to use such a weapon – but this? The teaching, the close contact, the moment? This would be good.
They shot through most of the afternoon, which would definitely make the attendant suspicious. Hannah couldn't care less. First had come the teaching, and all of the relevant safety instruction, then had come letting Taylor shoot with a variety of guns, and then she had demonstrated for Taylor…
Then they got creative and started really having fun with it.
"Ready?" she asked, flipping a stereotypical six-shooter around. Taylor was at her side, her knife out. "Three, two, one, go!"
Taylor jabbed her arm in and out, her knife a glint in the sun. Hannah fired as rapidly as she could aim, switching back and forth between close and long-range. Five seconds and they were both done. Five long, loud seconds, but only five.
Twelve paper targets were punctured, six with bullet holes and six with small stab marks. Eleven of the twelve marks were right through the bullseye.
The twelfth was unmistakable off-center, and it was a bullet hole.
Taylor didn't celebrate, not really – which made Hannah's heart hurt, and she made sure to congratulate her repeatedly – but it was undeniably the highlight of the day. After that they both messed around a little more, but the sun was getting low in the sky and they decided to head back.
"Thanks for this," Taylor said as Hannah pulled out of the parking lot. "I really enjoyed today."
"I did too," Hannah replied. "It's good to get out of the city every so often." Especially when the city was still a wreck trying desparately to recover from Bakuda's bombings.
"I haven't been out of Brockton Bay in… years," Taylor said quietly. "Since summer camp."
It was a window into Taylor's life before that which Hannah knew about, but she didn't take the opportunity. Not now. She wouldn't drag up the past. Instead… "Sleeping bag or mattress?"
"Mattress?" Taylor asked, nonplussed by the sudden change in topic. "Why? Is your couch–"
"Not that," Hannah assured her. "You can keep the couch." Really, if this was going to be long-term which it definitely was, she needed to be looking into buying a bed for the spare room. Her apartment was technically two-bedroom, but she didn't use the other for anything except as a storage space for her spare costume.
That could come later, though. Once Taylor was more used to living in her apartment. Hannah was wary of going too fast and tripping over some sort of deeply-rooted suspicion. Things getting better too fast, too suddenly… It wouldn't feel right, and that might cause problems. Especially as there were plausible reasons a member of the Protectorate might be trying to get in the good graces of a vulnerable new parahuman. Cynical, heartlessly pragmatic reasons, but possible reasons nonetheless.
It didn't help that Hannah was making this up as she went along, either. Taylor was not the her of times past, and she didn't know the girl's mind, so the best she could do was treat her carefully and considerately. She was mindful, always mindful, but not so much that she felt manipulative… It was a tough balance, but she didn't want to get it wrong.
"So…" Taylor trailed off.
"I was thinking that it was good to be out in the wilderness, but that it went by entirely too quickly," Hannah explained. "So, camping. I'm going to have to pick up supplies, but if you feel like it we can go in a few days. Spend some time out there, set up a tent, the full thing." More time in the wilderness, outside of Brockton Bay, felt like exactly the right move. Taylor had opened up today, let go a little, had some fun. They'd both had fun. More fun than sitting around in her apartment ever could be.
"I do," Taylor said quickly. "That sounds great. I think I'd like a sleeping bag."
This time there was no hesitation. No worry that she was imposing. That was progress.
"Hello?" Hannah pinned her phone between her ear and shoulder as she attempted to answer the call and push a heavy shopping cart around a display of mountain-climbing equipment at the same time.
"Are you in public?" the unmistakable voice of Armsmaster responded.
"Yes, but I can talk," she offered. If she had worries about being overheard she would have mentioned 'ignoring the background noise.' Alternatively, if she was somewhere truly private or in costume, she would have worked 'busy right now' into her response. As it was, he knew to be circumspect but not to the point of uselessness.
"Good. I forgive you. With that out of the way–"
"One second," she interrupted. A woman in ragged clothing brushed by her cart. "What are you forgiving me for?"
"For scraping the paint on my gauntlet with your bayonet," Armsmaster explained. "I forgive you. I've already fixed it."
"Right." Because that was why she had been suspended. Not because she'd scraped the paint by jabbing the blade between his armored fingers in a fit of justified rage at his actions. And then there was burning the table with her flamethrower, but he probably couldn't care less about that. By the sound of it he hardly cared about the threat inherent to her stabbing at his hand, either. "What brought this on?"
"It's better to address potential conflict within the workplace before it affects productivity," Armsmaster explained, sounding as if he was reading from a manual. "Also, your absence has been... trying," he added more genuinely. "The aftermath of Bakuda's rampage is far from dealt with. I went to the Director to protest your suspension this morning."
Hannah spotted a display of sleeping bags and steered her cart in that general direction. "You shouldn't have. I did the things she suspended me for."
"It was ill advised to suspend you in the aftermath of a city-wide disaster," Armsmaster countered.
"What's done is done." Brockton Bay would recover. The city didn't need her, it needed the same thing it always did. Resources on a broad scale, the one thing the rest of the Protectorate seemed unwilling to provide no matter how bad things got. "Do you actually need me for something urgent?"
"Not as such, no," Armsmaster admitted.
"Are the usual customers stirring up trouble only I can fix?" The last she heard, the Merchants and E88 were hunkered down in their territories, running damage control to try and come out having lost less than their enemies. Nobody wanted to be the first mole to pop their head up and risk getting whacked, either. "Or even just trouble you have to have additional bodies to handle?"
"No," Armsmaster answered.
Hannah took a moment to contemplate the various sizes and styles of sleeping bag on display. She liked the look of a pale green one for herself, but her preference between 'normal' and 'wide' was unclear. "Do you need me to do your paperwork?" she asked.
"It's slowing everything down," Armsmaster said without a hint of shame.
"Deal with it." She wasn't at work, she wasn't going back to work for several weeks thanks to the Director's orders, and she was not in the mood to tolerate Armsmaster's social inadequacies any longer. The man wasn't stupid, he knew exactly how he came across, he just didn't care enough to make an effort. Usually she found it amusing at best, mildly annoying at worst, but not now. Not when he was going to the effort of lobbying the Director to change her mind solely to have someone to push paperwork onto.
"I have been–" he began.
"Then deal with it without the whining," she advised. She hung up before he could retort.
At least she had confirmation that her absence wasn't tearing the city down. Brockton Bay could muddle along without her. For all that Piggot grasped at every cape within reach like a greedy child, one gunslinging superhero did not an effective deterrence make. Or break, for that matter.
She decided to buy the extra-wide sleeping bag, reasoning that she might need additional space for her power. She didn't expect to be sleeping in the bag, of course, but it would be silly to have one and go camping without using it.
And she was going camping, not running back to work to request Piggot let her pitch in. She'd promised, they only needed her for paperwork at the moment, and going back now would feel like losing an argument. She was justified in her actions, however rage-induced they may have been at the time, and until Shadow Stalker saw the consequences of her own actions she wasn't going back, suspension or not.
Hannah hoped Piggot was taking that particular threat seriously. She meant it. Really, she hoped that it would be a non-issue. Surely, a woman in charge of enforcing the law wouldn't knowingly, cynically stop the law from being carried out just to clutch at a small advantage.
Hannah tossed a normal-sized blue sleeping bag into the cart alongside her extra-wide green one. She was glad to be leaving that particular question to sit for a while. It could wait, just like Brockton Bay could wait. Neither needed her personal attention just yet.
Right now, the tent section of the sporting goods store needed her attention. Something that could be set up by two…
Hannah didn't realize she had made a mistake in choosing their tent until far too late.
The slate-gray skies had first opened up just as they pulled in to the campground, and she had harbored high hopes of having the tent up before they were soaked to the bone. In theory it would be easy. The tent she had chosen was a typical pyramid-shaped affair just big enough for two, and on the box it looked like it would take two minutes to assemble so long as they followed the clearly laid-out instruction. She and Taylor had approached the project with enthusiasm, rain notwithstanding.
Had approached with enthusiasm, going on twenty minutes ago. That enthusiasm was dead and buried now.
"Lift higher!" Hannah begged as she strained to hold a collapsible plastic rod up at the right angle. "Slide it in!" She could hold her side at any height necessary without strain, but she couldn't be on both sides of the tent at once.
"Lower your end!" Taylor demanded, a smoldering fire of frustration lighting her usually quiet voice. "I can't lift it any higher, you need to come down!"
"I can't go down, it's only an inch above the ground!" If the pole end went into the mud prematurely they were just going to have to pull it up again. Or so she thought, based on her shaky understanding of the graphic instructions printed on a piece of paper that was now thoroughly soaked and illegible.
Something dropped on Taylor's side, and then was forcefully hauled up again. "I'm going to cut this stupid tent to ribbons!" Taylor yelled as she heaved the pole. Back and forth, with far more anger than finesse, and something ripped–
The pole end thrust into the connector at just the right angle, and everything snapped into place at the top of the now slightly lopsided tent. Hannah blinked the rain out of her eyes, momentarily confused by the lack of pressure on the pole in her hands.
The one-two rhythm of Taylor growling incomprehensibly and a wet rubber mallet smacking into plastic pegs on the other side of the tent spurred her into action. She groped around in the muddy grass for the first of the pegs on her side, jammed it into the ground as far as it would go with her hand, then straightened up to stamp it down with her boot, no mallet necessary. One after the other, the remaining pegs met the same wet, violent fate.
She and Taylor converged at the front of the tent. They both dove for the zipped-up flap that offered protection from the rain. Taylor got there first but fumbled the zipper with her good hand, so Hannah ended up being the one to yank it down and around. She let Taylor crawl in first, then followed behind. The interior was cramped – maybe more than it was supposed to be, she wasn't sure – and smelled of plastic and rain, but it was dry. Blissfully dry.
Hannah zipped the flap up from the inside, then sat down across from Taylor, their knees almost touching. "We got it in the end," she offered.
Taylor frowned. "It was my fault we didn't get it to start with," she said.
"I probably should have thought about why the tents in the store all had a recommended minimum number of people to put them up, and whether we counted as two for that purpose," Hannah admitted. Taylor being down an arm made her much less effective at wrestling bulky and uncooperative tent poles, though that was only obvious in hindsight.
"Well…" Taylor glanced around them. "It's a stupid tent. Small, too."
"Yes, it is," Hannah agreed. "It was supposed to be big enough for two." And it was, if they set their sleeping bags out right next to each other. And didn't try to stand. Or roll over. She had seen less cramped broom closets.
"And I think it's crooked," Taylor added.
"It is." She smiled brightly at the sodden black-haired girl in front of her. "Want to spend the night in the van? There's room for a sleeping bag on the back seats."
Taylor deliberately looked around their tight confines, the walls of which were vibrating as the rain bounced off. She was probably thinking about the long trek back to where they had parked the van, and the muddy pits that must have formed in said trail by now. "No, this is fine."
"That it is." There was something to be said for the coziness of being safe from the rain. Their sleeping bags would be warm…
"What is it?" Taylor asked, having apparently seen the slowly dawning realization on her face.
"Did you grab the sleeping bags when we got out of the van?" she asked.
Taylor winced. "No?" she said in a small voice.
"Because I forgot the cooler," Hannah admitted. "I just took the tent."
"I was carrying the backpack," Taylor offered. "It's… out there. In the grass." Her face fell even further, though the backpack at least was easily retrievable.
This wasn't the greatest start to their camping trip, but Hannah refused to be discouraged. "At least the grass under the tent is soft." And the tent was warm. And she could go get the bag in a minute. It had water bottles and trail mix, enough to tide them over until the morning. Also among its contents were a book and a reading light, a necessity for her to get through the sleepless night in a small confined space, however cozy.
"I'll go get the backpack," Taylor offered.
"No, I've got it," she said.
"You're not… mad?" Taylor asked. "That I forgot to bring more stuff?"
Leaving aside the fact that it was as much Hannah's mistake as Taylor's, if not more so? "Not at all." She put her hand on Taylor's sodden knee. Water squished out of her jeans. "Really. Even if I was, I would get over it." They weren't just talking about the bag now, and they both knew it. "We're here, and it'll take more than an annoying tent or a disagreement or argument to ruin this."
"I didn't think you would be like that," Taylor mumbled, not meeting Hannah's gaze. "You're great. It's just…"
"I know." When everything else crumbled or disappeared, it was hard to trust that the newest good thing would last beyond the first inconvenience or setback. Especially when it relied on the goodwill of another, not something she could secure for herself. "I really do know."
Taylor looked up, and there was an unspoken question that Hannah decided she would answer. "Maybe not tonight, we want to salvage this and it would just sour the mood even further, but sometime soon I'll tell you a little bit about myself. We're not all that different." Different kinds of stress drove them to the edge, and Taylor's struggles as a cape were markedly different than Hannah's had been, but there was enough there that it resonated. "For now… Wish me luck."
It was time to retrieve a backpack. A little rain and a bad start weren't going to ruin this camping trip.
Their chosen campground, although soggy after the first night's torrential downpour, was a sight to behold in the morning. The trees dripped collected water down on the wet grass with every breeze, their trunks sodden and stained dark. The stream a few minutes walk away from their little tent was overflowing its banks, water rushing along in a mighty torrent. Birds chirped merrily, flocking down to the ground to pull worms from the dirt.
Hannah and Taylor ventured out to the van in the morning, retrieved the rest of their supplies, and set about making the most of their time in the forest. They were isolated, a fifteen minute walk and a ten minute drive from the nearest park ranger cabin, and in their borrowed nook of the woods they were alone.
This meant they could use their powers freely without worry of being seen. It didn't mean Hannah intended to. Not even for the most obvious use she could potentially put hers to.
"I assumed you would want to hunt," Taylor admitted as they walked along the stream's temporarily expanded banks later that day. She had brought up the idea out of curiosity and didn't seem to be for or against it. "You have a hunting rifle…"
"I have the weapon, and I know how to hunt," Hannah explained. "But I take no joy from it." Also, they didn't have the requisite hunting licenses, but that was a product of her disinterest, not an actual roadblock. If she had intended to hunt she would have acquired the necessary legal permission before now.
"I get that," Taylor said thoughtfully. "But it seems like we… should. It's what our powers do. I cut things."
"I shoot things," Hannah said. Her power formed a small pistol she held out for Taylor to see. "But that's not quite right, is it? I can shoot things. It doesn't mean I will. Or that I'll do so lethally, or that I'll shoot living things."
The obvious rejoinder – obvious to anyone with a parahuman power they had tried not to use, anyway – soon left Taylor's lips. "But you need to use your power," she objected. "Sometimes. It's not just me?"
"It's a well-known effect of powers, that you cannot help but use them eventually," Hannah confirmed. "That doesn't quite apply to what I'm saying, though. You use your power on wood or rocks and it feels good just the same as using it on people." She remembered that from the transcript of Taylor's… confession seemed like a condemnation. Ramblings, maybe.
"Felt best when I was using it on Lung," Taylor said reluctantly.
"It would," Hannah had to admit. This wasn't something she often talked about with anyone, but… "I find that I am more invigorated after using live rounds in combat, rather than less lethal alternatives like rubber bullets or beanbags." It was subtle, but the fights that stood out most in her memory were the rare occasions where she took the kid gloves off and put her full might against an opponent worth the effort.
"But you're a hero." It was a statement of fact, and Hannah had to smile at the conviction in Taylor's voice.
"What you do matters just as much as what you might be capable of," Hannah concluded. She leaned down to pick up a branch thrown up by the turbulent stream. "On that note… Have you tried woodcarving?"
Hannah sat on a weathered old tree stump, poking the slowly growing fire with a stick. She and Taylor had assembled a nice firepit and easily filled it with dead wood, and now the sun was setting while she tried to get the fire to a pleasant middle ground between roaring – but thankfully contained – inferno and smoldering coals. She had a whole collection of peppers and other vegetables for kebabs if she could get the fire to the right state for the cooking.
Taylor was not helping her with the fire. Instead, the one-armed girl was sitting with her knees up in the grass, a hefty chunk of wet wood clutched between her knees as she plied her knife's blade against the sides, trimming off shards of bark with simple flicks.
It was interesting, the way her power augmented her strokes even when her blade was touching the target. Hannah thought that Taylor's power had something to do with maximizing the effectiveness of her slashes, because she had yet to cut deeper or strike harder than she could theoretically do without a power if she gripped right and had the training to maximize the effectiveness of her strikes. She couldn't cut through a tree with a single slash, but she was right now cutting bark with clumsy movements that shouldn't have been at the right angle to correctly bite into the wood with such force.
Hannah had one eye on her charge and one on the flickering fire. The latter was more likely to need her intervention at any given moment, for all that the former was a moody teenager with a sharp object perilously close to her own body. Taylor had yet to unintentionally cut herself with her power. If not for having seen her cut her own arm off, Hannah would have wondered whether Taylor's power was Manton-limited to not work on her own body. As it was, she was probably just being careful right now.
In any case, she was obviously enjoying the task, so Hannah was loathe to interrupt her.
It was midnight, and Hannah was wrapped up in an interesting book. She lay on her side in her sleeping bag, her little book light clipped to the cover to provide pale yellow illumination to the words within. Her power currently rested in the form of a knife strapped to her hip, and Taylor was softly snoring beside her, ensconced in her own sleeping bag.
The book was good – though Hannah didn't understand why the author of a children's fantasy series about talking woodland creatures spent so much time describing food of all things – but it wasn't good enough to keep her from thinking about other things on occasion.
Such as the low snoring coming up from beside her. She wondered if Taylor always snored, or if it was something about her current sleeping predicament. She wondered if Taylor was going to need something for a sore throat in the morning.
She wondered when she had grown so attached to the teen she was sharing a tent with. Did it start when she took the girl home to her apartment to help her recover and soothe the many pains life had foisted upon her without mercy? Did it only begin after that, as she slipped into the role of a caretaker without much difficulty at all? Or had it started right at the beginning, digging her out of the rubble of a collapsed building and giving up her scarf to bind a self-inflicted wound?
Taylor was… Taylor. The things she did, how she acted, how she spoke, it made Hannah want to pull her close and protect her. There was wit and humor and intelligence and bravery there, all hidden behind a shell of traumatized sadness. She was old enough to fend for herself, but she shouldn't have to. And she didn't, not anymore, because Hannah had no intention of giving her up for anything. In a few years, maybe, when Taylor was an adult and ready to move on and go do her own thing, but until then?
Until then, she was Hannah's, and Hannah was going to make sure she was happy and cared for and counseled and listened to.
She returned to her book and the pages-long descriptions of puzzles, battles, and feasts filled with food she had never even heard of.
Hannah had seen many definitions of 'moderate' in her time, but never before had 'moderate' meant 'leave your frail and weak of heart behind, for the trail ahead doubles as a tutorial for rock-climbing.' What had started as a little packed-dirt path into the forest with a sign saying 'four miles, moderate difficulty' had quickly turned into scaling near-vertical rock ascents up into the sides of steep, forested hillsides. Up and down, over hills they could have easily walked around, and a fall would be painful at the very least.
Taylor was leading the way, and she was doing it despite her obvious handicap. She moved carefully but steadily, leaning into the steeply-sloped rocks that made up the path. Her hand went to each handhold in turn, and as the trail wasn't really rock-climbing in the technical sense it was slanted enough that she could take as much time as she needed to find her next two footholds before she removed her hand and found the next spot higher up to grasp.
Hannah was a little worried, but Taylor hadn't said a word about turning back and she would be lying if she claimed that she didn't want to finish the trail just to spite the inconsiderate sign-maker who mislabeled it. She kept behind Taylor, ready to catch her if she overbalanced and fell backward, and they persevered through the afternoon. Up one slope, down the narrow trails bordered on one side by sheer rock faces and on the other by long falls into thickly-forested slopes that more often than not terminated in rocks at the bottom. Over and over again, in a wide-sweeping loop that never seemed to end.
When they finally trudged back onto the main trail they had originally left, they were both sweaty and dusty. But Taylor was smiling a tired, triumphant smile, and Hannah knew she was doing the same.
They passed the original sign that had tricked them into taking on the challenge. Taylor paused there, and brought her knife out.
"Don't deface public property," Hannah cautioned.
"Is it defacing if I'm fixing it?" Taylor asked. She looked back at Hannah, her knife poised to cut into the board.
"You can add 'some rock-climbing required' under 'Moderate'," Hannah suggested. That wasn't defacement, not really. It was a public service. Someone could get hurt on a trail they weren't properly warned about.
"Good idea." Taylor started carving into the sign. "Hey… Can you make a paint gun?"
Hannah considered it. Her power formed a paintball rifle. "Sort of."
"Is it good enough to get inside my letters without painting the whole sign?" She was working quickly, two strokes for every straight line and one long drag for every curve.
Hannah fired a test round at a nearby tree. A red splotch of paint the size of her hand burst against its trunk. "No…" She plucked a leaf off a low-hanging branch and rubbed it across the wet paint, rolling it up into a crude brush. "But this should work."
Together, they fixed the sign to have a bright red warning, then went back to their tent for a late dinner and burnt marshmallows.
A week after their near-disastrous first night found Hannah and Taylor breaking down their tent, which was easy for one person to do on their own. Packing it in its little duffle bag was another problem, but Hannah took that task for herself as the one with two arms to wrestle the zipper together, while Taylor ferried their cooler and other supplies back to the van. They converged on the fire pit to kick dirt over the embers, then stamped on it for good measure, and then it was time for the last walk to the van.
"I'm looking forward to a proper shower," Hannah said as they got into the van. She clicked her seatbelt on and adjusted her mirrors, readying herself for the long drive back to Brockton Bay.
Her phone buzzed. She glanced down at it, charging innocuously from the cigarette lighter. She had left it in the van all week… She hadn't meant to keep it plugged in. Wasn't there something bad that could happen with things like this? She distinctly remembered hearing about a motorist who was stranded somewhere remote because his car battery died…
The van started without a problem, which was a relief. That possibly silly worry addressed, she picked her phone up and unlocked it.
Someone had tried to call her yesterday, just before noon, and then twice more that afternoon. The number was unfamiliar. More recently, Battery had texted her. 'You okay?'
'Perfectly fine,' she texted back. It was odd that Battery was contacting her at all; they didn't usually interact outside of work.
"I'm going to return a call before we get on the road," she told Taylor. "That okay?" They were both eager to get back to hot water and central heating, Taylor might not want to wait any longer than she had to.
"Yes, do it now," Taylor said fervently.
Hannah shot her a questioning glance in the rearview mirror.
"My mom died in a car accident involving a phone," Taylor admitted.
A week ago Taylor probably wouldn't have volunteered that information. "I appreciate you letting me know," Hannah assured her. "I don't use my phone while driving." For emphasis, she turned the key and shut the van off.
Taylor smiled widely at her. She smiled back, then hit 'return call' and put the phone to her ear. It rang twice before picking up with a loud click.
"Who is this?" an older, non-nonsense woman demanded. She sounded like Director Piggot, but the circumstances of their call made Hannah suspicious.
"An unusual friend," Hannah responded. "I like green toast. Why?"
"Better than the gritty kind, that breaks my suspension of disbelief," Piggot shot back, completing the passphrase that would in theory weed out simple impersonators. It was good enough for now, though if she said or requested anything suspicious Hannah would require more concrete proof. "You didn't answer your phone yesterday."
"It was off," Hannah said. "Is this something I need to find some privacy for?"
"If you're in public I can phrase it appropriately," Piggot replied.
"Well…" Hannah noticed Taylor innocently looking out the window. "I am. Try to ignore any noise in the background." She switched her phone to speakerphone mode, set it on the dashboard, and put a finger to her lips to warn Taylor to be quiet. Taylor's eyes widened.
This was a good chance to keep Taylor in the loop on the whole situation with the Protectorate, and if Piggot had good news she would be glad to hear it. If not, well… Hannah was a firm believer in bad news coming from the person directly responsible for it, not through intermediaries.
"Upon reviewing your actions and speaking to the coworker you impacted, I've come to the conclusion that your initial suspension for one month was and continues to be a valid disciplinary action," Piggot said sternly. "That said, something has come up at work and you're needed back."
"What is it?" Hannah asked worriedly. Piggot did not admit mistakes, but this was pretty close to it. This might be important.
"A certain rival company has finally played their hand, and we found a few… corporate spies," Piggot said, her words carefully chosen but dripping with disdain. "I need all hands on deck."
"What can I, specifically, do that you need badly enough to bring me back two weeks early?" Hannah clarified, reminded of Armsmaster's insistence that he needed her back to do his paperwork.
"You're manpower that we're sorely in need of," Piggot said.
"That wasn't an answer." A few weeks ago Hannah wouldn't have spoken to the Director this way, but things had changed. She didn't feel like being yanked around for anything less than a genuinely good reason. "And you'll recall there's a condition that needs to be met before I return to work."
"Did you not just hear me say I need every employee I can get?" Piggot demanded. "You, her, the one you're complaining on behalf of. I want you all here contributing, but I'll settle for the first two if your brat is going to make a scene of it."
"That's not an option." Her power formed a chunky grenade launcher that lay across her lap, a heavy, cold weight. "Your options are doing the right thing and getting me back, and maybe my 'brat' as you put it, or getting neither of us and losing the one you're trying to protect when I lodge a complaint with someone higher up in the chain than you."
"This is my branch and our mutual superiors don't care enough to back it up when it looks like it's going to go up in flames," Piggot spat. "They don't care about her petty mistakes, and I'm not firing her when I can still use her. You know your duty. Get your ass back here."
"I'm sorry, I'm still on suspension for two weeks," Hannah said, not feeling sorry at all. "And even if I wasn't I'd start using my built-up vacation time. I'm not even in the state right now, and I'm not coming back to work until you do the right thing. Or until my patience runs out."
"Was that a threat?" Piggot demanded. Her heavy breathing could be heard over the phone, a harsh rasping that filled the van.
"It was a promise," Hannah corrected. "I'm not bluffing. Either you restore my faith in your leadership, or you strain it until it breaks."
"I'll see you in the building the day your suspension is over," Piggot growled. The call ended with a thump and an electronic click.
"You'll see either me or Shadow Stalker, not both," Hannah told the empty air… and Taylor, whose eyes were even wider now.
"That was your boss?" Taylor asked in a small voice.
"Director Emily Piggot, overworked and ruthlessly pragmatic when it counts," Hannah confirmed. "Don't worry. She'll do the right thing. She just worries about the city. She's not wrong that the Protectorate really doesn't prioritize reinforcing Brockton Bay. In the face of that, she's willing to overlook some things to keep us afloat. But I won't let her overlook this, so it will be fine."
"Do they really… need Shadow Stalker?" Taylor asked.
"No, they don't, and she causes more trouble than she's worth." Hannah wouldn't have said that before, everyone deserved a second chance, but Sophia had burned through hers bullying an innocent until she triggered. Maybe, just maybe, if this was her only offense since going on probation… but even solid ice tends to shatter when a heavy weight is dropped on it, never mind thin ice. "Wards are meant to learn and grow in a safe environment, anyway. They're not vital city-defending resources." Brockton Bay's Wards got into more scraps with supervillains than most, but that was a product of the city's pitiable state of affairs, not an indication of their value in keeping the peace.
"They go on patrols," Taylor objected.
"Those are good practice and may serve as deterrence, but they don't protect the city so much as maintain a very, very small portion of it." She started the engine and pulled the van out of its parking space. "Brockton Bay needs more Thinker support, more official resources, a pledge of reciprocal support from Boston, a half-dozen adult heroes transfering over… We need a lot of things, but one Ward is not going to be the key to protecting the city. Piggot will remember that soon enough."
"Oh." Taylor twisted around in her seat, settling into a more comfortable position. "But she needs you."
"More than Shadow Stalker." Perhaps less than Hannah had assumed, though. She had thought she'd wait out the month's suspension and come back to find Sophia well on her way to juvie. That Piggot hadn't even decided to follow through with the law yet… It was troubling.
One thing was for sure. She didn't feel like going home just yet. Not until the month was up, at the very least, so that Piggot would find it hard to pressure her to return. "How do you feel about extending our trip?" she asked. "I told Piggot I was in another state, and we could go make sure I'm not a liar. Find a nice hotel somewhere interesting…"
"Won't that be expensive?" Taylor asked.
"Money isn't a problem right now, so long as we don't do anything really crazy." Her pay wasn't extravagant but she didn't have much in the way of expenses and tended to accumulate a lot of overtime, being the only Noctis cape in the Brockton Bay Protectorate. Factor in almost a decade of not needing to make any major purchases… She could probably afford to take them on a round-the-world trip if they traveled cheaply. A week in a nice hotel wouldn't put too big a dent in her savings.
"I think I'd like that, then," Taylor agreed. "Where are we going to go?"
Hannah thought about their options as she drove. "We don't have a passport for you, so we should stay in the United States. We could go to a big city like New York."
"Could we go somewhere small?" Taylor asked. "A little town somewhere out of the way, but mainstream enough that they get tourists sometimes so there are things to do?"
Hannah had reservations about going to too small a town; such places were falling out of favor with the Slaughterhouse Nine and other threats roaming the land, and the people who remained were often insular to the point of not liking visitors. But somewhere in the middle, not small enough to be a target but not big enough to be overly touristy… "Let's cross state lines, into New York, and then look at a map." They could find a nice hotel for the night, decide where they wanted to go, and then leave in the morning.
The destination they chose, after much discussion over a big fold-out map that night in their hotel room, was a little town East of Rochester, New York, right off the coast of Lake Ontario. There were more state parks to explore, a whole coastline, and though it was too cold for swimming there were plenty of things to do there. Rosewood, the town was called.
It was colder there, and their first stop after getting a hotel room was a local clothing store for coats, but the sky was clear and the town was nice-looking. There were local restaurants, national parks within an hour's drive, and the coast of Lake Ontario, all ripe for exploration. There was hiking to be done, hiking they set to with a will, but there were other things too, things they couldn't do at the campsite back in Massachusetts.
They went to a bowling alley, where Hannah learned that rusty as she might be, she was still much more skilled than Taylor. It was still fun. They tried out a variety of local restaurants. They sat on the lake's shore and watched the few boats out at this time of year.
On their fourth day in Rosewood, Taylor suggested they try fishing. Hannah agreed – it was something she had never done before – and they went to a local fishing shop just off a section of coast set aside for the activity.
The man minding the register was old, but he had a kind smile and helped them pick out simple fishing rods, line, bait, and all of the little things Hannah had no idea they were going to need.
"You're all set," he said as he rang them up. "Just don't forget to cast 'em out far, and don't get bored too quick. You don't seem squeamish, so you'll do just fine if you catch one."
Hannah thanked him and paid.
"You staying in town for long?" he asked as he bagged their supplies.
"Rest of the week," Taylor offered.
"Right, right…" He looked up from the bagging, the wrinkles on his forehead converging as he frowned. "Staying at the nice hotel off the highway?"
"There's only one?" Hannah asked.
"Yes, and there's been a rash of thefts there lately," he explained. "You girls be careful. Nobody knows how the thief gets in, so keep the window closed and locked, and keep track of yer keycards. They haven't done anything worse than stealin' yet, but that's plenty bad on its own and I figured you'd appreciate the warning."
"We do appreciate it," Hannah said. She and Taylor took their new fishing rods and the rest of their supplies and left his shop.
"Are we going to find another hotel?" Taylor asked as they walked back to the van.
"Do you want to?" She would be willing to cancel the rest of their reservation.
"No," Taylor said after a moment. "Nothing will happen. Probably."
"Probably isn't definitely," Hannah cautioned. "I think we should stay, no sense in running because of one vague warning, but we'll take precautions."
Taylor nodded. "Yeah."
"But for now…" She hoisted her fishing rod up. "Let's see if either of us has a knack for this."
"Cast it forward..."
"Right. Here goes... Where did it go? I don't see the bobbing thing. Did it sink?"
"It's around here somewhere... I think. Maybe I can do better?"
"Hey! Swing the pole at the water, not me! Watch out!"
"Where's the worm? Why are you pointing at me and laughing? You have a knife, help me cut this!"
Five hours, half a container of worms, and two tangled fishing lines later, they decided that while Taylor showed some promise, Hannah was better off sticking to speargun-fishing. They also agreed never to speak of the 'worm-in-the-hair' incident to anyone. They hadn't caught anything, but they ordered fish at a nice seafood restaurant anyway.
Their room was dark. Taylor was sprawled out on her stomach in bed, the sheet up to the back of her neck and her hand under her pillow as she snuggled into it. Hannah lay on her back in the other bed, facing the ceiling. No book tonight. No book light, either. No sleep, for certain. Instead, she listened to the sounds of the outside world. The rush of the wind on creaking wood, faint steps out in the hall, growing louder and then fading again.
Just after midnight, the sound of their door's lock clicking open.
The intruder opened the door a crack, the light from the hallway slanting across the ceiling. They shuffled inside and closed the door behind them. All was dark once more.
Hannah waited, silently judging the intruder. Her power rested in her hands, a stubby sawn-off shotgun that looked exactly as dangerous as it was. The intruder, their night vision not yet recovering from the light of the hallway, didn't see or care about the shape the 'sleeping' woman clutched in her arms. They were more interested in her and Taylor's things in the duffle bags on the floor.
They went for the valuables, not the supposedly vulnerable women, so Hannah was inclined to be somewhat merciful. But only somewhat. She didn't know if the thief had a weapon. An unlucky shot in the dark could see either her or Taylor dead.
The thief crouched over their bags. Both hands went to the contents, sifting through by touch alone.
She silently sat up, aimed, and spoke. "Freeze." She pumped her shotgun purely to produce the bone-chilling noise that came with the movement.
The thief froze.
"Lights," Hannah requested. She wasn't sure whether Taylor was awake–
The lamp was switched on by a nimble hand. Taylor rolled over, her knife revealed to have been under her pillow the whole time. The thief was dressed in dark colors, a gray winter coat and black ski mask their most prominent features.
"Hands up," she told the thief.
Their hands went up. Both were shaking.
"Stand up."
The thief stood. The bumps in their profile implied they were a woman.
"Take the ski mask off." Masks were for parahumans. Normal criminals were not afforded the luxury of secret identities if they were caught, not even as a polite fiction.
"I'll just leave," the thief offered, her voice low. "Won't cause trouble."
"You'll go quietly when the police arrive," Hannah said firmly. "You will not leave. Taylor?"
"I'll call them," Taylor volunteered. "You just keep pointing the gun." She took Hannah's phone off the nightstand, quickly typed in the password, and called the non-emergency police number Hannah had insisted they look up that evening. Just in case.
The thief's hands started to drift downward. Hannah shook her gun warningly, and they shot right back up.
"This sucks," the thief said mournfully. She was young. Hannah would guess twenty-five at the oldest, though surely no younger than twenty.
"It does. You've ruined our sleep." Hannah heard a distinct snort of amusement from Taylor's general direction. "And I'm going to have to wait for the police to verify my gun permit, no doubt."
"You could let me go," the thief suggested.
"You could take this as an opportunity to change your ways," was Hannah's counter-offer. "Or next time your victim might not hesitate to pull the trigger you didn't know they had."
After that neither of them much felt like talking.
The thief, they learned from listening while the police took her into custody, was the niece of the hotel's owner. Well-off, with absolutely no reason to be stealing from tourists.
No reason save perhaps for personal animosity towards her uncle combined with stupid choices. Hannah and Taylor learned plenty about that when said Uncle showed up to the arrest happening on his property. There was a screaming argument that thankfully followed the police and their handcuffed prisoner out of their room and then the hotel.
Then it was time to answer questions, give their statements, and wait while the police officers ran Hannah's incognito badge that passed the check up the chain to the Protectorate without the officers knowing, who of course were promptly were told that Hannah was allowed whatever gun she felt like having, no further questions.
The only worrying moment of the rushed investigation was when they asked Taylor who she was and why she was traveling with Hannah. 'Family friend, parents dead, getting away from it all' garnered a few raised eyebrows, but thankfully they didn't press the issue. Hannah's badge and the reaction to it seemed to have spooked them. They were out of the hotel by three in the morning.
Taylor didn't get any sleep after the police left, and they both surrendered to the inevitable and went to get breakfast at five.
That night marked a turning point in their time at Rosewood. They stayed for the remainder of the week, but when the time came to leave neither of them objected to going back to Brockton Bay. They checked out of the hotel Sunday morning, had one last full day of hiking and fishing, then drove back. Hannah drove through the night, just because she could, and Taylor slept in the back seat.
Brockton Bay was as quiet as it ever got, a bubbling pool of murky water that one could swim in without too much worry so long as one didn't look too hard into the depths. The gangs were all still in a holding pattern from what Hannah saw, maintaining their interests and quietly pushing into the ABB's former territory, but never putting up any resistance when the heroes drove them back. A delicate touch was the rule of the day, anathema though that might be to the groups of brutish thugs who made up the ground troops. Nobody wanted to be the next gang to be turned on and destroyed.
In a few months or perhaps only a few weeks they would go back to their former ways, and another gang war would probably develop over the ABB's territory. Once the recovery efforts were mostly done and all of the attention from outside the city had moved on to the next big thing.
Or so Hannah guessed from what she observed as she went about her business. The city was relatively calm for the moment.
It didn't feel right. Not after a few weeks out in the wilderness and small towns. There was so much violence here that she took for granted, violence she hadn't seen out there.
She was tempted to go back to work, if only because she could make a difference there. But her suspension wasn't over – one more week – and she would be damned if she folded to Piggot's demands.
Instead, she did other things. She fixed a few things in her apartment that had gone untended for far too long, such as throwing out long-dead potted plants and replacing the loose flushing mechanism in the toilet bowl. She cooked, enjoying some of the recipes she knew from her early childhood. Taylor enjoyed them too, though Hannah learned fast exactly which spices necessitated an efficiently-working toilet later on.
They went on runs; Taylor expressed interest in jogging as a way to keep herself fit and Hannah leaped on that. There were a lot of exercises Taylor had trouble with, having only one arm, but that was a temporary situation and running was a good activity in the meantime. They went together in the mornings, while the sun was still just rising.
And yet, even when things were going well, Hannah felt that Taylor was more subdued here, in her apartment and Brockton Bay in general. Quieter, with a haunted look that Hannah caught every so often.
They visited the graves of Taylor's parents once. Only once. The look was most prominent there, but it didn't go away afterward.
Hannah was dissatisfied, but she didn't know what else to do to fix it. Or if it could be fixed at all. She didn't have all of the pieces of the puzzle necessary to understand the exact nature of Taylor's unhappiness, beyond guesswork and assumptions. She could ask, and she would if it continued without improvement for much longer, but she wanted to understand on her own.
But she didn't have to ask, in the end. Taylor's rotten luck reasserted itself long enough to force the issue.
Hannah and Taylor stood in front of a selection of apples, their cart forgotten behind them. Insipid pop music played over the store's loudspeakers, an annoying background for an important discussion.
"Granny Smith apples are way too grainy and gross for a pie," Taylor said seriously.
"Surely you jest," Hannah retorted. "Grainy? Gross? They're the best apples." She wasn't even kidding.
"You can have them, but if you make a pie out of them you're going to eat the whole thing because I won't want any," Taylor assured her. "Why not get some Honey Crisp instead?"
"Too sweet." Apple pie was supposed to be tart.
"For a pie?" Clearly Taylor didn't share this opinion. "Isn't that the point?"
"We'll get both," Hannah decided. "I'll make my pie, you make yours, and then we'll see whose we like better."
"Yeah, sure." Taylor began selecting her apples. "But you know we're probably both just going to prefer our own pies, right?"
"Then at least we'll both have a pie to keep all for ourselves." She believed she could convert Taylor to the ways of Granny Smith, but Taylor wouldn't believe until it was done. "Will your pie need anything we don't have at home or in the cart?"
"Cinnamon," Taylor said after a moment. She twisted her bag around and dropped it in the cart. "I'll go get it."
"I'll be here," Hannah told her. They still needed pears and grapes for non-pie fruit. As Taylor walked away she pushed the cart over to the grapes and picked a bag out. Then she spent a few minutes finding the best pears of the lot – someone had tipped a crate over or something, because a lot of them had gashes that were already going bad.
When she was done with that Taylor still wasn't back, so she decided to just go to the aisle with the spices and meet up with her there.
It was there that she saw why Taylor hadn't come back.
Two girls, one instantly recognizable as Shadow Stalker in civilian clothing, were talking to her. Taylor had her back to the shelves lined with spices, and Sophia was right in front of her. A redheaded girl was next to Sophia, and the two were subtly but purposefully cornering her.
None of them had seen Hannah at the end of the aisle yet, and the store wasn't busy so there were no other observers at the moment.
This was a very tricky situation. She could go over there and tell Sophia off, but Sophia knew who she was. That wouldn't be a problem, if it wasn't for Sophia also knowing who Taylor was and probably that Hannah had taken in a parahuman, but probably not that said parahuman was Taylor. If she charged in to defend Taylor she might be outing Taylor to Sophia, and that was unacceptable.
It was equally unacceptable for her to leave Taylor in what was clearly a hostile confrontation, and not doing something was equivalent to choosing to do nothing.
She turned down into the aisle and pushed her cart toward them. She would just have to be smart about exactly what she said and did.
The redhead noticed her first and flashed her a bright, innocent smile before turning back to Taylor. Hannah continued to approach them, and then both Sophia and Taylor looked over.
Hannah fixed Sophia with a truly unimpressed stare as she passed them, never stopping completely. Sophia glared right back at her–
While Taylor took the distraction as an opportunity to slip out of their subtle pincer movement. She started walking the same direction as Hannah, but not obviously with her. Just like she might if Hannah was some random stranger who offered a way out.
Sophia held the redhead back when she made to follow, and Hannah and Taylor completed their escape to another aisle.
"Go wait for me in the van," Hannah said quietly. Taylor nodded and peeled off, making a beeline for the door.
That done, she turned her cart right back around and intercepted Sophia and her friend right as they came out of the aisle. "Sophia."
"You two know each other?" the redhead asked.
"Yeah," Sophia grunted.
"Who was the black-haired girl?" Hannah asked.
"Just a friend we haven't seen in a while," the redhead answered.
"Wouldn't call her a friend," Sophia grumbled.
"I wouldn't either, with the way you two were boxing her in," Hannah said sternly. There was a lot more she wanted to say, but she didn't know for sure that the redhead was in on Sophia's secret identity, so she couldn't. She'd accomplished her main goal in coming back to confront them; Taylor was probably already in the van by now. "Think very carefully about how you treat people. You never know who is watching."
"We were just catching up… and we're here for chips anyway, come on Sophia!" The redhead whipped around and left, Sophia trailing behind her. She turned to glare at Hannah behind her friend's back.
Hannah glared right back with an intensity that seemed to surprise Sophia. Then the redhead led her down a different aisle and they were gone.
That done, she sped through picking up the rest of the groceries they needed and had a cashier ring everything up. Sophia and the redhead were stuck in a line for checkout when Hannah left the building.
Hannah dumped all of the bags in the back of the van, shoved the cart into one of the cart collection spots, and got into the van.
Taylor was silent.
She started the car and pulled them out of the grocery store parking lot. Extraction successful.
"She shouldn't be free to walk around doing whatever she wants," Hannah said to start the conversation they needed to have. "She's on probation and she broke that probation. There should be an investigation going on right now, and she should be confined to the base, school, and her home while it happens."
"Yeah, well, when has anyone in power ever punished her," Taylor said bitterly. "The school didn't, and now the Director isn't either."
"And that is completely unacceptable," Hannah said. It looked like she would be dipping into her paid time off after this week. Maybe Piggot wouldn't believe she was serious until that happened. Too bad for Piggot. "Can you tell me what they said? I tried not to give away your identity, but I need to know if they already know."
"My identity?" Taylor asked. "They know who I am."
"Do they know you're a parahuman?" Hannah asked. "I assumed not, but Sophia has seen my face and she might know that I'm hosting a new parahuman at my home. If I went in guns blazing and defended you directly she might have made the connection."
"Oh." Taylor sounded genuinely surprised. "That's why… No, they don't know."
"So what were they saying?" Hannah asked as she pulled up to a red light. She checked the mirror; there was a subtle wetness under Taylor's eyes.
"They saw my arm," Taylor said shortly. "They… made fun of it. Then my dad. Said a few other things. That was when you showed up."
Hannah gripped the steering wheel tightly enough that her knuckles went white. That was completely unacceptable.
"I wasn't going to cut them," Taylor assured her, perhaps misinterpreting her silence.
"That's not what I care about," Hannah told her, though in truth she was glad Taylor hadn't resorted to violence. "It's good that you didn't hurt them. Their behavior is what bothers me. It is not okay to mock a dead parent and a missing limb. How long…" She knew how long. It made Taylor trigger. She shouldn't have asked.
"Years," Taylor said woodenly.
And for all that she knew, she still hadn't known that. Taylor's 'confession' paper started at her getting her powers. The buildup could have been weeks for all Hannah knew.
Hannah noticed that her power had formed a wicked-looking sniper rifle with a completely impractical bayonet affixed to the front – sniper rifles never had bayonets – and decided that it wasn't safe for her to be driving while they had this conversation. She took the first turn and pulled into a gas station, parking in front of the tire refill station.
"It's not important," Taylor tried.
Hannah turned so she could meet Taylor's downcast gaze. "Yes. It is. If you can tell me, I want you to. If you can't, I wouldn't blame you. But the more I know the more I might be able to help."
It's not," Taylor insisted. "The bullying… It happened. It kept happening. I don't know why. Dad never noticed, I couldn't tell him because then I wouldn't be able to get away from it anywhere. One day I woke up with these powers. It didn't stop or get better, and then I ran away. You know everything else. I wish you didn't."
"Why?" That hurt. It hurt a lot.
"Because you're kind and you don't make me think about it, and I wouldn't have to at all if you didn't know," Taylor said bluntly, unknowingly softening the blow she had just delivered with her previous statement. "I can leave it all behind. Sort of. It was better when we weren't here. This city… I don't have a single good memory of anything happening here since I was a little kid. It's all shit and supervillains and horrible people. I wish dad had moved us somewhere else after mom died. I wish we lived somewhere else to start with, maybe mom wouldn't have died. I wish we had never come back from our camping trip. Emma and Sophia and Madison and everyone else, they're all still here, still being horrible and getting away with it. Nothing changes."
The van was filled with the sound of heavy, stuttering breathing.
"Emma told me she was going to Arcadia now," Taylor panted, slumping even further down in her seat. "Winslow was condemned because of the bombings. If I go back to school she'll be there, and I'll be the one-armed orphan weirdo who isn't ever believed because Emma got there first and got her story in first. It's only going to get worse." A frustrated tear slid down her face, and more followed.
Hannah got out of the van. She yanked open the side door and climbed into the back seat, shutting it behind her. She then pulled Taylor into a hug and refused to let go. "I'm not going to let that happen."
"You're already doing so much," Taylor hiccupped.
"Because I want to. That won't change." She didn't have a solution to fixing the city; she'd spent more than a decade trying to do exactly that and it was still terrible. But she did have solutions to the people making Taylor cry. Legal ones, no less. There were options. Options a teenager on her own with no money and no reputation or authority just didn't have. But Taylor had her now, and clearly trusted her enough to let herself be vulnerable in front of her.
"Why?" Taylor asked. Pleaded, really.
"I want to." There was no deeper reason. It all circled back to that. Circumstance put her in the place to see exactly how much she could give, to exactly the right person, and she had decided that she would. Everything after that was just following through. She didn't regret it for a second. "You make me happy."
"You weren't unhappy before…" Taylor said.
"I wasn't happy, either." Not like this. Not that she was happy right now, but there was a difference. She liked the time she spent with Taylor. She liked all the things they did together. She liked sharing her life with someone. She would be happier if – when – Taylor was truly happy, when all of the things that had hurt her were healing wounds instead of raw ones, but she did not believe that such a thing was impossible. It was inevitable so long as they both kept trying.
"I want to not be such a mess," Taylor whimpered. "I shouldn't even care about them…"
"You'll get better. And you should care. It's not fair and it's not right."
"I'll have to go back to school eventually," Taylor objected. "They'll be there. Waiting for me."
Hannah just hugged her tighter. "You'll finish your education. That doesn't mean it has to be Arcadia. Or a public school at all. Homeschooling is an option, and so is tutoring. There are solutions to your problems, and you can help me figure out which one works best for you."
That seemed to be the final assurance Taylor needed, because she fell silent. Hannah held her close, unwilling to let go…
"Oy, lovebirds, I need the tire pump." Someone knocked on the window.
Hannah reached behind herself, held her hand out of sight while her power shifted into a rugged, ugly pistol, and lifted it up to wave it at the interrupting idiot without ever looking back.
He went away.
"This is Carol Dallon, am I speaking to Miss Militia?" Carol asked, her voice clipped and her words to the point.
"Yes, it's me, though I'm calling you on personal business, not on behalf of the Protectorate," Hannah assured her. She was sitting on the couch, alone in her apartment. Taylor was at the library, having asked to be left there for a few hours. She was looking into the feasibility of homeschooling herself. She seemed to be taking Hannah's improvised pep talk to heart, though Hannah was going to have to follow through if she wanted that improvement to last.
"Personal?" Carol asked, only slightly less defensively. "What about?"
"You have a waiting list for those who need to see Panacea to have life-altering injuries correctly healed after the triage efforts of the bombings, right?" Hannah asked. She knew that was how it worked; she had heard of it being set up in the hours immediately after Panacea began going all-out in efficiency to save as many as possible. As vile as it would be to sue a healer for not healing perfectly in order to have more time to save others during a crisis, it was a possibility that had been acknowledged. A list of those who had been partially healed was made to assist Panacea in following up once the crisis was over.
"The Protectorate manages it, but yes, I have it. You're not on it," Carol said bluntly.
"I wasn't hurt. I'm asking about a girl named 'Taylor Hebert'. She may or may not not be listed by name, but she was missing an arm and scalded half to death. I just want to find out where on the list she is and how long we can expect to wait."
"Give me a moment," Carol muttered. "Taylor Hebert? Do you have the authority to request her medical information?"
"I'm caring for her, and will be for the foreseeable future, so yes, I should have that authority." She really hoped Carol wasn't going to ask for actual proof; there was nothing legalized about her custody yet. That was something she was going to have to fix, actually. As soon as possible.
"I would ask for legal evidence of guardianship, but luckily for you, while the list is not public it is available to anyone in the Protectorate upon request," Carol said. "So I can tell you right now. Taylor Hebert is… dead last?"
"What?" That couldn't be right. "Last in terms of when she will be treated?"
"Yes. Absolutely last place." Carol sounded just as confused as she was. "This isn't right. You said she lost an arm?"
"She's still missing it from the shoulder down," Hannah said. She stood up and began to pace in her living room. "How is this list supposed to be organized?"
"It's prioritized based on severity of remaining injury, capacity for satisfactory conventional treatment, and age of the victim," Carol rattled off. "A teenage girl missing an arm should be close to the top, not dead last."
"Was she at the top and then couldn't be found for follow-up treatment, so she was put at the bottom?" Hannah suggested. Taylor didn't have a phone, her home was a pile of ashes, and she had been out of the city for a few weeks. It was plausible they just couldn't find a way to get in contact with her.
"No, we leave the no-shows at the top but grayed out," Carol said. "I know I didn't put her down there. It wasn't some administrative mistake, every name in here is sorted automatically and names can only be moved by people with the permissions to do so. I can see that she was moved down manually… Two weeks ago. By someone from the Protectorate. I can't see who did it."
Hannah didn't need to know who. "How long?"
"Now that I know about this? You can bring her in tomorrow." Carol paused. "Noon. There's a special line set up in the hospital's non-emergency waiting room. But if you hadn't asked… We wouldn't have gotten to her for months. What is this about?"
"I think I know." One person in the Protectorate had reason to deny Taylor healing, either as a bargaining chip to pull out later or as spiteful revenge. Only one person there even knew for sure where Taylor was, or who was looking after her.
She knew who had done it. And she knew this was the last straw. It was a relatively minor thing – as if denying a girl an arm could ever be minor – but it was enough. Her trust in Piggot was broken. Shadow Stalker remained unpunished, and this? This was Piggot preparing to try and get what she wanted anyway. It was probably legal, entirely deniable, and provided a powerful bargaining chip to buy either Hannah's silence or Taylor's recruitment.
"New Wave is not going to be used for petty political games," Carol warned.
"You're not, and I'm not either. I'm done." There were other things she needed to do now. Piggot had called her supposed bluff. Time to show that it was the furthest thing from a bluff. "Your law firm doesn't specialize in family law, does it? Adoptions, that sort of thing."
"You'll need someone else for that." Carol said. "I want to know what's happening here."
"The Director wants to play games with lives," Hannah said coldly. "The life and wellbeing of my child."
"As far as I know you don't have a child," Carol stressed. "Militia–"
"I don't, not officially yet, but I'm going to at the very least get legal guardianship of her before I take her out of this city," Hannah assured her. "Which is why I asked about a lawyer. Can you recommend someone in another firm?"
"It's… how long have you known this child?" Carol asked.
"Long enough." She paused her increasingly frantic pacing and forced herself to take a deep breath. Acting as she wanted would just make her look like she was crazy or under outside influence. "I saved her during the bombings. I took her in because she had nowhere else to go. Her parents are dead, one years ago and one due to Bakuda. She has no other family that I know of, none in her life at the very least, and we get along. She likes me. I like her. I want to keep her safe and make her feel loved, because she sure as hell isn't getting that from anyone else. Please tell me you understand what that's like. You must."
"I… I should know." Carol heaved a shaky sigh. "I should. I can refer you to someone I know. He's good and he's fast. And you can bring her in tomorrow to be healed. Will you need legal help getting out from under Piggot? Because that is my area of expertise and I have a serious bone to pick with her if she meddled with our triage list just to spite someone."
"I won't need help with that, no." She wasn't quitting the Protectorate; she was going to demand a transfer. That was within her rights, so long as some other Director would take her. It almost never happened, of course, and her career within the Protectorate would take a hit, but it was doable. Few Protectorate branches in the country were so well-off that they wouldn't take a willing transfer of a veteran hero with no major black marks on her record.
And if some black marks, trumped-up or falsified, happened to appear in her record between now and being transferred? If circumstances conspired to keep her in Brockton Bay against her will, none quite traceable back to a certain Director? "If that changes, I'll let you know." Along with the whole country. But if it didn't then she would keep silent… for now. She wasn't going to start legal action against Shadow Stalker until after she transferred, so that could wait… She had started pacing again.
There were things she needed to do, a critical path to follow to get away from all of this shit. First, she needed to tell Taylor what had happened and what she wanted to do about it. Assuming Taylor was on board, which she almost certainly would be, she needed to get legal custody of Taylor as soon as humanly possible, probably using the lawyer Carol would recommend. Taylor would be healed tomorrow, removing her last personal reason to stay in Brockton Bay. Once the custody change went through, Hannah would transfer out. They would go somewhere less hectic, a smaller, more peaceful city that still had need of an additional hero. They would settle down there, and then she would start pressuring Piggot from afar. Lose Shadow Stalker or lose even more. The wheels of bureaucracy might turn slowly, Brockton Bay might be unimportant in the eyes of the larger Protectorate, but there were still ways to pressure her. It might even be easier from outside the city.
It would mean uprooting herself from the city she had spent more than a decade defending, but she couldn't bring herself to care enough to let that stop her. There were other places worthy of being defended where the Director in charge wouldn't violate her trust and play cynical games to keep control. Other innocents to protect who wouldn't require that she sacrifice the wellbeing of her daughter in exchange. Piggot played her game, assigned her priorities as she chose, compromised her morals for advantage, and this was the consequence. She had lost a hero.
Piggot lost, and Taylor gained. A new city, a truly fresh start. A new school, maybe. Potentially a place in a less hostile environment's Ward program, after Hannah saw the conditions there. Taylor didn't think this city held anything for her future, only bad memories. Hannah was inclined to agree.
Hannah gained too. The fresh start didn't just apply to Taylor. She wasn't the only one who had enjoyed their trips out into the wider world more than anything Brockton Bay had to offer, to say nothing of how having Taylor around brightened her life.
"I wish you luck," Carol offered, reminding Hannah that she was still on the phone.
"I won't need it." She was going to cut herself and Taylor free of Piggot and this city, and if Piggot tried to stop her the only thing she would get for her troubles would be more trouble.
Author's Note: Fun fact: The trail thing actually happened to me. Went in thinking 'nice walk' and was almost immediately introduced to the concept of trails that are little more than a bare section of rocky hillside that's been scraped clean of moss. I'm talking 'slip and you're looking at broken bones at best' levels of danger here. And I had both of my arms at the time! (Still do, in fact, though another part of me is asymmetrical and disabled on one side so I could claim to understand Taylor's struggle… if it wasn't for that part being my ears and internal.)
Anyway… this was a nice change of pace to write. A bit unrealistic in how fast Miss Militia really grows attached and shifts her priorities, perhaps… Or perhaps not. One must consider the alt-power this particular Taylor brings to the table. She's not doing anything consciously, but if her subconscious directs her to behave in ways that push all of MM's buttons, well… Taylor's not-Slaughterhouse two did just go roaming the country for a little bit, didn't they?
On a totally different note: chapter nomenclature. Even when it's simple it's complicated. For this thread, stories that are written in multiple parts and intended to directly coexist are given the same name with (part x) appended. Stories that are written to build off of another story that wasn't originally intended to have any continuation, on the other hand, are named similarly but not the same and not appended with (part x). Thus, this is 'Cut Free' and not 'Cut Loose (part 2)'. Meanwhile, 'Whiplash and Backfire' had '(part 1)' and '(part 2)' despite being two individual pieces that could stand alone fairly well if necessary, because I wrote them together and intended them to be read together. (Also, if you don't recognize that example I just used, you're almost certainly reading on SB, whose mods decided the subject matter wasn't in keeping with the site rules. It's still in this thread / story on AO3 and FF).
And you'll note this isn't (part 1), either. I left the story open for a possible third part (in which Miss Militia and Taylor set up in a new city and generally get used to things there, because I wouldn't want to write a whole story about Piggot being an obstructionist bureaucratic bitch when there are much more fertile storytelling grounds to cover elsewhere), but if I write that it'll be a while from now, so this too should function as a satisfactory end. Taylor isn't okay, she hasn't been since the start of this AU, but there's one person firmly in her corner.
Next time on Chunks of Worm… Something. Maybe sad, maybe terrifying and funny, maybe just strange. Maybe it will be standalone, maybe it will be the start of a four-part crossover, who knows. I certainly don't, and I'm the one who has at least started everything I just referred to in vague terms.