Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was a regular patrol, like any other, for Hannah.

Routine. Nice and simple.

Riding around on her sportbike, weaving through traffic, keeping eyes and ears peeled for trouble, headphone crackling in her left ear, reporting precious little from her rooftop-hopping colleagues following from above and behind.

Shifting gears, watching out for the more serious traffic infractions to record and send to police later…

Idly wishing they let her paint her motorcycle anything else except the colours of the flag, because god it was garish-looking with all the stars…

Smiling and waving through her jet-style helmet at the pedestrians taking pictures, the commuters behind her when she stopped at red lights…

Occasionally revving the bike for some excited kids that asked for it, rolling her eyes at the loud cheering that usually followed.

It was, arguably, one of the more enjoyable parts of the job, riding around like this, even if it left her vaguely sore afterwards.

The only thing of note that she had expected to happen that day, was when she noticed someone riding around without a plate in a suspiciously beat up sports car, and engaged them in a thrilling, albeit drawn out chase, when they refused to pull over.

They had ended up all the way in the edge of Brockton by the time she finally managed to make the arrest, largely because the reckless fool spun out and rammed into a light pole while making a turn after she started shooting into his windows with pepper ball rounds.

Arresting the disoriented thug was no trouble from there, and waiting for the police to come take him was an exercise in boredom.

It was only when she got back to her motorcycle, that she had to pause, and stare in slow, growing bewilderment.

That’s where, in the future, she would point to, if asked where she thought her life had taken a sudden left turn.

On her speedometer, was a single paper note, glued onto the acrylic glass with smears of what looked like… honey.

She had seen a small swarm of insects in the corner of her eyes, buzzing around her bike, but she hadn’t thought much of it.

Inwardly confirming that she hadn’t seen anyone approach her bike whatsoever, she swallowed, eyes flicking all around her as she picked it up and read it, one hand resting on her gun while the police cars around her slowly dispersed.

atlas projects construction west thermopylae 45th
underground bunker
coil inside
has people in the hero police
ninety six soldiers here
please save me
quickly

The words were scratchy, barely legible, faint lines of pencil barely dark enough to be read.

…Was this bait?

A bee landed on the paper, startling her.

She watched intently, as it hurried across the paper, in a tight circle, a mere inch from her fingers.

It was circling the words “please save me”, its gait so hurried it was basically stumbling over itself, twitching, before it abruptly froze.

She held her breath.

In much more natural movement, it paused to groom itself for a second, then flew off.

She hurriedly clicked the intercom on her helmet, then stopped.

People in the ‘hero police’... They probably meant…

Insider agents in the PRT.

… Why was that written in the way a child would describe something like the PRT?

Her stomach dropped even further with that realization.

Turning the intercom off, she instead put the paper in one of her pockets, and quickly straddled her bike, hopping around barriers to barge onto the docks.

There was just too much traffic for the streets, and she did not know how much time she had. ‘Quick’ could mean ‘save me today’ or it could mean ‘save me in an hour’.

So, she grit her teeth and prayed she wouldn’t crash and die.

Her bike’s engine howled loud enough to echo across the entire city as she raced across the coarse concrete of the docks, mere feet from the waters of the bay, barely keeping the front wheel down as she steadily opened the throttle, chin pinned to the gas tank, wind roaring past her with enough force to pull on her hair like a fist.

It was genuinely terrifying. She was used to cruising around or giving the engine about twenty percent power, if a chase occurred.

With the gas pinned to the max, it was not riding anymore, it felt more like clinging onto a howling rocket across a mix of concrete and sharp rocks, pockmarked with cracks and potholes, while waves splashed against the docks’ edge a mere dozen feet away, a limitless expanse of ocean just beyond, flecks of sea water splattering against her visor in the afternoon sun.

More than once, she thought she was about to die, leaning so hard into turns that her kneepads scraped across concrete, throwing sparks onto the orange-red exhaust tubes.

Still, she kept the throttle pinned open, even as she felt the handlebars creak and subtly bend from how hard she was hanging on, her muscles straining.

She got to the oil rig in eight minutes, and only because at the end where the docks merged onto the boardwalk, she had to hop back onto the road due to how populated it was.

She got to Colin’s lab in twelve minutes, breathless.

And into Piggot’s office mere moments after.

It didn’t matter how quickly she reported it, in the end.

Despite her protests, it took an entire three days for the raid to be organized. To research what bunker was being discussed, to get discrete scans of it with Dragon’s help, to confirm, to muster forces without letting anyone know.

Three days for a raid was record time, she knew. Borderline reckless time. Dangerously little time to plan, to muster forces. Almost no time for Thinker support.

She still felt like it wasn’t fast enough.

To a certain extent, she was right.

Chapter Text

The raid was a mess.

There were so few people that could be trusted with this information, that they couldn’t ask for any assistance from the Bay’s rogues until the raid had already started, pretty much, New Wave included.

The PRT agents could not be warned beforehand for security’s sake, the most trusted among the officer ranks were simply mustered without warning, given lethal weapons and told to follow the heroes. Briefing was done in the transit vans. Brockton Bay police was called and briefed mere minutes before they engaged the bunker.

Hannah found no joy in her role. She was the big gun. Lethality, when necessary.

She couldn’t afford to be non-lethal, not versus Coil’s mercenaries, so heavily armoured and equipped. If she saw anything except hands raised in surrender, she pressed the trigger, and tried to ignore the faint feeling of beads of sweat mingling with sprinkles of blood on her face.

The corridors kept switching from close-range engagements, to shooting galleries several hundred feet long. The constant switch of environment left her feeling off-balance, switching between guns in every other room.

Even so, they steadily progressed, Dauntless acting as her walking shield, arresting the sparse few mercenaries that surrendered while she covered them.

Her anti-material rifle, loaded with explosive rounds, was perhaps overkill, judging by the fact that helmets would detonate into clouds of broken plastic, glass, and bits of brain matter, but she grit her teeth, tried to ignore how her shoulder was pounding in agony from each shot making the gun slam into her shoulder like a sledgehammer, and kept pushing.

One breach, two, taking them onto a walkway overlooking a vehicle bay, filled with combat.

She briefly assisted some PRT agents by shooting smoke grenades around them, so they could retreat from where they had been pinned without getting gunned down.

Not her fight, however, so she kept moving.

Another small engagement, another body. Less clean than the last four.

Watching a man gargle for air as his comrades ran away deeper into the halls, half of his chest reduced to a gaping, pulsing hole, was just too much.

She put him out of his misery with a quick shot to the head as they kept walking.

Each death hung on like a lead weight, attached to her soul, a stain she could never take back or undo.

She hated missions like this. Hero business was not supposed to be so brutal. She felt dirty, stained. A walking, breathing lie. She needed a few PR patrols with the Wards after this to feel human again…

Down a flight of stairs, left, right. Another firefight.

Breaching through an armoured door, barely dodging lasers. Unwilling to wait for backup, she switched to an automatic grenade launcher, and held down the trigger until the only thing coming towards her from the room beyond the doorway were pieces of tumbling concrete and a dust cloud.

They should be getting close, if Dragon’s scans were correct.

The dust cloud quickly settled under the sprinkling waters of a burst pipe, and they moved in.

She had to tug Dauntless forward to stop him from staring at the smoking bits of flesh peppering the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and they pushed through while Dauntless tried to muffle his gagging.

Her cautious march was stopped when a single fly buzzed in front of her face, almost touching her ballistic goggles as she gazed down the sights into a corridor, and she ignored it for a moment, only to pause, realization breaking through the pounding adrenaline.

Her hand snapped out to grab Dauntless’s shoulder, stopping him with her, and he turned with a puzzled look, only to stare alongside her.

The fly moved in hurried figure-eights, a clearly unnatural movement.

Then it moved away, a little, and did it again.

They followed it.

The rest was just a blur, a haze of adrenaline.

Comms crackling, gunfire. Running.

This was not supposed to take so long. They had been fighting for far, far too long already. Somehow, some way, something had gone massively wrong with the offensive.

The fly was gone, likely killed or stunned by any one of the dozens of shockwaves rippling through the air, explosions and gunfire both.

Deep in the bowels of the base, it was so much quieter. Supply rooms echoed and rattled around them, muffled blasts and impacts vibrating through the walls.

It was a simple ‘clink’ sound that made her pause in the middle of a corridor, and stare intently at what looked like the door to a storage closet, simple and benign.

Dauntless cut through it in a single swipe, shield at the ready as she rested her gun on his crouched shoulder, the door creaking open with an ominous groan.

A cold, dark gray room extended into the wall, so frigid and humid she could see her breath fogging up as she stood in the doorframe, rifle jerking from corner to corner, the darkness cut apart by the flashlight of her gun.

Seeing nothing that moved, she finally let herself walk into the infirmary-like room, walking past Dauntless who took guard at the door, pausing when something rolled under her boot.

A pen.

A faint sound of something crinkling made her head jerk up, inspecting the various medical apparatus with a faint sense of unease.

There was just… so much stuff. Fridges full of drugs, monitors everywhere, endless rows of cables, and far more interestingly, an acrylic container sitting in front of a tiny screen only six inches tall and wide, housing a single de-capped keyboard utterly covered in a writhing mass of… bugs.

She observed it for a moment, her heart rate picking up.

The insect controller must have been here-

The sound of rustling sheets startled her, gun snapping up, wary, staring at a curtain in the corner.

Dauntless took point, flipping his spear, using the blunk end to yank the curtain aside.

A hospital bed, more of a bundle of sheets and tubes than a definable shape.

The wall of sheets and blankets was parted by a small, dangerously thin hand, fingers half-limp and twitching with weakness, raising arduously over the bunched up sheets. A leather strap lay tight around it, while multiple transparent tubes clung onto the forearm like leeches, gleaming like wet tendons under a sickly pale blue, flickering backlight hanging above her bed, likely for x-rays.

Oh no…

She dropped the gun, rushing forward, pulling blankets away to reveal…

A little girl. Ten, maybe twelve. She couldn’t see much, since the facility seemed to have problems with electricals at the moment, but she caught the faint outline of long, wavy hair atop a mass of bandages that wrapped around the girl’s eyes, and then from her neck down to a chest which rose and fell with rapid, gasping tempo.

Her breaths were so quiet.

Hannah clicked the button on her earpiece.

“I found the bug controller. On me and Dauntless’s position. Hold or go?” She asked.

The girl’s lips moved, a tiny, weak rasp, barely audible. Certainly not a word.

“Hold position, if possible. Current complications around the exits.” Dragon curtly replied, clearly busy, and switched off.

Hannah grit her teeth with indecision, torn between getting all the tubes off the poor girl, and wondering if, maybe, she actually needed those to stay alive. She wasn’t a doctor. She didn’t know.

She settled for gently grasping a flailing wrist, and wincing when the girl suddenly froze at the contact, all movement pausing, breath stopping like someone hit the pause button.

The sudden switch was downright eerie.

“Hey, it’s okay.” She murmured, loosening her hold.

The child didn’t seem to hear her, so she quickly brought a knife forward to slice through the leather straps before quickly letting go.

Finally, the girl gasped in another breath, then jerked back to motion, struggling to turn over onto her shoulder to point off the sides of the bed, quivering fingers aimed at something to Hannah’s right.

Turning, she followed the finger to the box of bugs and the tiny screen, flickering with unstable power.

She moved to the box after a quick moment of deliberation, and smashed the glass with the butt of her rifle, moving back to give the bugs room.

Not a single one moved, all diligently shuffling around on the keyboard whenever the screen lit up with power, then stopping again when it cut out.

What is-

“She’s typing with the bugs.” Dauntless breathed out, in realization, and she snapped her head to the side, at the tiny screen.

A few more seconds of mutely watching her finish passed.

Finally, four simple words blinked in the stuttering monitor, and the bugs dispersed around the room, buzzing around her in a sparse swarm she ignored.

‘Base will self destruct’

Slowly, her eyes widened.

Coil… did seem the type of nutjob to do that. Shit.

Dauntless immediately clicked his earpiece, barking into it, and Hannah rushed to the girl without a second thought, peeling the medical tape off her arms while trying her best to not be too rough as she pulled out needle, after needle, after needle.

Holy shit, the poor girl was a pincushion.

Pulling out the 7th needle, she felt vaguely ill, heart clenching as she let herself imagine, for only a moment, what this child had gone through. Regret that she wasn’t able to save her faster.

The thought didn’t slow her down, obviously.

Weak, nearly limp fingers grasped for a hold on her, a cloud of insects settling on her shoulders, her arms, crawling up her neck and curling over her masked face, making her cringe in discomfort as a centipede waved tendrils around her eye.

She ignored her instinctual distaste as she pulled the shaking girl up and into her arms. Light, way too light.

“I saw your note. You did so well, sweetie. Hold onto me, okay?” She murmured, and the girl tried, to little success. She barely had the strength to lift her arms up, and her fingers had even less.

She quickly settled on having the girl high up on her chest, her right arm supporting the girl’s bottom, her left brandishing a pistol.

Pausing, she willed the pistol away, and ripped off her ear protection, trying to hurriedly put it on the girl’s head while Dauntless cleared the hallway.

A weak hand tried to push the earphones away, and then a whisper made almost directly into Hannah’s ear made her stop trying entirely.

“I’m… deaf.” The girl weakly croaked.

She blinked, once, twice, before putting the ear protection back on herself, deciding she had no time for this, and finally turning to Dauntless, who shot a bolt of lightning down the hallway, and glanced at her with a crisp nod.

She nodded back, and they ran.

‘Complications at the exits’ as Dragon put it, didn’t quite cover it.

Their perimeter around the place had gotten inverted.

Logically, they were aware that Coil likely did not have all his assets in one place. Some outside force was expected.

Still, they didn’t expect him to have just as many mercenaries outside the base as inside it. The barricades had turned from defenses into an entrapment as systematically, more and more armed groups came from behind their perimeter around the old Endbringer shelter to harass them.

Some came in armoured civilian cars, shooting down officers by the dozens before they even knew where it was coming from, then sped off before they could shoot back, fast strikes she recognized as military maneuvers.

Others seemed to arbitrarily gather in chokepoints and force through the perimeter, trying to open gaps for something, or someone, to escape, but largely being forced to back off by New Wave’s adult heroes before achieving so.

Hannah didn’t think much about all that, in truth, because she still had to get the girl way the hell out of here.

She was stopped from grabbing a transport van by Dauntless’s grasp on her left arm as she reached for the door.

“Hey, hold on, what are you doing? We don’t know if they’re trying to get Coil out, or trying to get her. You might get targeted on the way back to base.” Dauntless rushed out, and she paused, lightly squinting and squirming her head back as a hornet walked across her nose.

She wasn’t sure why, but the girl kept a constant swarm of bugs on Hannah, like some extension of her will to hold onto her. It was incredibly uncomfortable.

Breathing in deep, she sighed, letting go of the door and turning towards him, eyes flickering towards distant and close gunfire both.

“You’re right. Take her and fly out instead.”

He hesitated, and she felt a small part of her flare up in protective anger. What was he hesitating about?

“I’m our only flier in the Protectorate, and I just got the ability to. I’m slow as hell, H- Miss Militia. Besides, I can’t just leave. Armsmaster told me to stick around for scouting. I’ll ask for Velocity to take her, he's are much faster.” He reasoned.

“No.” A soft whisper startled her, and she turned to the girl in her arms, limp as a fish, fingers straining to clutch at her costume. “Can’t… go.” The girl continued, a breathless gasp that spoke less of panic, and more of a voice not used in months, maybe years. “Stay. Here.”

“What? Why, it’s dangerous here.” She quickly reasoned.

The girl recoiled, seemingly afraid of her… tone?

“Coil.” The girl breathed out. “He’s… inside. Waiting, for me to… leave be..fore he runs. I can… g-gjh…” The girl choked, then coughed.

Dauntless wordlessly gave her a water bottle, and she quickly uncapped it, giving it to the girl, who only took one short sip before pulling her head back.

“I can- get him. Find him. Wait. Here. Please.” A weak murmur.

She bit her lip.

Dauntless rubbed at his eyes with a groan.

“... Okay. Let’s get in one of the prisoner vans, they’re armoured.” She rushed out, mind made up.

She’d trust the little girl had a plan, or something like it. It was only because of her that they were here to begin with.

Quickly, she located one of the armoured prisoner transports, and swung the doors open. Gently, she put the girl down on a seat, and moved to get up and leave, stopping mid-stride when the blanket of insects covering her upper body like armour began to rattle and hiss.

She turned and stared at the girl, who kept her head down, but fidgeted like she wanted to say something.

“Are you okay?” She asked, concerned.

The girl shook her head, then licked her lips.

“S-stay?” The kid requested, slumped against the van’s side wall, shivering, the wing beats of the insects around Hannah’s upper body somehow synchronizing with her voice to give it a horrid undertone.

“...Okay.” She whispered in reply, and closed the doors behind her, opening the armoured slit of glass to peer outside, just in case, tense.

After another minute of nothing happening, a small sniffle made her turn around, and stare at the girl as she curled into a ball on the bench, quivering with quiet sobs.

She bent down, and grasped onto her shoulders, feeling strangely guilty at the way the girl flinched at the touch, rather than relaxing.

The girl just tasted freedom, she deserved more comfort than a turned back and a soldier. She needed a hero.

“Hey sweetie? What is your name?” She asked sweetly, softly, idly remembering to quickly wipe the blood off her face with the back of her gloves.

“T-Ta- Taylor.” A small croak.

“Beautiful name. Mine is-” She hesitated. It felt wrong to give a codename, a costume, here and now.

“Hannah.” Taylor whispered, and she froze, blinking rapidly at the girl.

She… how did…

“Uhm, Yeah. You’re- right. Don’t tell anyone though, alright? It’s... a secret, just for you.” She whispered, a hint of playfulness forcefully injected as she wondered how the hell she knew that.

Taylor nodded, jerkily, a tiny smile flitting across her face before her hand jumped to Hannah’s collar, pulling her close as the insects backed away, giving room for Taylor to burrow into her loose embrace.

She squeezed her instinctually, stomach clenching at how small Taylor was, curled against her.

“Okay. My- my eyes. Are they- okay?” Taylor warbled, a shaking hand moving to the bandages covering her eyes. “C-Coil wouldn’t let me see. Hur-hurts to cry. Hurts a lot.”

She gently caught that little hand, feeling her heart break bit by bit.

“Let me check, okay sweetheart?” She whispered, and after receiving a short nod, she gently peeled up one of the bandages, finding a normal, albeit oddly… flat eyelid.

Wait… no, he wouldn’t…

“Can you open your eyelid, Taylor?” She asked, sweetly.

The eyelid twitched, pulsed inwards.

No… no, god, why, why would he…?

She gently put her thumb on the girl’s brow, and pulled up, just to confirm.

She regretted it immediately.

There was no eye. Just a gaping pink hole, pulsing with every attempt from Taylor to blink, lined with flowing tears.

Bile rushed up her throat as she let go, and quickly pulled the bandage down, pulling Taylor close as she rested her chin on her hair, cradling her in a tight embrace.

She clenched her throat, swallowing rapidly to get rid of the stomach acid in her throat. Her fingers were shaking. Rage, shock, horror, she couldn’t tell. A mix of all.

“Is- is it hurt? C-can the doctors-” Taylor asked, voice small and scared, god she was so scared it was painful to hear.

“N-no, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” She whispered. “It’s not… something we can fix. How were you seeing? The bugs?” She asked, connecting the dots.

The girl nodded.

“Are your ears…?” She asked, starting to see the pattern.

Taylor nodded into her chest, wracked with a choking sob so forceful it felt like the girl would throw up on her lap.

“P-practise. To get b-better.”

The insects on her back, shoulders, even her neck, all shuffled and rattled in agitation, and suddenly, the girl in her lap was limp as a corpse.

Conversely, the bugs on her went crazy. She stood stock still, watching a centipede be torn apart on her shoulder by a couple wasps, watched a spider tumble down her leg with a praying mantis, locked in a ferocious mauling.

It was sickening and horrifying, and she shuddered in revulsion, trying not to move too much, frozen in place.

With some small hesitation, she shook Taylor’s shoulder.

“Sorry to ask sweetie, but, can you use your bugs to find Coil? You can see and hear through them, right?” She asked.

Taylor nodded.

“Yes sir.” The girl whispered, then startled, shrinking in her grip. “M-ma’am. Ma’am, I meant.”

What?

“Hey, it’s okay, don’t worry about that.” She quietly shushed.

Taylor nodded, gaze still down.

Five minutes passed before her head raised, just a bit.

“I found him. He will get away, probably.” Taylor slowly replied in a whisper, voice still raw and unsteady, nervous.

As if on cue, a tremendous wave of sound slammed into the truck, windows breaking, the entire vehicle bucking to the side, throwing Hannah against the wall, then to the floor, barely twisting in time to not crush the girl in her arms.

With a hiss, she scrambled upright, and kicked the door open, hopping outside and quickly turning around to see a dust cloud, rising from Coil’s base.

A wave of relief and dread hit her at the same time.

He did detonate his own base. And most, if not everyone, had already gotten out, or so she hoped. It had been… a while since their warning.

She understood why. Coil had hoped that by now, his hostage was either dead by his own men, extracted by one of his outside groups, or, if rescued, far away enough to where she could not reach him with her bugs, could not track him.

Rattled still, a wasp suddenly rammed into her cheek, a harmless action that still made her jump, a bit, and turn to look down at Taylor.

“H-Hannah.”

This time, it wasn’t Taylor’s voice. It was the whisper of her voice, amplified a dozenfold by an everpresent clicking buzz, the insects all around her pulsing like a living organ to produce wavering wavelengths which somewhat filled in the gaps of her words, loudened them to a whisper.

It made her spine curl in discomfort.

Shuddering, she looked down, at Taylor, still limp as a dead fish.

“He’s… getting away.” Taylor urged in a whisper, forceful, somewhere between demanding and pleading.

God, the insect-voice sounded so demonic it made her spine want to curl into a pretzel.

And still, her voice was so cold, even as the bugs swam and undulated in an animated, rattling cloud of fury.

She hesitated. She had so many questions, so many doubts. What could she possibly do with a couple insects?

But there was no time to ask any of them.

And the thought of the person who did this, who was capable of doing this to a child, getting away, after all they sacrificed to do this, the PRT agents who would never see their families again…

She crouched, almost hidden behind the transport van.

“Okay. Can you stop him somehow?” She whispered, wracking her brain on how to get the girl to tell her where he was. She wouldn’t know street names, right? Or did she?

Taylor swallowed, jaw quivering.

“Y-yes ma’am.” Taylor whispered.

For several moments, nothing happened. The same sunny sky mockingly glared down at them as pieces of debris and gunfire continued to rain in all directions, far from them, yet still too close.

Slowly, over the course of a few seconds, the sun darkened a smidge, and Hannah would have thought a cloud was simply passing by, were it not for a sound she could only describe as a slowly building, biological white noise, which steadily rose. A distant, muffled series of crackling and hissing and buzzing, cicadas and crickets and a trillion wings beating in unison.

She looked up, and her eyes widened.

Shouts of terror and panic rose all around her.

She instead mutely watched the sun be drowned out by a swarm of chitin, a tide thicker than the ocean, eyes wide.

The swarm thickened, more, more.

She got up on shaky legs, and turned her head, watching a blanket of chitin extend over the tops of the buildings like a transparent black sheet, a fuzzy black mass that thickened, and thickened, until she could no longer clearly see the clouds in the sky above, extending several miles away.

Slowly, her gaze creaked down to the fragile little girl in her arms, a mixture of terror and apprehension in her chest.

The cloudy mid-day sun darkened by the second.

And in less than a minute, day had turned to night, at least above her, at the eye of the storm.

Hannah watched with a vague sense of horror as people had to turn on flashlights in the middle of the day, pointing them up at a sheet of undulating life that kept lowering further and further, gathering denser and denser above them.

Then it dispersed, the insects rapidly coalescing into long branches of darkness that fell down into specific points in the city like a tide, opening the skies once more, her eyes struggling to adjust to the suddenly blinding sunlight.

Breathing hard, she looked down, and gulped, eyeing the hornets on her shoulder pads.

The gunfire she had been hearing for the past several minutes intensified to a frantic crescendo, then stopped almost abruptly, over the course of a few seconds.

The sudden, eerie quiet did nothing to calm her nerves.

There weren’t that many bugs inside Brockton. There just couldn’t be, right?

So where did she get them from?

How big was her range?

God what did she just tell the girl to do?

The girl started to shake again, curling into her as she sat on her lap, the hospital gown doing little for warmth, seemingly, as a large swarm of insects gathered around her like a cloak, covering herself, along with Hannah’s currently twitching hands, covered in thousands of little legs.

Hannah hugged her tighter.

Even so, she had to ask.

“Taylor, what did you do? Did you capture him? Where is he?” She whispered, gently, gritting her teeth and trying not to squirm away in terror as an endless swarm of bees and hornets and wasps and spiders coalesced on her own body, her hair even, the less lethal insects slowly but surely being filtered out as her uniform was covered in chitin.

Taylor shifted her head up, just a tiny bit, brows scrunched in confusion.

“Capture?” The girl breathed out in a soft rasp, genuinely confused. “What?”

Oh.

Hannah’s vision swam as she fell back, sliding down the van’s side until she was on her ass on the concrete.

“Oh fuck.” She breathed out, realizing the magnitude of what just happened.

Piggot was going to fucking crucify her.

The woman would have wanted his contacts. His information. Anything an interrogation could yield.

“T-the soldiers?” She asked, dreading the answers.

A small finger pointed up, and she followed it, watching columns of insects rise into the sky, and disperse.

“Inside…” Taylor breathed out, barely audible.

Hannah tried not to show how genuinely disturbed she was, simply nodding.

“Ah. Okay. Good job, sweetheart.” She murmured mildly, almost absentmindedly, raising a moth-laden hand to the girl’s head on shocked autopilot, brushing her hair back to comfort her, and quickly stopping when Taylor shrunk back from the touch, flinching away.

This… this was a proper mess.

Chapter Text

She tried, she really tried to get the girl to go with someone else, but Hannah was… surprisingly weak to Taylor’s pleas.

It didn’t help that the one time someone else tried to touch her, every insect covering the girl and Hannah like armour started going insane.

Nobody wanted to provoke the swarm again, so they gave up.

In the end, it was decided that she would accompany the girl and hold her hand for… most of the way through the processing they would have to go through in the PRT.

It proved incredibly difficult.

The mere sight of a needle made the girl as tense as having a gun trained to her head. Any controlling touch had her jerking away and trying to get to Hannah, insects once again buzzing threateningly.

Thus, most of the duties fell to her, because for some reason, the girl trusted her.

It was somewhat touching, and rather scary at the same time.

Even when it was time to dress her, the girl didn’t appear the least bit shy, standing there like a mute doll, listening to commands and helping when asked, but otherwise, doing nothing, only defending herself and her insects from being taken away.

So long as Hannah was asking, she did whatever she was told.

This was a problem, because procedures did not like interruption, and the girl refused to do anything if Hannah didn’t explicitly agree with the command given by another person.

Hannah simply assumed this was some kind of ‘imprinted duckling’ moment that would pass, sooner than later.

Eventually, a needle re-appeared, and the girl froze again.

This time, Hannah was here.

“Hey, hey. Calm down, sweetie. Just a prick on the finger. It’s a blood sample, we’re not putting anything in you.” She softly reassured, watching the girl breathe harder and harder. “We’re trying to find if there’s anything wrong with you, any drugs in your system from him. We have to get you to the doctors, to make sure you’re okay, see what he did to… your eyes. And ears.”

A short jerky nod.

“Y-you’ll stay, r-right? Please.” Her breathy, shaking voice asked. “D-don’t let them, take the bugs. I can’t see or hear without them. I can’t-”

“I will try my best to let you keep them, okay? I’ll stay too.” She whispered, gently taking the girl’s hand. “Don’t look. It will help. Just focus on me, okay?”

Taylor jerkily nodded, squeezing her hand weakly.

Hannah watched in quiet discomfort as the myriad bugs on and around her all slowly turned to stare at her, trying to ignore the itching sensation of spider legs walking across her mouth over the scarf.

God, she needed twenty showers after this.

At least Taylor never sent them over her eyes.

“Y-you’re pretty.” The girl noted quietly, almost like she was trying to fill the silence.

She blinked, smiling involuntarily at how weirdly adorable that was.

“Thank you, sweetie.” She warmly chuckled.

The needle went in, and the girl’s muscles tensed, shoulders hunching. A horrid rattling sound filled the room as hundreds of insects beat their wings in warning.

She rubbed the girl’s arm, watching in disbelief as the insects covering it retreated to allow direct touch like some kind of liquid.

“Shhhh, shh, it’s okay. Relax, it will only hurt more if you clench.” She whispered, and the girl nodded, a short gagging sound escaping her before she slowly went limp again right where she sat, her breaths abruptly normal again, her head hanging down without strength.

Heart pounding, she gently tapped the girl’s shoulder.

“Are you okay? Taylor? Are you awake?” She asked, worried.

An uncaring hum was her answer, numb and low.

The doctor carefully took the syringe poking out of Taylor’s forearm, and quickly finished his work, before retreating.

Hannah didn’t know what to do, so she did nothing.

She just hovered, sitting on a chair next to the bed, waiting for the girl to… do something, really.

What even was this… fugue state? She should check with the nurses afterwards.

Four minutes later, the girl slowly raised her head, almost dazed, the insects around them quickly animating again.

“More?” The girl simply asked like nothing happened, voice thick with dread.

She nodded in sympathy.

“A bit. Just relax, alright? We all want to help you here. You can trust us.”

The girl shook her head, stubborn.

Hhmm.

Another problem…

“And his remains?” Armsmaster patiently asked.

Hannah would scold him if she had the energy and the rank to do so. It was just questioning, which she understood, but could the girl not rest first?

Taylor shuffled deeper into her personal cocoon of insects, a mass of bees being used as an eye mask, while sending those covering Hannah into a mild, nervous shuffle, as if to confirm her existence.

“I… I don’t know, I think I left his bones?” Taylor croaked, clueless as to what she had done wrong. “What do you want them for?” The girl quietly asked, before trying to get the spoon to her mouth.

Key word being ‘tried’.

The moment she actually lifted the spoon and had to use her own muscles to keep it stable, her fingers began quivering uncontrollably like a vibrating motor, spilling the soup back into the bowl.

Taylor’s breath hitched, and she grabbed her own wrist with her other hand, jaw clenched, knuckles white in frustration.

The spoon slowly went into her mouth. It was long since empty.

Taylor’s brows furrowed as she tore the spoon out, and it quickly clattered to the floor as she lost her grip. Ducking her head, she curled in on herself, shaking like a leaf, fists clenched, or trying to.

A long silence descended in the cozy meeting room, the calm colours a sharp contrast to the emotions of those within it.

“...I’ll let you rest now. Thank you, Taylor.” Colin politely declared, and left a swift exit.

Taylor ignored him.

Hannah watched a single tear escape the confines of the fresh bandages over her eyes, and finally broke her observation, getting up and putting her chair beside the girl as she bent down to get the spoon, wiping it clean on a napkin as she sat down next to her.

Taylor, encouragingly, bucked her body a little to drag their chairs closer with a sharp scraping sound.

A tiny, sad smile flit across Hannah’s face, come and gone in a moment.

“Need some help?” She offered.

“I-I c-can do it.” Taylor warbled, stubbornly, and motioned for the spoon, not daring to grab it for some reason. Hannah gave it to her with a soft humm, turning her body slightly to the side to observe, a calm presence, or so she hoped.

Part of her really, really wanted to ask the girl how her hands got injured. That kind of shaking was a hand injury, not nerves or trauma. She knew enough, had seen enough, to arrive at that conclusion, even without the innumerable scans the nurses had taken of the girl.

Another part of her didn’t dare ask, not yet. She doubted the answer would be anything but gutwrenching.

She watched the faint orange light of the afternoon sun reflect off the edge of the spoon, glinting prettily, the sterile scent of the room suppressed by the earthly scent of pepper and mushroom soup.

Slowly giving the girl’s shoulder a supportive rub, she ignored the bees crawling all over her hand, the low hum of a ceiling fan the only sound in the room as Taylor tried to hold the spoon up, steady and still, pinched between her thumb, pointer, and middle finger. Empty, this time, just to try.

Immediately, it started to shake violently, and Hanna could see the girl’s shoulders tighten in frustration, leading her to try and hold the spoon with more force, which only made the shaking worse.

Hannah barely caught the spoon this time, and felt her heart ache as a muffled, tiny growl of helpless frustration left the girl.

The small swarm of insects on both of them coalesced, a cloud of fliers that gathered on her hand, grabbing onto the spoon and tugging.

She clenched her hand, refusing to relinquish it, trying not to recoil at the feeling of so many wriggling things on her naked skin.

“No need for that yet. One last try, alright?” She softly asked, trying not to squirm as a thousand spiky little legs dug into her skin, eye twitching.

The insects scattered back to their perches on the girl.

A slow, sniffling nod.

Taylor went to take the spoon again, and Hannah gently, but firmly, intercepted by taking her hand, and slowly turning it over, palm side up.

Taylor let her, trusting, but confused.

“There’s no need to pinch, not with a spoon. Your fingers can’t do it, that’s why they shake. Something is damaged.” She whispered, their foreheads practically touching since she was hunched so low, not willing to break the soft atmosphere by raising her voice to be heard.

Fingers gently rubbing over twitching, jittery flesh, she carefully put the spoon in the junction of Taylor’s thumb, and gently curled her hand inwards, just a tad.

Taylor slowly relaxed, her hand stilled.

“Use the thumb to hold it upright against your hand. Support under with your fingers.” She instructed, and took the girl’s pointer and middle finger with her own, gently curling them under the spoon, a half-limp support rather than a pinching grip.

Taylor nodded, a small, jerky thing.

She raised their hands up together, and Taylor got the hint, taking her hand out of hers, and trying to do as instructed.

“Better, see?” She hummed sweetly, her smile audible as she rubbed the girl’s shoulder with a thumb.

She felt so strangely proud of her.

Taylor nodded.

“S-still can’t…” Taylor whispered, voice hopeless, the spoon jumping up and down a lot as her thumb shook incessantly. At least it wasn’t jerking around from side to side as well, like before.

“Hm, maybe not right now, but with some time, you should be able to eat on your own, as your muscles get stronger.” She noted, and gently reached for the girl’s hand again, slowly.

Taylor moved her hand into hers without looking or protesting, something which made her strangely pleased, and she gently cupped the tiny fist, supporting it, stabilizing Taylor’s fingers by wrapping them in her own.

That lack of protest lasted until she tried to move the girl’s hand towards the bowl with her own hand guiding it.

Taylor tugged back, shaking her head.

“C-can I do it myself, ma'am?” Taylor asked, still in that odd tone, as if always asking for permission.

She paused for a second, mulling over what to say.

“...Just because I’m helping, doesn’t mean you aren’t the one doing it.” She whispered, like it was some fun little secret, scooting her chair closer, moving the hand she had on the girl’s shoulder to the opposite one around her back, a half-hug.

Taylor swallowed, but finally took another spoonful, slowly bringing it to her mouth.

When the spoon began jumping again, Hannah put her thumb over Taylor’s, a gentle pressure, stabilizing it.

She tugged her mask down, smiling gently down at the girl as she gulped it down, rubbing her back in gentle circles.

“See? You’re doing good. One step at a time.” She chuckled under her breath.

Hannah expected her to go for another spoonful.

Instead, the girl hurriedly put the spoon on the table, turned around, and with a strangled little sob, threw herself forward into Hannah’s torso in a fierce hug.

She had a small moment of surprised bafflement before she hugged back, the quiet, muffled sobs of the girl utterly gut wrenching in how sudden they were, how much it was obvious she was trying to contain herself, hiccuping apologies and warbling out half-words that even if Hannah understood, she doubted would make any sense.

It was not a quick affair by any means.

A minute passed, two.

Eventually, the door cracked open, and she tilted her head towards Assault, frozen in the door frame, with a faintly pleading look of panic on her face.

The useless traitor just gave her a confused thumbs up and shut the door.

What the hell was she supposed to do here?

A particularly loud, choked whimper had her wincing and hugging tighter, curling close to the girl, making small shushing noises.

She tried rubbing Taylor’s back even through the buzzing hive crawling over them both, trusting the bees and hornets to get out of the way before being squished, but it did little to calm the girl, or so it seemed, as she just kept crying, and crying…

God, it hurt to listen to.

This was not her forte, but the least she could do was try.

So she did.

“It’s alright, sweetie. You’re okay. It’s over. You’re with me now. Things will get better.” She whispered into her hair, grimacing when said hair moved with a high pitched whimper from her charge. She powered through her discomfort to try and be of some use, to provide some manner of comfort, but the greatest discomfort of all, the greatest, most painful shame, came from being so incapable of relieving Taylor of her pain.

She couldn’t shoot trauma and memories away. She was no good at this, not at all.

One arm around the girl’s shoulders, the other rubbing her back, slowly but surely, what little she could hear from her slowly pettered out, until nothing but silence remained.

She didn’t realize until ten minutes later that the girl had fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion.

Which meant that the gigantic blanket of insects over both of them was… probably not under her direct control…

Oh… ooooh Jesus Christ, no…

Hannah watched a curious bee crawl up her cheek with a faint shudder, squinting her eyes by instinct as she shuddered.

This… this was usually not in the job description.

As one of the only heroes who did not need to sleep, it was natural that she was picked to spend the night outside of Taylor’s M/S cell. Both to make sure she was monitored and wouldn’t do anything to harm herself, and because Piggot and everyone involved seemed to be very aware that she had built quite the rapport with the girl.

Which, of course they knew, since Taylor kept asking for her specifically from the moment she woke up, and to every expert and therapist they had gotten to talk to her.

Hannah felt somewhat touched by how much the girl liked her, and a bit confused, but accepted the role of overwatch.

It helped that at the end of the day, Taylor was a very sweet child. Hannah actually quite liked spending time with her. She was deceptively intelligent, albeit terribly meek and unwilling to speak before being spoken to.

So, she currently sat outside the M/S cell, playing tic-tac-toe with the girl through the insects around her, whichever few were allowed in the isolated hallway. Taylor didn’t feel like talking, for the past hour and something, so they did this instead.

The cell… well, actually, calling the M/S room a cell was inaccurate. It was a cell only in function, not form.

It was a proper child’s room. The PRT had scrambled over the day to fill it with all manner of entertainment appropriate for a child, as many safe things they could put in there, and they had even allowed her a couple dozens of bees, both inside and outside the room, for the girl’s peace of mind, and communication with Hannah, specifically. There was a speaker and a microphone for them to chat with each other.

Considering how usual procedures went, Piggot was being almost… inordinately kind. Stretching a lot of rules, for sure, waiving protocol here and there.

Maybe the woman had a heart after all.

She crossed another X on the notebook, and snorted as she realized her loss, shaking her head.

“How do you keep winning? Are you cheating?” She asked, voice playfully suspicious.

No… wait, how does one cheat on tic-tac-toe?

The bee on her notebook walked over to two circled words, one being “YES”, another being “NO”, and proudly walked on the ‘yes’.

She clicked her tongue, and turned another page, chuckling.

Piggot tapped the end of her pen against her desk, the raps quick and agitated as she regarded her with an even gaze.

She stared back impassively, waiting to hear what she had been summoned for.

Piggot eventually set the pen down with a final ‘clack’.

“I have a mixture of praise and condemnation for you, as I’m sure you are aware and expecting.” Piggot started.

She nodded.

“I’m going to shelf that for later, because the hour is late, and I need sleep, unfortunately. To cut to the chase, I have some requests for you. Many of them extend quite far outside the normal boundaries of work and personal life, so, they are requests, not orders.” Piggot continued.

She lowered her eyelids into a cautious stare, but nodded once more.

Nice to have a choice for once, whether she would follow or not, but it was a largely useless choice. She did as she was told, and she rarely let her disagreement get in the way of duty.

Still, this was… very unusual.

“Firstly, do you want to know what we found on her?” Piggot offered.

“Yes.” She blurted out, almost hurried, immediately stepping forward, interested.

Piggot slid out a file, and extended it to her.

“Read it within the hour after we’re done here, and throw it straight into the incinerators right after. Now, for more current information. The decision is that we are going to send the girl to a parahuman asylum, hopefully only for a short stay, to ensure she is somewhat stable before her reintegration into society. Might be months, might be a year. Considering what she has been through, she is incredibly stable and resilient, so we are hopeful for the former. The crux of my concern is this; I want her.” Piggot finally got to the point, and Hannah felt a sour taste enter her mouth immediately at the greed in the woman’s voice.

“I want her in the Wards, I want her in the Protectorate, and I want her a lot. Others will want her even more, once her capabilities spread in the internal ranks. She can monitor miles of space without effort. Her value in recon and information gathering is unbelievable. Any operation she is involved in can be a breeze. She could clean up the entire Bay in months. We can keep our bases relatively clean of bugs with minimal effort, and she would be an invaluable asset with little chance of backfiring.” Piggot emphasized, then leaned back, both physically, and metaphorically, as her voice softened.

“And it just so happens that this girl has developed some kind of fondness for you in particular. Do you wish to involve yourself with her as much as she does you?” Piggot asked, phrased as if presenting an opportunity.

Hannah frowned, skeptical.

“What does that mean?” She asked, peeved at the way the woman talked about Taylor like an object, a weapon. She wasn’t wrong, just… dehumanizing.

“The girl is an orphan. Coil’s work.”

Her jaw clenched, teeth grinding.

Fuck. Of course. Of course.

She had hoped so much for a quick, teary-eyed reunion with the girl’s parents, a chance of mental peace that at least the girl would be in good, familiar hands.

Nothing could be that simple, it seemed.

“For numerous reasons, she doesn’t trust many, even among the heroes. She also needs legal guardians. Additionally, she already has a strange admiration and trust of you. The girl needs a parent, I need a connection to her to hopefully draw her into the Wards at some point in the future… you can guess what the common point is.” Piggot ended, tired.

…Hannah. Hannah was the common solution here.

Breaking her soldier pose, she turned, rubbing her face with her hands, feeling faintly dizzy as she paced a little.

“You want me to… what, adopt her? Alone?” She asked, incredulous.

“Yes. She already requests your presence every moment she is awake. You don’t seem to dislike her, either. Would it really be that terrible of a sacrifice to make?” Piggot asked, curious.

She shook her head without even thinking about it.

“No, it wouldn’t. But I’m not grooming her to use her power for us. She’s not a tool, and I am not Coil. If she doesn’t want to do it, I wouldn’t even attempt to convince her otherwise.” She replied, pausing her pacing, a bit more heat and snap in her voice than she would usually allow.

Piggot frowned.

“So your condition is that she chooses whether she wishes to enter the Wards or not? You wouldn’t force her.”

She shook her head, vehemently.

“No, I wouldn’t. She’s been through enough. Unless she was as far away as humanly possible from any and all danger, I wouldn’t let her even if she asked.” She insisted.

Piggot hummed.

“Tough, but reasonable. We would never put her in danger, or in the open, so that’s not a problem. Her value is best served as a very well guarded secret, after all. With that guarantee, would you consider it?” Piggot pushed.

Hannah paced faster, heart pounding.

Fuck…

“I… I suppose I could let her make that choice if you promised, in writing, to keep her as safe as possible. Hidden.” She reasoned, and questioned why she was already talking like she was the girl’s guardian. She wasn’t.

“If you would allow her to at least make the choice herself as to whether she could assist us or not… I’d do what I can to help you both. Adoption, papers, CPS, financial support, whatever you want. She is too valuable to get all rebellious during her teen years, fumble, and die in some alley to some two-bit thug, like most independents who get antsy and run into people like Lung.” Piggot huffed.

Hannah winced.

That was also true. Nobody with super powers fully ever managed to stay out of trouble, no matter how well guarded. It was almost like a law of the universe. Taylor would face conflict. Hannah could regulate the conflict into far safer parameters if she was around though. Others… she admired many of her colleagues, but she doubted they would go to the same lengths she would.

She stopped pacing, chewing her lip.

“Even if I don’t take her, some other department will, right?” She asked, the mere thought igniting a strange, chest-tightening dread in her gut.

“Houston is already asking a few too many questions about the girl to seem like idle curiosity.” Piggot dryly replied.

Shit.

“Give… give me a bit to think about it. How much time do I have?”

Piggot sighed.

“For this particular offer? Officially, months. Unofficially, you better decide quickly. Maybe a couple days at most. When she’s out of the psych ward, people will start looking at the adoption applications, and unless you’re near the top of the list, they might not even get to you. Why would they, if the likes of Alexandria are ahead of you?” Piggot pressed.

She relaxed, a little.

A couple days was not a long time, but it was better than right now.

She licked her lips, nodded.

“Okay. I’ll get back to you soon.” She replied, even though she had a sinking feeling that the more she visited the girl, the less able she would be to say “no”.

Damn it.

She never wanted to be a guardian to someone. She didn’t know how to raise a child. Especially one so young. Taylor was… what, eleven, close to twelve? Not a toddler, but still too young for her comfort zone.

Another problem was that… people needed a reason to keep going. A motivation to fight to get better, to try and improve their mind and their life. Especially after going through the kinds of things Taylor had gone through.

Hannah did not know how to help Taylor find that reason to keep going. She had never helped someone else with that mental search.

“When is she getting transferred? To where?” She asked, suddenly remembering that minor detail.

“Asylum East, Philadelphia. After a few more preliminary meetings with our therapists, she will likely end up there in a couple days. I’ll pull some strings to let you escort her, if you wish.” Piggot replied.

She blinked.

Philadelphia.

That was… a five or six hour drive? If she was on the gas, maybe a bit less, about four hours, especially if she took the bike to do it.

… She could do that in a day. She had eight free hours a day most people didn’t, since she didn’t need to sleep. Drive, talk to Taylor, drive back… ten or twelve hours a day should be enough. She had those, her work hours were only eight or ten.

It would eat up all her free time, but she hardly ever used said free time for anything more than work or motorcycle rides to clear her head.

Her life was rather… empty, actually. She tried not to think too hard about that, usually.

“Philadelphia… that’s a lot of gas money.” She mumbled to herself, half-amused at the absurdity of her current situation, rubbing her brows with a thumb to relieve a building headache.

“I’ll arrange a raise for you.” Piggot offered neutrally.

She lowered her hand, staring.

… Piggot really wanted this girl, holy shit.

She nodded, and turned to leave. On a sudden whim, she took her phone out and began to look around the internet for parenting books.

Just… just in case. She wasn’t sure she could even do what was being asked of her, honestly…

The girl’s parents had died in a car accident involving a giant truck that very suspiciously lost control and rammed into them while they were exiting a supermarket, two and a half years ago, mere days after her 9th birthday.

Of course, no plates, no leads to follow. It ran and vanished.

On the same day, a man went to Taylor’s school with parental authorization, claiming to be a colleague of Mr. Hebert’s. Not an entirely unusual thing, apparently, judging from the testimony of a close friend of Hebert, named Curt, who was also in the same worksite. The girl seemed confused and didn’t know the man, which was a tad unusual, but the man had a written paper, and claimed it was an emergency, so suspicions were not raised until the man and the girl both disappeared without a trace.

It wasn’t technically confirmed, but that was definitely Coil’s work. Fucking bastard. She hoped the hornets ate him alive, nice and slow.

How he knew Taylor had triggered mere days ago, nobody knew. It would remain a mystery, for better or worse.

Hannah flipped through speculation and detailed reports, skipping forward to the medical scans.

She very quickly put the papers down and began to pace around her quarters like an angered lion in a cage, quivering with a mixture of hatred, horror, and regret.

Taylor’s hand was indeed injured. The nurses reported severe ligament and muscle damage, as well as inflamed and irritated tendons. A months old injury, but one that would likely never completely heal.

Considering how topical and precise the damage was, without bone damage or anything of the sort, the only explanation left to the doctors was simple.

Coil bent the girl’s fingers backwards. Six of them in total, the three most important ones in each hand. Likely a punishment for something or another. Maybe just to get his rocks off.

Unbidden, a mental image rose of Taylor, strapped down in a cold dark room while a dark figure bent her fingers back until they crunched, ignoring her cries and screams…

Hannah gagged a little, raising a shaking fist to her mouth.

Her power flashed like a strobelight from knives to rifles, her heart pounding like a drum.

She felt so fucking useless. In the face of what this little child had gone through, what could she do? She couldn’t erase anything, she could bring no one involved into justice, because Taylor had already delivered it. It was too late to change anything, to undo anything, she knew that, yet, she still felt so unbelievably guilty.

For not being fast enough, for not… somehow knowing about it and cutting it short two years ago, when this started.

… She could change the future though, couldn’t she?

She stopped cold, eyeing the laptop on her bed.

Inside her emails was an adoption form, none too subtly sent to her by Piggot’s secretary.

She couldn’t fix the past or undo what had happened, but she could… make the girl’s future better, brighter. Couldn’t she? She could not erase the memories, but she could cover them with brighter, happier ones.

She wasn’t ready to do something like this. She didn’t know enough about how to support Taylor, how to deal with her needs, how to help someone so damaged.

But if Piggot was to be believed, she didn’t have much time to prepare and think.

For ten, twenty minutes, she stood in place, breathing fast and hard, thinking.

The memory of Taylor bawling her eyes out on her chest clenched around her heart like the most bittersweet thorns.

Self-doubt kept her guessing, wondering if she was the right person to try and make the most of the girl’s future, to try and erase the horrors of her past with new, brighter memories.

An entire hour passed before she collapsed into bed, and called Piggot.

It answered on the first ring, morning light peeking through the round window on the side of her bed.

“Yes or no?” Piggot asked, instantly.

“Get it in writing, that you will keep her safe, and that I have veto rights on having her participate in any operations that I deem unsafe or risky to her mental well-being, if she even wants to become a Ward. If you do that and send it to my email, I’m signing today, and I will keep in mind all the assistance and favour you said you’d provide in the future.” She replied succinctly.

Piggot was silent for a while, likely weighing how much bargaining power she had.

“Deal. Now, go see your little hive queen, she’s already being a headache to the guards, demanding your presence before she eats, and I am not a babysitter.” Piggot dryly replied, and closed the phone.

Hannah put the phone on her chest, breathing long and hard as she stared at the ceiling.

This was not how she had envisioned her life going. Everything she had mentally mapped out and expected was going to be irreversibly derailed.

This responsibility felt far heavier than anything being a hero had entailed.

Taylor was waiting for her, so she cut her line of thinking short, and got up to start the new day.

Chapter Text

She blinked, uncomprehending.

“Free visitation? I…wasn’t she in MS containment?” She asked, confused.

“There’s no point if we don’t know what her baseline behaviour is. Hard to judge irregular behaviour if you don’t know what her regular behaviour is. It got cancelled, was pointless. She’s just being held here to talk to doctors for a while till they figure out what to do with her, is my guess.” Peter shrugged, sitting next to the door, unconcerned with blocking it.

She blinked, and nodded. That… did make sense.

“Huh… yeah, that makes sense. Congrats on the promotion.” She noted, flicking a finger at his uniform, prompting a slight grin. “Alright, see you guys on the training mats later.” She nodded, and walked past them into the airlock, somewhat relieved.

And somewhat wondering why she didn’t think of that before. Of course M/S made no sense here, they didn’t know her, had no psych profile of her previous to her capture… it was just procedure, she guessed, so she didn’t think much of it.

Oh well. The change was welcome.

Another welcome change she noticed immediately upon exiting the airlock, was the bugs.

She had to say, it was much, much more pleasant to be beset upon by a horde of butterflies, rather than bees and hornets.

It was so startlingly beautiful, in fact, that she had to pause and laugh under her breath in awe, watching the rainbow of color swirl around her, settle on her with utmost care.

A long-gone sense of child-like wonder alit inside her, and she grinned wide, raising a hand covered in blues and oranges and purples, gaping slightly.

“Oh wow... Hello there, Taylor. This is… whoah.” She breathed out, voice small and wistful, a bit too stunned to speak properly, watching the hallway undulate with colors, slowly stepping forward, watching dozens of wings shuffle and twitch on her forearm.

The butterflies then gathered, flying in a swirling vortex in front of her, a shifting kaleidoscope of little life, a little show just for her. The colors flashed in and out as the wings opened then closed, the angles shifting, a dizzying swirl of patterns and shapes and colors.

They arranged themselves into rings of various colors, all swimming in and out of eachother. At the end, butterflies with wings patterned like eyes blinked like a strobelight, swirling in place.

She slowly came to a stop… mouth hanging slightly agape at the sheer beauty of it.

Memories suddenly assaulted her, too fuzzy and indistinct to be anything but beautiful, of a field of wildflowers, an indistinct blob of red and grass, because her young mind was too focused on trying to catch the swirling white butterflies hopping from flower to flower, so focused on the strange creatures that she tripped every few seconds into the cushiony morning dew.

Blinking rapidly to clear her misty, stinging sight, she cleared her throat of the lump that had formed, watching the little show with unrestrained wonder. Carefully, she lowered her face mask, taking care not to touch the little flower-like wings that shuffled all across her front.

The sound was so strange to hear. So many wings moving in unison were audible, even if only barely, a continuous shuffle of tiny beats that sounded like dry leaves, stirred by an autumn wind, a thing one barely heard but definitely appreciated.

By the time she got to the last door, Taylor’s, her cheeks hurt from grinning so hard, her teeth feeling cold.

The swarm dispersed, and she watched in idle curiosity as they flew back to little… bottlecaps, put around the hallway, seemingly at random, likely filled with sugar water or something of the like.

Whoever did that deserved a thank you later, she decided.

Considering the M/S containment was called off, the door should…

To her surprise, it did actually open. It wasn’t locked from the outside, at least. Just the inside. Still a containment room.

To her surprise, the room was completely untouched save for a single little table next to the bed, a very simple breakfast cooling down on the simple plastic surface.

Next to it, Taylor lay on the bed, head inclined towards her.

“Hello there. How are you doing?” She asked, mostly to break the silence.

“Okay. Did… did you like it?” Taylor asked, voice so quiet that the wingbeats of her butterflies did most of the heavy lifting. Her tone lay thick with insecurity.

She grinned wider. Gosh, her cheeks hurt.

“It was beautiful, sweetie. One of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen. You have amazing control over them.” She said honestly, taking the little chair from the unused desk, and putting it next to the bed, sitting down, laying a hand next to the girl’s leg, but not directly touching her. “A little birdie told me you weren’t eating. Is the food that bad?” She joked.

Taylor’s lip twitched upward, for a moment.

“I’m… I just feel weird. I need… he was giving me something for my sickness. I need another… dose. I’m scared.” Taylor whispered.

Her smile faded as she slowly nodded, teeth gritting.

Delicately, she turned towards the girl, hands clasped in front of her.

“You’re not sick, sweetheart. You never were. That man was… drugging you. That’s why you’re having trouble standing. He was using something… custom. We don’t know what. It was poison, to make you weaker.”

Taylor was silent, only the increased flurry of movement from the butterflies suggesting any change in emotion.

“But it… it felt better. After he put something in… the bags. He said I was sick.” Taylor breathed out, voice lost and confused. Not disbelieving, just confused.

So that’s what those IV bags were for, back in his base. Different drugs, delivered in hyper-precise dosages to mix in her bloodstream and have some kind of effect on her nerves that Hannah was not educated enough to understand. The doctor’s report was thorough enough to understand the basics.

“Better how?” She asked.

“...It stopped feeling… twitchy. Hot. Itchy, in my veins.” Taylor mumbled.

She sighed, trying not to sink back into a cycle of self-loathing at how little she could help this poor girl.

Itching veins? God, that sounded viscerally uncomfortable.

She was silent for a bit, thinking of how to put it.

“...Pain and discomfort means your body is working right, sweetie. It’s telling you something is wrong. If the drugs made you numb, that means they just told your body to stop telling you what’s wrong, even if it was being hurt from inside. It felt better, but each new injection made it worse. My guess is he…” She paused, carefully considering if she should continue to talk about this. She hadn’t planned to. She had planned to come cheer her up, somehow.

The butterflies were agitated, but no more than before. So she continued.

“My guess is that he was trying to make sure that even if you somehow escaped, you wouldn’t be able to walk away. That’s why our doctors keep trying to give you pills now. We have to cleanse the poison. You’ll get better quicker, with these.” She pushed a little, again.

Taylor swallowed.

“So I have to… I have to take those? They w-won’t hurt me?” Taylor whispered, shuffling weakly, like she was trying to curl up on her side, but barely had the strength. It was equal parts pitiful and sad.

She nodded.

“You don’t have to, but they will only help you. They won’t hurt you, sweetie. I promise.”

Taylor wet her lips, nodded.

Another long bout of silence.

“I heard you were asking for me. Anything in particular you wanted my help for?” She asked, to break the silence.

Taylor swallowed.

“C-can I eat, ma’am?” Taylor asked, voice small.

Hannah blinked, once twice, confused.

“I- of course? The food isn’t…” She started, baffled, then it clicked.

Taylor wasn’t asking around for her because she had a burning need or question for her.

Taylor had been asking around for her because she felt like she needed permission from Hannah to eat food.

That was hopefully not because she thought Hannah was like Coil, but because that was what she was familiar with. With all these changes, this uncertainty, she clung to what she knew, because she was scared.

Even after realizing this, the nonsensical, alien nature of that train of thought had her flapping her mouth like a fish, wondering how to respond to this.

Her eyes burned.

Biting her tongue, she wondered when she got so damn sensitive. Quickly clearing her throat, she nodded.

“Taylor, you don’t need to ask my permission to eat, sweetie. Eat as much as you want, whenever you want.”

Taylor did hear her.

But it still felt like a trap, somehow, to do something without permission. Like this was bait, dangling over her mouth and dripping with poison she couldn’t smell nor see as her mouth watered.

So she did absolutely nothing. Asking again if she could eat felt… dangerous, even if she knew Hannah wasn’t like that.

Accepting what she was just told felt like she was putting her leg into a bear trap, the springs squealing as they waited with glee to snap shut around her. It was the law of her existence until now, and she hadn’t yet adjusted.

Her chest tightened.

She knew Hannah.

She was the first hero she could regularly surveil within her power’s range from the start, even if only for thirty minutes or so a day. Her patrol path inched across the edge of her range, at first.

As her range grew and her mind retreated into a trillion pairs of inhuman eyes for the fantasy of escape, the time that Hannah spent in her range grew. Thirty minutes turned into an hour.

Then two. Then four.

Then, all day.

Taylor drank coffee by her side, every day. Three sugars, double dose of coffee.

Taylor patrolled with her on the back seat of her motorcycle, pretending all those waves and smiles were directed at them instead of just her.

Taylor shot guns with her at the range, even if every shot made her eyes dizzy and hard to control.

She fantasized, she pretended, she imagined.

There were others in her range, of course. But she knew Hannah. She wanted her, not them. Not Armsmaster and his cold armour and his lab that made her nervous and sick, not Velocity and his awful power she couldn’t track, not Dauntless and his annoying forcefield.

She could tell apart the sound of Hannah’s footsteps in a room of thousands, could distinguish the cadence of her voice from the tiniest groan. She could tell apart her scent from every single other thing in the world at once if she had to. She could tell apart her signature from a thousand perfect forgeries, could see her notes’ handwriting printed onto the back of her eyelids in the infinite darkness if she focused hard enough.

She knew everything about her. She knew her favourite outfits and clothes, the sizes she wore, her birthday, the make and model of the motorcycle she cleaned so meticulously each and every week, the way her fingers fidgeted when she was upset, like she was itching to have a gun fill her hand, her favourite music player, her favourite music, the foods she liked.

Hannah was the first hero to give her hope that maybe she could escape, no matter how many times Coil had come along to crush it, night after night, like he could somehow read her mind whenever she began to think of doing something.

She knew Hannah, better than anyone ever could or did. Hannah had been her escape, mentally, for two years. Then she was her physical escape, at last.

She had seen the depths of her character, who she was even in her most private moments, and found someone she could live for.

In the countless nights she couldn’t sleep, the countless times she fantasized about the quiet peace of death, only one thing had kept her from trying something to make it happen.

Hannah.

Hannah was her hero, and she might one day get her out. A familiar thought.

So, Taylor trusted Hannah.

Hannah meant it when she said that she didn’t need to ask for permission to eat. It wasn’t a lie, nor a test, nor some strange point to be made.

Hannah just wasn’t like that.

And yet, Taylor couldn’t do it. The thought of moving without being told to made her chest clench, and clench, and clench, until she could feel her ribs shifting and grinding against each other like sticks in a too-tight bag of flesh, a thorax with no support. Her heart hurt.

The weird sensation of her skin heating up and tingling returned.

She felt dizzy, delirious, breaths quickening.

The pull of comfort called, her power everpresent in the back of her mind. The temptation to sink into it, to let her mind melt into the swarm rose higher and higher.

“Can I get up, ma’am?” She whispered, from a thousand little wings.

A strange expression of abrupt understanding replaced the one of naked, urgent concern that Hannah wore, and Hannah nodded, a hand hovering over her shoulder, afraid to touch.

“Yes, of course.”

Finally, a clear answer.

She relaxed a little, swallowing.

Her skin was freezing. And burning. Her mind felt fuzzy, cotton stuffed between her ears.

With too much effort, she turned onto her stomach, curling her legs in.

Then she tried to get up, and couldn’t. Her arms weren’t strong enough to push her up.

“Do you want help? Can I touch you?” Hannah asked, gentle as always.

“Yes.” She replied, defeated and quiet, going limp, trying to ignore the sting of tears gathering at her eyes.

It just wasn’t fair. Why couldn’t things be like she had dreamt them?

In her fantasies, she was Hannah’s sidekick, riding with her on the motorcycle and collecting information, helping catch the villains and keep the streets clean, loved by all. She was beside her in every coffee she drank, riding pillion on the bike on every rainy day.

The separation of her mind and body allowed her to imagine it, clear as day, a daydream so all-consuming that sometimes she confused it for the truth in bouts of disconnected delirium.

Here, unable to even get herself up, it was painfully evident what was true and what wasn’t. It hurt so much, to be forced to face it.

Two cautious hands grasped her shoulders, and gently pulled her up with awful ease, ignoring her instinctive flinch.

Even just keeping her spine straight felt like arduous labor. She sagged, and swayed, and why was her head so heavy? It shouldn’t be, right?

“Can I eat, ma’am?” She asked quietly once more, much more comfortable with this. Familiar.

“Always. Want help?” Hannah asked, again.

She hummed an affirmative. The lack of shame was welcome.

It wasn’t like she had any kind of dignity left to lose.

Hannah sat next to her, the bed sagging.

She was so much warmer than her bugs could ever perceive.

Taylor couldn’t resist the urge to lean against her, practically curling up by her side as Hannah wrapped a hand around her shoulder, a thumb pressing in gentle circles.

She focused on her body, her presence, far more, all of a sudden. The thousand different books she was reading through, the endless conversations she was hearing, the countless little streams of information in her mind took a back seat, and she focused on the warmth, the alien sensation of a soft, gentle touch, not there to hurt her.

It reminded her of her parents, all too abruptly, something she tried not to think about.

Coil had threatened to kill them if she ever dared escape, not knowing that her range eventually reached her old home, and found it empty.

A time capsule, caught in time. Her dad’s jacket hung on the wall. A car sat rotting in the driveway. Taylor’s old notebooks still scattered in her room, dust covering childish drawings she couldn’t ever picture herself drawing anymore, too bright and happy. An old crossword puzzle sat on the table, pen still next to it.

A butterfly on Hannah’s hand let her know she should probably open her mouth, and she did so, letting the wings tickle her nose with idle flaps as she ate, tears mixing with her soup.

It needed more salt anyway.

Swallowing, she tried to curl closer to Hannah. Hannah obligingly pulled her closer with a soft humm, playing with her hair.

It only made her cry harder.

She missed them so much. It never stopped hurting, that she’d never see them again.

“Ma’am. When I’m… free. What happens?” She warbled out, anxious.

Hannah paused, swallowing.

“... You don’t have to call me ma’am. I’d prefer you didn’t, actually. And… I noticed you haven’t asked for your parents yet.” Hannah clumsily said instead, as if reading her mind somehow.

She nodded.

“I know. They’re gone.” She whispered, a broken, sniffling warble.

Hannah left the spoon in the soup, turning to hug her fully.

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Hannah whispered.

She sniffled, trying to get the snot back into her nose, sinking into her warmth, two dozen butterflies blinking at the scene with fake eyes, painted on enslaved wings.

She ruined everything she touched. These little guys should be free. Not here.

She wished she was her swarm, sometimes. To split a trillion ways, dilute her mind until it disappeared.

“What happens?” She asked again, a broken whisper.

“They might put you into a hospital, for a bit. To make sure you’re okay. Maybe a couple months. If all is well, then… you can come home with me, if you want.” Hannah nervously offered.

The relief she felt was enough to make her wheeze.

“Yes. P-please.” She pleaded, begged.

Hannah let out a sigh of relief, relaxing somewhat, and nodded.

“C-can we go to Lilly’s, one day? I w-want to try coffee.” She blurted out one of her countless little dreams and little wishes she had never thought would ever happen, between another sniffle.

Hannah’s movements stuttered.

“You- you know Lilly’s? Actually… how did you know my name, sweetheart? The day we freed you?” Hannah asked, not a hint of reprimand in her voice, just genuine curiosity.

She swallowed.

“W-will you get mad?” She asked.

She knew she wouldn’t. But some part of her still feared. Always.

“Never.” Hannah whispered.

“I’ve… been watching you. You used to patrol with Velocity, at the edge of my range. I couldn’t follow him, his power is weird. But I could follow you. Then my range grew, and… I just never stopped.” She whispered.

Hannah hummed softly, nodding along.

“Okay. I’m guessing you know everyone’s name, then?”

She nodded.

Hannah sighed, but said nothing.

“So you’ve been with me for a year already and I didn’t know?” Hannah asked, curious and almost… amused?

“Two?” She whispered, half with her own voice, and half with shuffling wingbeats. “I think.”

Hannah hummed.

“That… explains some things. How come you only just recently tried to get my help?” Hannah asked, again just softly curious, but she cringed at the question, curling tighter, arms loosely thrown around her legs, hugging them to her chest while Hannah hugged her from the side.

“He could tell. Always. Whenever I got brave enough to try, he would somehow know and c-come… to punish me. Sometimes before I tried it, sometimes after, but he knew. Eventually, he threatened to kill my parents, and I stopped trying for a while. He stopped coming over as much. At some point, my range reached my house. I realized they were… gone. So I just… waited for a chance. A time he would be busy with other things than me for more than a day or two. It worked.” She breathed out, a tiny bit proud.

She had done it, in the end.

It still didn’t feel like she won.

“You did amazing. Really. I can’t imagine having this… strength, at your age. You’re incredible.” Hannah whispered, not a shred of sarcasm or bite in her tone, just genuine admiration.

Taylor couldn’t help the renewed tears.

How long had it been since she heard kind words? A compliment? Admiration and pride in one’s voice? It felt like a different life.

It hurt in the sweetest way, and she would never let it go.

“Please stay.” She croaked, trying to condense all her feelings in two words.

Hannah nodded.

“I will. However long I can.” Hannah reassured her, voice warm.

Good.

And Taylor could…

Oh, she could finally act on her own now, couldn’t she?

Coil had always told her to watch, and type what she saw into the terminal. That was her role, unless told to do something specific. She was an automated tool.

Coil had taught her many things, no matter how much she hated and feared him.

How to kill had been among the last.

Only ever in his service, of course, at his word. When he told her to get rid of someone, she did so.

She couldn’t refuse.

Six times she had tried to, six times she’d paid for it, screaming into a cold, empty room until her voice cracked and never came out as strong ever again, now relegated to soft words and croaking whispers.

At the seventh ‘request’, she broke, and did as asked.

She was… good at killing people.

In the dead of night, nobody could hear a throat full of her bodies try to scream. Nobody would find a speck of the corpse, by the time the sun rose. Stripped bones would rot in a dozen different dumpsters, and the rest would fly away in a billion little stomachs.

Hannah might hate her, if she knew what she had done already. She had killed people. Bad people. Coil, his soldiers… two of his enemies.

What was the difference then, in doing more of it? She was already stained. As long as nobody innocent died, it was fine, wasn’t it?

She had watched Hannah kill more than a couple soldiers and criminals herself. So it had to be okay.

And she would be doing it for Hannah, this time. She wouldn’t be forced to do it. She’d be doing it to get rid of dangers to them, of her own free will. 

She was no longer helpless.

The city could be rid of every villain, and Hannah would be safe. By extension, so would she.

Taylor had already lost everything else that mattered.

She would not lose Hannah.

No matter what.

She wasn’t sure what the response to “I’ve been following you for two years” should be.

Just… honestly, what was she supposed to feel about that?

She was mostly confused rather than touched, or creeped out, or any other somewhat reasonable response.

It wasn’t like she could be mad at the girl. In her range, she was practically omniscient. Which child wouldn’t use that, especially in such a nightmarish situation?

She also couldn’t be mad at her because Taylor was too damn sweet.

Hannah thought she would find it a chore, having to help the girl.

Oddly enough, she didn’t mind it one bit. She felt… helpful, useful. It was nice to help her do such mundane things like drinking, eating, taking her medicine, reading one of the books, since the butterflies didn’t have the best sight. Even brushing the girl’s hair was rather calming.

The trust and familiarity the girl showed her made so much more sense, now that she knew the girl had some kind of one-sided relationship with her over the course of two long, torturous years, that Hannah never knew about.

Eventually, a metallic rattle from somewhere outside came through the sealed window, and an idea popped up in her mind. She paused while reading Taylor the summary of one of the more adult books on the shelves, turning it over in her head.

Would Piggot let her?

A tiny shuffle under her arm reminded her to look down at a very cutely tilted head, making her lips twitch into a smile.

“Sorry, just- how long, has it been, since you… had some fresh air? Felt the sea breeze on your face?” She asked Taylor haltingly, a bit unsure if her idea was even possible.

Taylor tilted her head down.

“I don’t know.” A rustling voice filled the room.

Biting her lip, she nodded.

“Do you want-?”

“Yes.” The eager albeit quiet response was sharp, and without a shred of indecision.

Smiling, she put the book down, and used the same hand to fish her phone out.

A minute later, she closed the phone, stunned with the utter ease that Piggot gave her permission.

A soft laugh escaped her, and she turned to the girl under her left arm, gently squeezing her.

“We can go.”

For the first time in a while, something about the girl felt… energetic, eager. Even if her face didn’t change, something about the energetic, circular flights of the butterflies around her, the way her fingers softly scratched at her uniform, the way she lifted her head, even if it wasn’t looking at her, it was… subtle, but noticeable.

“Can I carry you?”

An adorably high-pitched little ‘mhmm’ came from Taylor, which made her chuckle, and she shifted sideways, sliding her arms under the girl in a princess carry.

The way her hands insisted on holding onto Hannah’s scarf like a little kid holding onto its favourite plushie was adorable.

Honestly, Hannah was starting to suspect adopting the girl would not be nearly as unpleasant and difficult as she had imagined. She was seriously enjoying her company.

A few odd looks were shot her way as she wandered up the halls, but nobody questioned her.

Carrying Taylor up three flights of stairs was a bit of a workout, but eventually, they were on the rig’s terrace, if such a graceful term could be applied to a giant walkway that wrapped around the top layer of the rig, made of all metal grating and yellow paint. Not a pretty sight by any means, were it not for the endless expanse of ocean beyond.

Thankfully, the rig’s forcefield let air through.

What that meant right now, was that the wind was beating on them pretty hard as she came to a stop, a decent distance away from the railing just to be sure nothing… unfortunate happened.

Taylor seemed to love it, hanging her head backwards over Hannah’s arm, hair hanging free and whipped around by the wind.

Butterflies fluttered around them, fighting against the wind, decorating the railing, Taylor’s limbs, Hannah’s hair.

“Hannah?” Taylor asked, her voice lighter, albeit choked up.

“Yes?” She asked, gently, grinning down at her charge.

“Thank you.” Taylor whispered, voice calm and peaceful, one hand still weakly fidgeting with Hannah’s scarf.

For the first time in the two or three days she’d known the girl, a small smile formed on her face, and stayed there for longer than a couple seconds.

And Hannah decided that this, this new duty and responsibility, would not be a chore at all.

It would be a pleasure.