Earning Her Stripes
Part Thirteen: Talking It Out
[A/N: This chapter commissioned by @Fizzfaldt and beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]
Hebert Household
Saturday Night
September 11, 2010
Danny Hebert
Krk-boom.
Th-BOOM.
The first thing Danny experienced was the shockwaves travelling through the ground. Moving at a much greater pace than the soundwaves, they shook the house sufficiently that the windows rattled and he felt the double impact through his bed. That stirred him from his sleep, just in time for the sound to get there and wake him up entirely.
Sitting up by instinct, he fumbled for his glasses. Once, many years ago, he'd been on an excursion to LA, on the other side of the country. A mild quake had rumbled through and he'd been told in a matter-of-fact way to shelter under a door-frame until any aftershocks had finished. The quake had felt very much like this, which was why he was getting out of bed before his brain had properly woken up.
It took the three steps to the bedroom door before his thoughts finally kicked in, and he realized it wasn't a quake and he didn't need to shelter from anything. This was a relief; in his semi-somnolent state, he may have stood under his doorframe for half the night before wondering why there were no more shakes. He didn't know exactly what it was, but night-time explosions weren't a totally unknown phenomenon, especially with Lung and Squealer in the same town.
"Taylor," he murmured. She may have been awoken by the noises and not known what was going on. Or they might not have made her even stir. Teenagers were famous for being able to sleep through the most outrageous of disturbances.
I'll just check anyway.
After going back for his slippers (the floorboards were cold at night, this time of year) he trod his way along the hallway to Taylor's door. Rapping very gently with his knuckles, he called out softly, "Taylor? Did that wake you up?"
Either she hadn't answered, or she'd spoken too softly for him to hear. He suspected the former, but he cracked the door open anyway … and stopped. Even with the moon down, enough light spilled in through the window from a nearby street-light that he was able to see something very important.
The covers were pulled back, and the bed was empty.
"Taylor?" he said again, this time out loud. Reflexively, he turned the bedroom light on, then squinted against the glare until he could see. It wasn't a large room, and she wasn't anywhere in it, even under the bed or in the closet. His voice rose in concern. "Taylor, where are you?"
Turning the hallway light on as well, he hurried back along to the bathroom. The door was open, but he spent a moment checking inside anyway. She wasn't there either.
What's going on? Where is she?
The thought struck him that she may have gone downstairs for whatever reason, and fallen asleep on the sofa in front of the TV. His heart in his mouth, he headed down the steps and through the entrance hall into the living room.
The TV was off, the sofa empty. When he checked through into the kitchen, she was likewise not there.
Did she go for a walk in the middle of the night?
Beginning to really worry now, he checked the back door. It was still locked, the key hanging on its hook. The front door was a little more modern, not requiring a key to open up from the inside; he unlocked it and went out on the tiny stoop, peering up and down the street. No familiar figure caught his eye.
Re-locking the door, he went back along the entrance hall, checked the space under the stairs, then on into the kitchen. The basement was the last place he hadn't checked. He had no idea why she might be down there, but there was nowhere else he could think to look.
Even with the lights on in the rest of the house, the basement was nearly pitch-black; the grimy windows high up on the wall provided minimal illumination at the best of times. Reaching up, he pulled the cord to turn on the single yellowing bulb in the centre of the ceiling. At first glance, he saw nothing out of the ordinary, but he wasn't going to take anything for granted. If she was still in the house, she was here. There was nowhere else she
could be.
And if she
wasn't still in the house … well, he'd deal with that when he came to it.
Descending the stairs, he searched the shadows cast by the bulb. There was nobody under the workbench, or alongside the dryer. Under the stairs, where he kept his big toolbox, there was likewise a total lack of Taylor. However, he did find something so weird that he had to look twice. Specifically, a hole in the concrete wall, about the width of his fist, that had been smashed all the way through into the dirt.
How and why this hole had come to be, and what he needed to do about it, could wait for another day. Taylor wasn't in the house. Where she
was, he didn't know, but he was certain about one thing.
Too many times in the past he'd failed her as a father, but this time he wasn't going to shirk his duty. He was going to find her, whatever it took.
Climbing the stairs rapidly, he didn't bother turning the basement light out on the way. In his mind's eye, he was visualising what he needed to do.
Get dressed, get the car, go looking for Taylor. The thought crossed his mind that he needed to contact the police and report her as a missing child, but he decided not to take that step until he'd gone looking himself. She may well have decided to go and sit in the playground for awhile, to think matters over.
I'll look there first.
Now that he had a goal in mind, his thoughts were steadier as he strode through the living room on the way to the stairs. He still intended to yell at her for leaving the house in the middle of the night, and maybe ground her for the two weeks she was suspended for, but no more than that. They were just getting to know each other again as father and daughter, and he didn't want to accidentally estrange her all over again.
Grabbing the nearest shirt and jacket out of the closet, he pulled a pair of trousers on over his pyjama pants, then shoved his feet into a pair of slip-ons. The car keys sat on his bedside table; he scooped those up on the way to his bedroom door …
… then froze as he heard the sound of Taylor's window sliding open. Even from the other end of the corridor, he knew exactly what it was. Leaving his bedroom, he moved carefully down the corridor toward her half-open door.
Either Taylor had been out and about, and had somehow figured out how to climb up and down the side of the house, or someone else was breaking into the house in her absence. Whichever it was, there was no way in hell he was letting that fly. Easing up to the door-frame, he peered around into Taylor's bedroom.
With only the slightest of grunts, the intruder climbed up onto the windowsill, then performed a surprisingly acrobatic flip into the room, landing on their feet between the bed and the desk. "And the crowd goes wild …" he heard Taylor's voice murmur, with a self-conscious chuckle.
This was the perfect moment. Pushing the door open, he leaned against the door-frame with his arms folded. "Well, I can tell you this much; I'm not
wildly thrilled with you sneaking out like this."
Taylor stared back at him, eyes wide. Instead of pyjamas, she wore a dark sweater and jeans; even if she hadn't been, her expression of guilt would've given her away. "Um, I can explain?"
<><>
Ten Minutes Later
Downstairs
Taylor
Heaving a deep sigh, Taylor sipped from the mug of cocoa that he'd made her. "I'm not sure why I went out. Well, okay, scratch that. I
know why I went out. To test my powers." To demonstrate, she formed the black and white protective covering over her finger, and stirred the still-hot drink. "But I didn't know
what I was going to do until I got to Winslow."
Danny's head came up. "You went to
Winslow?"
She grimaced. "Stupid, yeah, I know. All the way out there, I was brooding about how I didn't want to ever go back there again, but I didn't really think about
how I wanted to make it not happen until I got there. I mean, I can punch through concrete but it would've taken forever to knock the place down."
"Punch through concrete." Danny raised his eyebrows as he repeated the phrase. "Like, say, the hole in the basement wall?"
She felt her face get hot. "That was an accident. I thought I'd maybe dent the wall a bit, or put a crack in it. I did
not expect to go all Alexandria on it."
"No, no, I get that." Danny sipped at his own cocoa. "It's not something people would expect to be able to do right off the mark."
"I know, right?" She put the cocoa down and spread her hands. "Most capes seem to know what they can do with their powers, straight off the bat. I'm kind of stumbling along until I accidentally do something, and then it's like, wait, I can
do that? And my power's like, well
duh."
"That could definitely be a problem, yes." Danny raised his eyebrows slightly. "Seeing as you're not totally covered in brick dust, you didn't spend half an hour smashing Winslow to small concrete chunks. Which raises the next question. Is it still there?"
"Uhh … no." She put her two index fingers together. "Not … as such. Remember how I told you about the SUV and how I caught it?"
"I remember," he confirmed. She'd demonstrated with the table, holding it up with just two fingers from one end, and the look on his face had been
classic. "Wait … did you …?"
She drew a deep breath before answering. "Yeah. I made sure nobody was inside, then I ripped the whole damn school off its foundations, tossed it about ten feet in the air, then let it fall back down. Turns out if you drop something the size of a school building that far, you bust its
everything."
Danny's eyes glazed over for a second, then he shook his head. "I can't even imagine how much … no
wonder I heard it from here. And the whole building's destroyed?"
"Totally." She set her jaw, as if defying him to chastise her over it. "And I'd do it again. That place has been nothing but a horror story for me from the start. It
deserved to go."
"And what about the teachers and staff whose workplace just got annihilated?" he asked mildly. "You just took their livelihood away."
"Three-quarters of the teachers either chose to ignore the ongoing bullying, or actively enabled it," Taylor said bitterly. "It's not my fault they did their jobs so poorly I ended up with the ability to destroy the fucking cesspit, as well as the raging desire to do just that. And if they're
good at their jobs, they can get work elsewhere."
"But—"
"
No, Dad." Taylor cut his words off with a slash of her hand. "One way or another, I was never going back. It was this, or cut classes. And I didn't want to get you into trouble."
"What about the lawsuit?" he asked in a reasonable tone. "Once we find Winslow liable for all the damages we're able to squeeze out of them, a transfer to Arcadia has already been written in as part of the compensation deal."
"And how long are they going to draw it out, in the hope that we'd run out of money?" Taylor responded. "More than two weeks, I bet. And they
might have tried treating me a lot nicer to maybe get me on side, but knowing those hell-bitches and knowing the Winslow teachers, they're more likely to throw me under the bus and support any attempt at framing me for things like drug possession or worse. Anything that weakens the case against them."
From the expression on his face, he wanted to argue, but had nothing to come back with. The phrase
'would they really go that far?' floated in the air, but drifted off again unsaid. Taylor was pretty damn sure they would.
"Well, then," he said quietly. "I can't say I totally agree with your methods, but you certainly solved the problem in front of you. I hope you don't have plans for a similar level of revenge against Emma or her friends?"
"No, actually," she reassured him. "I'm not going to say it hasn't crossed my mind from time to time, but at the end of the day, they're just not that important. The only place they could get to me, the only place they had any influence, was Winslow. I just took that away from them. I've already won, and they don't even know it." She took up the mug of cocoa and drank from it. "Now I can concentrate on being a superhero."
"Huh." Danny nodded. "You have a very good point there. Still, you
are aware that if you ever pull that particular stunt again, the Winslow cold case is going to open up again faster than a jack-in-the-box on crack cocaine. So, cars yes. Buildings no."
"Oh, I get it, I get it." Taylor shook her head. "There's no other place I'd even be tempted to do it to. I mean, why would I?"
"Also a good point." He lowered his brows. "In other business, there
is the matter of you sneaking out without telling me, and vandalising your school. I'm not going to alert the authorities, but this
is going to result in a grounding, young lady."
"Um …" Somehow, Taylor had been hoping that he'd forgotten about this little aspect of matters. It seemed he hadn't. "How about a compromise?"
He leaned his elbows on the table and raised an eyebrow. "I'm listening."
"I still need to keep up with my schoolwork," she explained. "So, I take the bus from here to the library, do my schoolwork for the day, then come straight home again. That way, I'm not alone in the house all day, and you know exactly where I am."
"Hmm." He studied her expression, his own features unreadable. She tried her best to look contrite. "No side trips to the movies, no strolls along the Boardwalk? Just to the library and back?"
"Totally," she agreed.
He cleared his throat and raised a finger. "
And no going out as a superhero without clearing it with me first."
She started to agree then stopped herself when a thought occurred to her. "Um, I'd normally be down with that, but what if I'm going to or from the library and I see someone who needs help from a superhero? A mugging or purse snatching, or something like that?"
Danny grimaced. "That's … that could be a problem, yes." He leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the table.
"There's only one way out of it that I can see," Taylor said. "I'm going to need a phone."
His fingers ceased their drumming and he turned his head away, looking up into the corner of the room. Physically distancing himself from the concept.
"Dad," she said softly. "It's the only way." Leaning forward over the table, she put her hand on his wrist. "I've got a way to make the world a little less shitty now. There's no way I can go looking for a public phone when someone's getting hurt right in front of me. I promise I won't be stupid with it."
Muscles flexed under the line of his jaw. Slowly, he turned to look at her. "We'll talk about it in the morning." His tone was grudging, but she could read the subtext. He could see her points, but he didn't want to seem to be giving up without a struggle.
"Cool," she said. "And thanks."
"Not a problem. Good night."
"Night."
<><>
Sunday Morning, 10:05 AM
Barnes Household
Firebird
Emma checked the peephole, then opened the door. "Hi, Mads," she said brightly before waving to Mr Clements, waiting in the car at the curb. He waved back and started the car moving.
"Hi yourself, Ems." Madison smiled, but it was the same reserved expression she'd taken to wearing over the last few weeks, and not the too-cute saccharine simper she'd been putting on for the queen bee set at school. Likewise, she was wearing overalls and a shirt, not the short-sleeve and short-skirt numbers that Emma could've sworn were her favourites. Even her hair was carelessly held back with a scrunchie, not meticulously arranged with a million little clips. "What's this about?"
"Come on in and I'll tell you." Emma glanced up and down the road, nodded in satisfaction at what she didn't see (specifically, Sophia), and stepped out of the way for Madison to come through. Pushing the door closed, she led the way to her room, via the kitchen where she snagged a couple of cans of soda and a plate of chopped fruit snacks.
Madison didn't say a word to begin with; she just followed along, accepting one of the soda cans and opening Emma's door for her when they got to their destination. But once they were inside and settled, with the door closed behind them, she gave Emma an analytical gaze. "Is this about last night, with Sophia? Because I notice she's not here."
"It is," Emma confirmed, unsurprised. Once Madison had given up the ditz act and started Tinkering, she'd shown herself to have a real brain in her head. "I'm worried about her. She's starting to act irrationally, especially when it comes to Taylor. Or am I seeing things that aren't there?"
"Hmm." Madison pulled a small screwdriver from a pocket in her overalls and started flipping it through her fingers like an illusionist's coin. "I think ... yes and no."
Emma rolled her eyes and took a drink from her soda. "Well,
that was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. Care to clarify your answer a bit?"
Madison chuckled darkly. "Sure. But answer me this one first. Why were we even bothering to fuck with Taylor in the first place? She's never done anything to me, and I've damn sure never had a complete conversation with her. I literally don't
know her, but every time I've spoken to her, all I can remember is being a spiteful little bitch. How about you?"
"Um." Emma dipped a piece of sliced tomato in salt and ate it, mainly to gain time to answer. "Do you know, I'm not totally sure? I mean, she
was my best friend. When she lost her mom, I was there for her. Aunt Annette was nearly as much a mom to me as Mom is. And she was getting better, she really was. But when the shit in the alley happened, and I met Sophia, it was like ... I dunno ... I'd been looking at life all wrong or something. Somehow along the way, I got the idea that if Taylor was strong, I had to push her down to get stronger, and then maybe she'd get stronger too and we'd all be friends ..." She trailed off, not entirely sure where she was going with that.
"So, total bullshit," Madison summed up.
Emma nodded. "Yeah, but I bought into it
then." She squinted at Madison. "I don't recall you saying it was bullshit back when you had the idea to force-feed her the vial and make her into a villain."
"Like you said, I bought into it." Madison shook her head. "It was like I was a fucking cat and you and Sophia were waving a laser beam in front of me, saying
'let's torture this girl you don't know for shits and giggles', and I was just chasing that beam. I was so into it, it's scary."
"Yeah." Emma took another piece of tomato. "And now I feel like
I've grown out of it, and
you've grown out of it ..."
"... but Sophia's still feeding on her own bullshit," Madison concluded. "It's like getting powers gave us second thoughts about what we were putting Taylor through, but Sophia's still back where we started."
"
Were we that bad?" asked Emma doubtfully. "I mean,
really?" She'd seen the fervor in Sophia's eyes, and it had been like looking at a religious fanatic. Having that gleam in her own eyes was not something she was comfortable with.
"Yeah, really," Madison said firmly. "We were talking about framing Taylor for crimes until she got sent to the Birdcage, remember?"
"Oh, right. Wow. Crap." Emma scrubbed her hands over her face. "Okay, so if we were able to break free, how do we snap Sophia out of it? Because right now, she's guzzling the Kool-Aid straight from the pitcher."
"Um." Madison crunched a slice of apple. "She's our
friend. One of us. A member of the Real Thing. Hell, she thought up the name. It might be a bit difficult to get her to sit down for an intervention since you kicked her out of the top spot—"
"I had a damn good reason for that, and you know it!" Emma snapped. "It's why we're here today! She was being irrational—"
"Hey, hey, chill," Madison said soothingly, patting the air. "For the record, I agree with what you're saying. She needed to hear that we weren't down to follow her every whim. The trouble is, if she's not willing to listen to reason, where do we go from there? How do we get through to her?"
"I'm not totally sure about that," Emma admitted. "But between us, we should be able to think of
something."
<><>
Shadow Stalker
Sophia had gotten barely any sleep the night before, but it didn't matter. The seething anger in her gut, and about five cups of coffee, made up for it. She'd survived more than one day at Winslow on less.
She wasn't even pissed anymore at whoever had fucked the school up. That was done and dusted. Once she had her arrows back, she couldn't give a flying fuck.
It didn't even piss her off so much that Emma and Madison had just
hijacked the leadership of the Real Thing right out from under her. She'd
been the natural leader! Who'd had powers for the longest? Her, that's who! But not even that was important anymore.
No, what
really ground her gears was how Emma and Madison were both going soft on Hebert, right at the moment when she needed stepping on the hardest. Couldn't they see that the main purpose for creating the Real Thing had always been to fuck up Hebert's life and make sure she stayed down in the dirt where she belonged?
It was clear that she couldn't count on anyone else. It was up to her.
She had to show everyone that Hebert was a dangerous cape, even if she wasn't really (
Hebert? Dangerous? Don't make me laugh) so Emma and Madison would come back around and the Real Thing would have a PRT-approved reason for kicking Hebert's ass up one side and down the other.
I'll make them understand. I'll be the big damn hero.
Just you wait and see.
End of Part Thirteen
