Glowworm
(Worm/DC)
Previous
She had so many plans when she came back. Things she wanted to talk about, wanted to show, wanted to re-enact. Things that she and Emma could have enjoyed together to fill up the rest of the summer before they would have made that one big leap into high school.
She looked up at the ceiling, and watched those plans disintegrate into dust. Only one thing filled the void that had been left behind.
Total
boredom.
Taylor didn't have other friends she could do stuff with, and while her dad might be recipient to some of the activities, she didn't bother asking. She didn't plan around him, and adjusting her plans to accommodate would take up enough time to make it moot.
And besides, it was
Dad. There were very few things that she could show him anyways, and it's not like he had enough hair for her to show off her colorful triple-bead braid.
Television was out. Primetime was about as interesting as watching paint peel from the exterior walls of the house, and late night television wasn't much better. It was over-saturated with parahuman procedurals, a dozen talent shows, and sitcoms with more laugh tracks than she could care to count.
She didn't even think about her computer. It was the ultimate time waster machine, which was rather antithetical to what she
wanted.
It left her only with her daydream of flying. And as much as Taylor wanted to scratch that particular itch again (and hopefully without losing her lunch in the process), going out so many times without much of a reason would start to raise questions from her dad.
Moderation was important, even if it left her bored out of her skull; doubly so now that the threat of school was looming on the horizon.
With a hefty sigh, Taylor rolled onto her stomach, and absentmindedly reached out for her journal/ It was black with white flecks, with a worn spine and multiple – and very colorful – variations of the words 'PRIVATE' and 'KEEP OUT'. 'BEWARE: THE KING IN YELLOW INSIDE AND NOT ANYTHING PERSONAL' was scrawled within the inside cover.
It acted less as a deterrent, and more of an inside joke between Taylor and her mom, who had not only introduced her to that collection of short stories, but was also a little too nosy for her own good.
She flipped through the pages, until she found the notes she was looking for, with little doodles to the left, within the margins.
"Shazam" was more than just a fancy magic word. It was an acronym for the six figures where her power derived from: Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury. That much Shaz had told her.
Unfortunately, he was also insufferably
vague. When she had asked him what powers each of them granted, he had only given her a smile – the kind of smile adults only used when children asked something silly – and told her that she would
know.
And for the most part, she did. A lot of came from cultural osmosis: one would have to be living under a rock to not know who Hercules and Zeus were. And if one knew who they were, chances were good they knew who Atlas and Mercury were – even if the latter was using the Roman name.
It was rather easy for her to put the pieces together after that. Her strength came from Hercules, her ability to fly and move really fast was from Mercury, and while she hadn't actually demonstrated it, Zeus presumably gave her ability over lightning. From what she knew of Atlas, it would probably have to do with stamina or endurance – strength only mattered so much when it came to holding up the
sky.
Solomon and Achilles however left Taylor stumped. But it wasn't something that she couldn't find out herself on her computer. The answer came quickly, after she had reluctantly moved from her bed to her desk where her computer was.
Solomon was known for his wisdom, while Achilles was practically invulnerable, except for on his heel.
While that sounded rather awesome (it certainly made her out to be some kind of wicked Alexandria package), the whole 'vulnerability to cheap shots' thing was less so. She hoped that her powers kept to the
spirit, rather than the
letter.
Still, they were a rather neat collection of powers. All of which she could beckon with a single, spoken word.
Taylor thought back to that dingle little hole-in-the-wall, where the wannabe criminal gave up at the
sight of
her. She could be so much
more than she was right now.
She could be a hero, an icon, a
symbol. Maybe even one of the
Triumverate.
Flying around, helping people, punching out Endbringers, and raining down thunderbolts from the heavens themselves to punish the evil and smite the wicked who
dared to cross her path with their villainy.
"KNEEL BEFORE–!"
"...Taylor?"
The sound of her dad's voice brought her back down to reality. They both made eye contact, with Taylor only realizing now what position she was in: she stood on top of her chair, hands raised and balled around invisible thunderbolts while yelling like a madwoman at invisible villains below her.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked in a careful tone, leaning against the doorframe.
"I...um..." Taylor tried fishing for the right thing to say – or anything
to say. But there was no way out of this. There were no words that could come out her mouth that wouldn't make her sound like a complete and utter
dork. So she shut her mouth closed, stepped off the chair and shoved her hands – and her embarrassment – into her pockets. "Did you need me for something?"
Her dad relaxed a little. "I'm heading out to pick up your schedule. Are you sure you don't want to come along?"
"I'm sure."
Her dad nodded, and looked as though he was about to leave, before reconsidering. "Listen, I..." He paused, brow furrowed. "Have any plans for tonight?"
Taylor shook her head.
"I was thinking maybe we could stay in. I could grab some Chinese on my way back, maybe rent a couple of movies?
Capes and Robbers?"
Taylor winced internally at that. "Um...maybe you can choose? I don't really feel like watching
Capes and Robbers."
He frowned at that. "But I thought
Capes and Robbers was your favorite movie? You loved it, from what I remember."
I did, Taylor thought.
But it holds too many memories.
She shrugged. "I just don't feel like it." Flimsy reasoning, but she hoped it was enough.
While her dad gave her a look, he didn't press the issue. "You still like General Tso's chicken though, right?"
" I –
love – General Tso's chicken." As if on cue, her stomach growled.
He smiled. "Good to hear. For a moment there, I thought I lost my daughter."
An awkward silence filled the air after the words left his mouth. Not the
wrong thing to say, but it left both of them quiet. Taylor didn't know how to respond, while her dad had a hard time following up, leaving both parties either unwilling or incapable of breaking it.
Her dad was the first to break it off with movement instead of words, motioning towards the direction of the door before leaving.
Taylor waited five seconds, before slumping down onto her bed, shoving her face into a pillow, hoping beyond hope that she could stave off her pent up embarrassment enough that she could shrivel up and die
after a full stomach.
* * *
Definitely not flying after this, Taylor thought as she leaned back, curled up under a blanket and feeling absolutely
stuffed.
On the other side of the couch, her dad was still eating. The provided chopsticks were abandoned, replaced with a metal fork that felt out of place digging into the white and red take-out box. Then again, he was hopeless with chopsticks, and no amount of lessons on
her end could help ease it.
She turned her attention back to the television. She wasn't much of a western girl, but
Blazing Saddles was still funny enough to garner laughs from her, even if she didn't know what exactly they were parodying.
The movie was starting to wind down when it was suddenly paused. Taylor looked back at her dad, who had placed the remote on the table, in-between the array of empty cartons.
"We need to talk kiddo," he said.
"About what?"
He took in a deep breath and exhaled. "I know we've gone over this already but I'm sorry for forgetting your birthday this year."
Taylor frowned. It had hurt.
A lot. It still stung even now, but she had gotten over it, in large part due to camp. "Dad–"
He raised a hand to stop her, palm facing her. "Taylor, let me finish."
She shut up.
"There were a lot of reasons I had, that I could have provided to you, to
myself. But they were excuses, and that wouldn't be fair to you, because it's
inexcusable. So instead of trying to come up with excuses, I instead tried to think of ways to make it up to you."
She briefly gazed at the mess on the table, and the stack of rented movies.
He must have followed her gaze, because he said, "Yeah, that's part of it. The other part is...well, are you interested in going to the zoo?"
Taylor blinked.
"I figured that you and I could go...visit the Brockton Bay Zoo. I could even call Alan and see if he and Emma could join us–"
"No!" It was
sharp and it was
sudden, enough that both were left bewildered by the sudden rejection. "I mean, uh," Taylor started, hoping to salvage the situation, "Emma hasn't been feeling very well, you know. I think she's sick with something. The flu, maybe. Besides, I'd rather it just be you and me. Family time."
Which wasn't a
complete lie.
"Really?" he asked.
Taylor nodded.
Her dad nodded, as the idea circled in his head. "Yeah, alright. Just the two of us."
"Just the two of us," Taylor repeated.
He smiled weakly. "Hey, why don't you pick out the next movie?"
From under the covers, Taylor reached out to grab the stack of movies from off the table. She looked through each one, shuffling the one in front all the way to the back as she did so.
The Maltese Falcon, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Dr. Strangelove...
"The Wizard of Gore?"
Taylor looked up and found her dad giving her a disapproving look. "I was saving that for when you went up to bed," he replied.
"Aw come on–"
"Taylor..."
"
Please?" Taylor held the movie up below her chin, shrinking herself in. With the blanket wrapped around her, she widened her eyes as much as possible, batting her eyelashes. "
Pretty please?"
Her dad's neck leaned back as he let out a sigh. "What are you doing to me..." he muttered. "Alright, put it in."
Taylor let out a giddier squeal than what was probably appropriate for a movie that promised an "astounding walk down the bloody corridors of the Occult".
She faced down a
gun. How much worse could
this be?
* * *
"Taylor, aren't you going to watch the movie?"
Even hiding under her blanket, she could practically see the 'you-asked-for-this' smile on her dad's face.
Me and my big mouth.
