Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Mid 1986

“Do you really have to be here?” Eidolon asked the goose not for the first time. He knew it would be dramatic to say that this was the worst time for the goose to be around, but that didn’t stop him from telling the goose that. It wasn’t like the goose cared.

It wasn’t really true anyway. There were plenty of worse times for the goose to be around. His seizures, when he’d tried to join the army, when he’d attempted suicide just a few months ago… Eidolon would still probably say the worst time was when the first time the goose made his appearance.

It hadn’t been particularly awkward or anything. David was eight years old and back at school after a brief stint in the hospital. He was in a wheelchair again, and David had been hoping that he’d finally be rid of it soon, but he was pretty sure he was going to be stuck in it this time. He’d been feeling pretty crummy, but he was glad to be back at school, even if all the kids were staring at him.

His helper was working on getting his wheelchair out to the spot he usually parked him during recess when the goose ran right up and bit him.

It was a little funny. The wheels of his chair had gotten caught on a curb, and David didn’t really appreciate his chair getting jerked around as the helper tried to get it free. The goose made his helper yelp and jump back, finally giving David a moment of peace.

Then the goose turned around and bit David.

The problem there was that David couldn’t just jump away. And the goose bit him all the time. It eventually dialed it back to pecking, but it never really stopped. That was why Eidolon considered it the worst time the goose was there, because it never really ended.

It kept trying to bite people who tried moving David’s wheelchair, too. It meant his family could get some kind of accommodation form for David to finally get an electric one, but that didn’t really change the fact that the goose was there.

He was awful. David had been hoping to meet his animal guide for a long time. His parents didn’t have one, merely having soulmarks, but his sister did, and he saw on the news that animal guides were becoming increasingly common soulmate manifestations. They said it was a sign of changing times, though no one really had a concrete answer as to why.

David really thought he could use an animal guide. It wasn’t like he had a lot of friends, and he thought it might be fun to have a little animal ride around with him on his wheelchair, maybe something soft like a cat or useful like a monkey. It would mean he was a little less alone.

He’d never heard of anyone getting a goose, though. And he’d never heard of an animal guide being so aggressive.

“Ow!” Eidolon yelped when the goose bit him again, snapping out of his thoughts. He glared at it, but the goose just looked back at him almost lazily. Eidolon swore it was biting him just for biting’s sake today.

They were alone in a conference room in the Cauldron base where Eidolon had been staying. Doctor Mother told him the others wouldn’t be arriving for some time, but it wasn’t like Eidolon had anything to do.

Well, except hang out with Hero, who spent enough time at the Cauldon Compound that Eidolon suspected he might be a little like him, but Eidolon wasn’t really the hanging-out type, even if Hero wanted him to be.

“You’re here early,” Hero commented, strolling into the conference room. The goose honked at the sight of him and ran right up to him. Hero beamed at the sight of the bird, something Eidolon thought no one would ever do, and reached down to scratch around the goose’s face. “Hey, buddy! I hope you’re not giving Eidolon too much trouble today.”

The goose made a nasally sound in response and bobbed its head. Eidolon wanted to sigh. The other reason Eidolon didn’t like spending too much time around Hero. He was the only person the goose wouldn’t bite, at least not much. Eidolon thought it might be a sign Hero was his soulmate, but Hero had a guide animal of his own.

“Hello,” the cockatoo chirped in that accented, irregular voice that all talking birds apparently had. Eidolon hadn’t even known that cockatoos were a type of bird that could talk until he met Hero. The bird hopped down from Hero’s shoulder to greet the goose, but the goose didn’t like that. He leaned back a bit, looked over at Eidolon with judgment in his eyes, and ran back toward him, not even biting him as he settled beside Eidolon’s chair.

“Aw, don’t take it personally, bud,” Hero cooed and picked his bird back up. To Eidolon, he asked, “Do you know what this meeting’s about?”

Eidolon shook his head. “Doctor Mother said Contessa, Alexandria, and Legend are supposed to be here, but she didn’t say much else.”

Hero nodded along. “I haven’t met Legend yet. What’s he like?”

“Um, he’s nice.” Eidolon didn’t really know what else to say. He didn’t really know Legend either, only occasionally crossing paths with him given the fact they could both fly. “He’s got a guide animal too. Some kind of falcon. His name’s Sticky Feet, which means Legend found his soulmate, I guess.”

Hero kept nodding along, catching his cockatoo under the chin in the process. “I’d sort of wondered about that.”

Eidolon and Hero had never really talked about it, but they were pretty aware that the two of them and Alexandria lived on the Cauldron base, and Legend didn’t. Eidolon had initially assumed that Legend hadn’t just abandoned his whole life when he got powers like the rest of them, but having found his soulmate made a little more sense.

Or, Eidolon and Hero had abandoned their whole lives. Eidolon had no idea if the same went for Alexandria, he thought idly as Alexandria and Contessa wandered into the conference room, their eagle guide animal hopping in after them.

The sight didn’t make Eidolon jealous. Honestly, he didn’t really like Contessa, and he didn’t think he’d be friends with Alexandria if he got to know her. They gave their guide animal kind of a dumb name, too. Aetos. After Zeus’s eagle. A little on the nose, in his opinion. Still, they were the only people he’d gotten to watch a guide animal bring together, and it was hard not to be a little envious.

The goose nipped Eidolon’s calf as if to remind Eidolon what a nuisance he was. Eidolon kicked him with his heel softly enough that he thought he wouldn’t get bit again, but the goose pecked him pretty hard in response.

Hero chatted with Contessa and Alexandria idly as Eidolon and the goose kept shoving each other. Eidolon had to wonder if this was a sign of what the rest of his life would look like, everyone else meeting their soulmates and making friends while he was stuck with the goose. Getting powers was supposed to make things better, and it did, but Eidolon was still pretty alone.

Legend arrived shortly after, and Alexandria made her pitch. 

A team. A real team. Not an organization like Cauldron, some place for them to rest and get intel for their next fights, but an actual group of capes that worked together. They’d offer membership to natural triggers, work with non-parahumans, and their fights and costumes would be performances for the public, just like the old comic books that inspired so many capes today to try to be superheroes.

It sounded ideal to Eidolon, but anything that meant having a life outside of the Cauldron base sounded ideal to Eidolon. 

When the time came to vote, he put his vote in for building the Protectorate.

December 1992

Behemoth was a terrifying thing. Eidolon was glad to have the Triumvirate at his side when Doormaker sent him to Iran to fight the thing.

He was a little less thrilled about having the goose there.

“You can’t come with,” Legend told his falcon, trying to push it back through the portal. “You’re going to get hurt!”

Eidolon looked down at the goose. The goose stared back. He hadn’t seen Behemoth’s true power yet, but he was strangely confident the goose could take a hit from him. Hell, the goose seemed strangely confident he could take a hit from Behemoth.

“They’re magic, right?” Alexandria said, not sounding too confident. Legend was still trying to shove his bird through the still-open portal. “I’ve never heard anything about a guide animal getting hurt.”

It was enough for Eidolon, but then again, he didn’t really like the goose. He didn’t blame Legend and Hero for joining the fight late because it took them a little longer to trap their guide animals behind Doormaker’s portal.

Eidolon did get a little nervous when the fight actually started, though.

The goose and Alexandria’s eagle could fly, at least, and they were smart enough to stay out of harm’s way, but Behemoth’s attacks were still indiscriminate. What even was that thing? It was humanoid, but distinctly inhuman, craggy, almost like a cliff face, with a single glowing, red eye. It could throw lightning, radiation was rolling off its body, and Doctor Mother said that anyone who got too close died gruesomely. And it’d only appeared a couple hours ago, so that wasn’t even necessarily all of its powers.

Eidolon had to grab the goose more than once to keep him from getting hit by stray lightning bolts. It was distracting, and Eidolon was pretty sure it was his first time holding the goose like that, but the goose didn’t bite him again until hours after the fight, so Eidolon thought it must have been grateful. It didn’t stop him from continuing to follow Eidolon into fights, though.

Behemoth’s appearance was enough to really kickstart the Protectorate and Parahuman Response Team projects. The Protectorate was official within a month, and more and more capes and their guide animals began joining their ranks.

January 1996

The Behemoth attacks became a regular thing, but Hero only built special containment units for the Protectorate and Wards’ guide animals after Leviathan appeared.

Most capes had them, Eidolon eventually noticed. Most people did nowadays, but capes especially. Some people even put them in masks and costumes to hide their identities and keep people from connecting their guide animals to their civilian selves. Eidolon imagined the rise of guide animals had something to do with the changing nature of the world and the stress most capes had to undergo to get their powers. People needed the comfort a guide animal provided in this new world full of powers and Endbringers.

They were pretty distracting in Endbringer fights, though, and it was especially worse when Leviathan appeared. 

The Triumvirate kind of lucked out that they all had birds, but dogs, cats, and other grounded animals were far more common. Not only did they have to worry about parahumans getting caught up in Leviathan’s waves, those same parahumans often refused to abandon their guide animals, even if they’d learned that the guide animals would always reappear if Behemoth destroyed them. 

Still, even if they would come back, abandoning them to a traumatic death wasn’t ideal, and they lost more than a few capes solely due to the fact that they didn’t want to let their guide animals drown.

Legend locked Sticky Feet up before the next Behemoth battle. Alexandria did the same with Aetos, and Hero with his cockatoo. After some debate, Eidolon put the goose in one of Hero’s containment units and left to fight Behemoth.

But that was the only Endbringer battle that Eidolon left the goose behind for. Eidolon told his teammates that the goose was so mad about getting put in a cage that it just wasn’t worth it, but Eidolon was pretty sure even the goose knew that wasn’t the truth.

That was the first time the goose had left his side for twenty years, and Eidolon didn’t like it.

May 1996

“...else looking downtown because the Protectorte salary is actually pretty good, you know? I just didn’t grow up like that, though, so I was sort of looking around the edges of the city,” Hero was saying, Eidolon tuning in mid-sentence when he realized Hero was talking to him. 

They were in the Protectorate breakroom, and there was no one else there, save the goose and the cockatoo, so Eidolon should’ve noticed a bit sooner. People didn’t really make small talk with him, though, so he’d gotten used to tuning it out. He knew Hero better than that, though.

“It’d probably be nice to get to know the real parts of the city,” Hero went on, “but I’ve never really lived on my own, so I probably shouldn’t be making things harder for myself.”

Eidolon’s mind really only caught up with him during that last part. Living on his own? “What are you talking about?”

“Getting an apartment? Haven’t you been listening?” Hero’s voice was teasing, but Eidolon still made a point to look at him so he’d think he was listening properly. He already hadn’t done super well getting to know his new teammates, and Hero hadn’t shown Eidolon any sign he didn’t want to be friends anymore, but Eidolon wasn’t taking any risks.

Moving out of the HQ wasn’t a very good sign for him, though. “What’s wrong with your apartment here at the base?”

“Nothing,” Hero told him with a shrug. His cockatoo was perched on his shoulder, and his head feathers lifted a bit with the motion. “Some of the other capes have started trying to set up civilian lives here in New York, and I don’t know if I’m really ready for something like that, but I feel like getting off base might make me feel a little more independent. More like a real person, you know?”

His words echoed thoughts Eidolon had when he turned eighteen, when he’d tried to join the army. He’d wondered if Hero was like him back when they were both living on the Cauldron base, but now…

Eidolon decided to just ask. It’d been over ten years at this point. Hero would just tell him if that wasn’t the sort of thing he could ask, right?

He didn’t really know how to say it, though.

“I had epilepsy before, you know,” Eidolon said instead. “I had these seizures that really messed me up. I was in a wheelchair as long as I can remember. I never thought I’d ever live anywhere other than my parents’ house.”

Eidolon saw something light up on Hero’s face. “I had diabetes! Type 1, that’s the autoimmune disorder. Totally fucked up a bunch of my organs, and I had tremors so bad I couldn’t even really write by… god, I don’t even know when. High school? Didn’t know what it was for forever, but I didn’t think I was going to live to eighteen, so I never even thought about what I was going to do if I did.”

Relief washed over Eidolon, which made him feel a little bad, but a half-hearted bite from the goose recentered him. Hero was better now, and so was Eidolon. He didn’t have to feel bad for the two of them having this shared experience.

“I really wanted to live on my own when I turned eighteen,” Eidolon told him, wondering just how much he wanted to tell him. Telling him about the army was probably too much. Hero was probably the only person in the world he felt like he could talk about that with, but they still had a mostly professional relationship. It was a bit much for now. “I left my civilian life when I joined Cauldron, though. I never even thought about having a life outside of all this.”

“I mean, there’s nothing really stopping us. The PRT’s a government org. I figured they could revive my legal identity and fake a good credit score. I’m sure they could do the same for you,” Hero said, and Eidolon nodded along, still not feeling super sure Hero’s plan was for him. Then an idea seemed to strike the other man. “Hey, what if we lived together?”

It was so unexpected that Eidolon couldn’t even respond, not even when the goose bit him again.

“I didn’t think it was that bad of an idea,” Hero said, turning away. If he were any other person, Eidolon wouldn’t say he sounded dejected, but he knew he was. Hero was always so bright that his worst sounded like Eidolon’s best.

Eidolon wondered how he managed it. He’d always told himself that he never really learned how to interact with other people properly because of his childhood disability, but Hero was in a similar boat, and he turned out fine. He turned out great, even.

“It’s not,” Eidolon told him quickly, hoping to salvage this. If Hero wasn’t going to be living at the base anymore, Eidolon definitely wanted to be somewhere near him. “I was just surprised you’d want to live with me.”

“Why not?” Hero met his gaze again. “We’ve been practically living together forever now.”

Eidolon didn’t say it was because he thought Hero didn’t like him. He wouldn’t say it was because he thought Hero didn’t like him.

“You have a soulmate,” Eidolon said instead, gesturing loosely at the cockatoo on Hero’s shoulder. 

“You do too,” Hero pointed out, looking down at the goose. Eidolon wanted to say his didn’t really count, but he didn’t. He didn’t want to start Hero on that. “Two people living together doesn’t have to mean anything. Neither of us is exactly looking for our other half. Alexandria’s got Contressa, Legend’s got Arthur, and we’re the leftovers, aren’t we? Gotta stick together.”

Eidolon always kind of saw himself as the odd one out. He hadn’t known Hero saw them as the odd ones out.

“If either of us finds our soulmate, we can afford to break a lease,” Hero told him, “and we should probably learn how to take care of an apartment before we find them. We can figure it all out together.”

Hero was making a pretty good case, as if Eidolon wasn’t already convinced.

Eidolon had always been aware that Hero had a soulmate, but he was even more aware of it when they were living together.

Guide animals split their time between the different parties in a soulbond. They usually went to whoever needed them the most at a given time, and for capes, that meant their guide animals were with them during those big battles and important moments. For Hero, that meant the cockatoo was usually with him when he saw Eidolon.

But the cockatoo didn’t hang around 24/7. Eidolon noticed when he was gone, and that made him notice the goose so much more.

Hero definitely noticed that the goose never left, too. Eidolon had to think it meant Hero thought he was weird, or that he knew that Eidolon was so messed up that he needed his guide animal with him all the time. 

Or worse, that there was something so wrong with Eidolon that it affected his soulbond. Like the universe hadn’t planned on giving him a soulmate, but knew how Eidolon was going to turn out and gave him this awful goose so he wouldn’t be totally alone forever.

Hero never said anything like that, though, which meant Eidolon could pretend he was okay and normal for a little longer.

If he liked to pretend Hero was his soulmate when the cockatoo was gone, well, that was between Eidolon and the goose.

Mid 2000

Shit kind of hit the fan at the turn of the century, but that was for Alexandria and Contessa to figure out. 

The important thing was that Hero was dead.

The only person Eidolon could confidently say saw him as a friend. The man Eidolon secretly hoped was his soulmate for far longer than he should have. The only one who let him stop being Eidolon sometimes and just be David.

He couldn’t exactly run off in the middle of a battle, but once the Siberian was dealt with, Eidolon begged Alexandria and Legend to help him chase after Hero’s cockatoo.

Guide animals always went back to the other half of the soulbond when one party died. The cockatoo wouldn’t be coming back to New York with Eidolon, and he couldn’t lose his last connection to Hero, especially not because he felt like it would be awkward not to stick around after a battle.

Alexandria had one of her eyes gouged out, so she had kind of a good reason to stay behind. Eidolon didn’t like it, but he got it, and he trusted her to make sure Hero’s body stayed safe. She wasn’t all that fast a flyer anyway. Legend was a better person to have with him anyway.

No one really knew how guide animals traveled. They didn’t literally run or fly between members of a soulbond. If they did, people with soulmates would probably see their guide animals a lot less, and a lot more people would see guide animals in transit. They had some kind of magic that let it all happen a little faster, but Eidolon’s agent gave him some kind of tracking power that let him point Legend and his Breaker state in the right direction well enough to follow the cockatoo all the way to Texas.

Eidolon really wasn’t expecting Hero’s soulmate to be in Texas. Hero’s soulmate wasn’t expecting his guide animal to suddenly reappear with arguably the two strongest capes in the world, though, so it kind of evened out.

“Um, hi,” Hero’s soulmate said a little awkwardly as the cockatoo flew up to him and landed on his head. He was wearing a costume, a white thing with a few steel points on his shoulders and brows. “Is one of you my soulmate, or are you trying to recruit me into the Protectorate?”

Eidolon looked at Legend a little desperately, not knowing what to say. Legend, ever the people’s person, thankfully took over. He landed in front of the cape, an appropriately apologetic look on his face, and told him, “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your soulmate was killed just a couple of hours ago.”

The cape was wearing a mask, so Eidolon couldn’t see his face, but he saw his hands go slack and his back go rigid. He didn’t say anything for a moment, but Legend didn’t either, letting the cape collect his thoughts. “Who… Who was my soulmate?”

The question surprised Eidolon, but he supposed it shouldn’t have. Eidolon hadn’t had much time to build up this situation in his mind, but he did sort of think Hero’s soulmate would be devastated, just like Eidolon was right now. He wasn’t, but Eidolon couldn’t even be mad because this guy actually had no idea that Hero was even his soulmate.

“Hero,” Legend told him. He paused for a moment. “The Tinker?”

“I know who he is,” the cape said, and it wasn’t snappish. He reached up almost absently to touch his guide animal. “I saw his cockatoo in pictures before, and I sort of thought it looked like mine, but I never actually…”

The cape trailed off, undoubtedly running through all the what-ifs in his mind. Eidolon knew what that sounded like.

“He was my best friend,” Eidolon said aloud, and it was the first time he’d allowed himself to utter such a thing. He’d never told Hero, but he had to know, right? He had to know how he felt about him. “I could tell you about him, if you want.”

“Oh shit.” The cape stood up a little straighter. “You two just lost your teammate, and you came all this way to tell me. Um, my name’s Dispatch. Do you want to come back to my place? It’s getting late, and I was thinking about wrapping up my patrol anyway. It’d be no trouble.”

Legend thanked him but politely declined. They’d just fought a terrible battle, and he wanted to go home to his own soulmate.

Eidolon though? He didn’t exactly want to go back to his apartment now. Didn’t want to see the space he’d once shared with Hero. Really, the only pieces left of that life he had now were the goose and the cockatoo. The goose would follow him wherever he went, and the cockatoo was here, so Eidolon’s decision was made.

It was actually pretty late, so Dispatch set Eidolon up on the couch, clearly with the intention of talking to Eidolon in the morning, but Eidolon felt something in his mind snap after about ten minutes of lying alone there on the couch.

He cried. It was loud, and it was ugly, and it was the first time Eidolon had cried in years. It was bad enough that Dispatch had to get out of his own bed and not only awkwardly pat Eidolon on the shoulder but also kick the goose back to keep him from pecking Eidolon in the face as fat tears poured down his cheeks. 

It was embarrassing, being tended to by a near-total stranger, but Eidolon was sort of glad it wasn’t Legend and Alexandria seeing him like this.

“I loved him,” Eidolon wheezed out between gasps. “I know he was your soulmate, but I loved him.”

After he wore himself out enough to fall asleep and morning rolled around, Eidolon awkwardly clarified to Dispatch that he wasn’t in love with Hero. Privately, he sort of wished he was, but he still knew he wasn’t. The goose was too strong a reminder of his own soulmate for Eidolon to lose himself in his feelings like that.

Surprisingly, Dispatch didn’t really seem to care. “It’s fine. I mean, I know he was my soulmate, but I didn’t know him. We’re not really young anymore, so I always knew there was always the chance he’d be with someone else when I found him.”

“We weren’t together,” Eidolon said, even though he’d already clarified that.

Dispatch just shrugged. “I know. It sounds like you were something special to each other, though. My point was more that you don’t have to feel guilty.”

Eidolon was feeling a lot of things, but he didn’t think guilty was one of them. He mostly felt like crying again. It wasn’t totally out of his system, but he’d had a brief cry in Dispatch’s shower while trying to make himself presentable for their talk, and he thought he would be okay for a little while longer.

They talked about Hero a bit, about what kind of person he was, but the conversation eventually drifted. Eidolon learned that Dispatch had triggered less than a year ago, and he was trying to make a name for himself in the cape world, but he didn’t feel like he’d made much progress yet.

“There’s always the Protectorate,” Eidolon suggested, trying not to sound hopeful, but Dispatch was already shaking his head.

“I came to Texas to try to keep the Elite from moving in,” Dispatch told him. He didn’t get too much into it, but from the sound of things, Eidolon was pretty sure the Elite had something to do with Dispatch’s trigger.

There was a little bit of Elite presence in New York, but it was mostly on the West Coast. The area probably needed more capes fighting for it, so Eidolon didn’t blame Dispatch for wanting to stay.

Still, when Alexandria announced the Protectorate was going to decentralize and spread across the country, Eidolon didn’t shy away from taking the lead on the Houston team.

December 2002

Eidolon was first starting to suspect his powers might be weakening when the Simurgh made her first appearance. 

It was probably a risk to try a new strategy against a new Endbringer, but Eidolon was eager to see how his and Dispatch’s powers meshed in a real fight.

Dispatch had been pleased to hear there would be a Protectorate branch in Texas, and Eidolon had put in a real effort not to alienate his new teammates. Dispatch joined shortly after the PRT finished setting up, and their synergy became apparent pretty early on.

They had the unspoken bond over Hero, of course, but their personalities worked together well enough. They were both very committed to doing good, even if their motivations differed a bit, and neither really liked working with the PRT, which gave them something to gripe over together.

The main thing was their powers, though. Eidolon’s powers required time, and Dispatch’s powers gave him that time. They worked together often, and with shared experiences came trust. Dispatch was no Hero, but Eidolon found him fulfilling the role Hero had in his life. They didn’t live together, and they danced around the subject of trying anything beyond friendship, but they were friends, and Eidolon didn’t have a lot of those.

He really shouldn’t have been risking the few friends he had by putting them up against the Simurgh, but she was a new, unknown threat, and the world needed Eidolon’s power, and Eidolon needed Dispatch to use his full power.

The battle was rather successful. The Simurgh wasn’t as destructive as the other Endbringers, it seemed. Hopefully, that meant that whatever the source of them was, it was running out of juice to give them.

Of course, they didn’t know the true devastation of the Simurgh until months later. Fewer risks were taken in subsequent battles against her, and quarantine systems were employed, even among capes.

Eidolon and Dispatch started living together at some point after spending their first quarantine together. It was easier, Eidolon told himself. It wasn’t them trying to fill the void where Hero was supposed to be.

2004

“The goose is always around,” Dispatch said one day. Eidolon had known that day would come eventually.

The goose wouldn’t bite Hero. It did bite Dispatch, but he’d mostly stopped about halfway through their second Simurgh quarantine. That didn’t change the fact that it was pretty hard to miss that he was always there.

“Yeah,” Eidolon answered, glancing down at his ever-present companion. He was pretty amicable today, it seemed, staring blankly at the cockatoo as it sang broken lyrics from some song Eidolon was pretty sure Hero used to like.

“Is it because… Is it for the same reason the cockatoo is always around?” Dispatch eventually asked, and Eidolon had never thought of that before.

The goose had literally never left him unless Eidolon trapped him in one of Hero’s cages or on the other side of one of Doormaker’s portals, and even then, he always found his way back. Eidolon always thought it was just because the goose was stubborn. He never considered that his soulmate might have died when Eidolon was younger.

“I don’t know,” Eidolon answered honestly. “Does it bother you?”

“No. I mean, the cockatoo’s always around,” Dispatch said a little absently, watching the two birds walk around each other on the floor. “That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Dread filled Eidolon’s stomach, but he tried to quash it down. Did Dispatch want to start looking for a partner? Or worse, did he already have a secret partner and want Eidolon to move out so they could live together? No, those were ridiculous thoughts. Eidolon knew it, but Dispatch’s words still unsettled him enough that he didn’t respond with more than a look.

“Do you want to name the cockatoo with me?” Dispatch asked, and he didn’t sound nervous. Apprehensive, maybe, but not nervous. Dispatch wasn’t really a nervous guy, and Eidolon didn’t think he was either, but working up the nerve to ask a question like that would’ve made Eidolon sweat buckets. “It feels weird calling him the cockatoo after all this time.”

“Normally, soulmates name their guide animal together,” Eidolon said a little slowly, knowing Dispatch knew what he was asking, but still wanting to make sure.

“I know,” Dispatch said, and he didn’t sound defensive. “I just don’t want to name him something dumb, and you’re the closest thing I’ve got to Hero, and you are living with the cockatoo too, so I figured I’d ask.”

Eidolon agreed, even though it felt a little wrong. Hero wasn’t his soulmate, and he was only as close as he was with Dispatch because they’d both lose the same person. The cockatoo still meant something to him, though, and it felt less wrong the more Eidolon and Dispatch talked about names.

They didn’t want to name him after Hero, but nothing else quite felt right. Hero 2 was a little too much, but they agreed Hero Junior was kind of cute. Junior for short.

September - December 2008

Eidolon waited for Dispatch to broach the topic of naming the goose, but he never did, and Eidolon knew he wouldn’t. Dispatch wasn’t one for coniving. If he wanted to take things further with Eidolon, he’d just ask straight up, not pull some curveball move for Eidolon to agonize over interpreting. 

Still, Eidolon was near certain his soulmate was dead until one random near-autumn day, Eidolon couldn’t find the goose anywhere.

“Maybe he flew south for the winter,” one of the Wards joked, but no one laughed. It was pretty weird for all of them to see Eidolon without his goose. It was one of those things you didn’t think about until it happened, and it was happening now.

At this point, Eidolon was the only one who actively chose to bring his guide animal to Endbringer fights. No one did unless they had to, and people had noticed. Dispatch told him the Wards had showed him memes about it from PHO, not that the Wards would ever be bold enough to show Eidolon themselves. Eidolon knew they were right for that, though. He probably wouldn’t appreciate them making jokes like that to his face, and they knew it.

Still, everyone was a little thrown off by the goose’s absence. A few Protectorate and PRT members offered to help him look, wondering if maybe a villain group had made their own version of Hero’s guide animal containment tech and had captured the goose in hopes of blackmailing Eidolon. It wasn’t a thought Eidolon would have had himself, but enough people mentioned it that he had to wonder.

Eidolon knew it wasn’t that, though. He’d had the goose at his side for over thirty years at this point. He knew him well enough to know he’d left on his own accord.

After a week, though, Eidolon’s faith in his bond with the goose wavered a bit. His agent gave him a Thinker power to replay his memories of the last time he’d seen the goose, and he knew there was no way some foreign party could have taken the goose from him. Still, as the weeks ticked by, not even Thinker powers were enough to keep Eidolon from worrying.

Hero Junior started singing sadly, not long after. He missed his friend, too, even if the goose never showed any sign of liking him. Eidolon could relate.

Eidolon wasn’t happy when the Simurgh attacked Madison, but he did know that if the goose was going to pick a time to return, this would be it.

The sound of the goose’s honk distracted him enough that he nearly flew right into one of the Simurgh’s Tinker tech blasts, but he didn’t even care. His goose was back!

The asshole bit him on sight, beak locking on his ear and yanking hard, something he hadn’t done in awhile. Alexandria had to stop her own battle efforts to free him, and Eidolon could tell that Alexandria didn’t think his apology was genuine. The goose bit her too, and then Eidolon twice more for good measure, and they were back in battle.

“Where were you?” Eidolon asked once the fight was over and they were safely in Simurgh quarantine. “Thirty years and you could have left this whole time?”

The goose just honked and pecked him in the thigh. Eidolon knew he wasn’t getting any answers, but he didn’t really care as long as he knew his guide animal was okay.

Chapter Text

1980 - 1986

Danny was pretty sure he didn’t have a soulmate by the time he was twelve, but he still went to the library to get the most up-to-date book he could on soulmates just to be sure.

It was sort of an academic book that he didn’t really understand, but he felt like he got the gist of it.

By 1976, the year the book was written, about 30% of the population had soulmarks, but that was a pretty broad statement. There were a lot of types of soulmarks. Most were static marks on the skin, like names, first words, last words, and matching symbols. A few were more dynamic, like compasses and timers. 

Most of soulmarks were present at birth, though, so Danny knew he didn’t have one of those. 

Another 15% was split evenly between link types, meeting-based, and rare types. Danny was pretty sure he would know if he had a link type, something like feeling his soulmate’s pain or seeing their writing on his skin. Meeting-based or rare types could be hit or miss on whether he’d know or not. Something like monochrome vision until he met his soulmate, or being able to see the red strings connecting people would be pretty obvious. Something like getting a soulmark the first time he touched his soulmate would not be.

Danny secretly hoped for the most common type of soulmark. The majority of people, about 50% of the population, had guide animals as their soulbond type. Guide animals were expected to increase to be the soulbond type of about 90% of the population by the turn of the century, so the book noted that people who hadn’t had soulbond manifestations yet were most likely to have guide animals, though they were most likely to appear in people’s preteens, so Danny was starting to push it.

No, it was most likely that Danny was the last 5% of the population, either someone with a soulbond manifestation so unique that it wouldn’t help him find his soulmate, or someone who just didn’t have a soulmate. 

There wasn’t actually any evidence that there were people without soulmates, that the people who thought they didn’t were just people with those unique soulbond manifestations. That knowledge alone made him hold out hope for a guide animal.

Having a guide animal would be so cool, even though it wouldn’t make his soulbond very unique. He would love to have an animal in the house. His dad had a compass soulmark, but Danny’s mom was out of the picture when Danny was too young to figure out if his dad’s compass pointed toward her. He didn’t know if he hoped it was pointing to her or not. He often wished his dad had a guide animal, though, because even if Danny didn’t have one, at least it meant Danny wouldn’t be stuck alone with his father.

It was kind of a dumb wish, though, so Danny spent a lot more time and energy wishing for his own guide animal to appear.

He gave up when he was seventeen.

Danny couldn’t remember what his father had been angry about, just that he’d been yelling and Danny hadn’t been able to listen, which just made his Dad even angrier. He couldn’t really remember what happened after that, but he did remember rousing back to consciousness with a sore throat and a big rat sitting on his chest.

He’d thought it was his guide animal at first, but it turned out he’d actually just gotten powers.

Just gotten powers. He doubted there was anyone else in the world who’d thought something like that.

Danny supposed having powers wasn’t the worst thing. Even if the rats weren’t guide animals, being able to create animal companions was better than having no one at all.

1988

Danny knew of Lustrum’s presence on campus, but he didn’t actually know how bad it was until he saw that Lustrum’s lieutenants beat the hell out of Armsmaster on the local news channel.

Or, well, Danny didn’t see it on the news. His friend Kurt did and thought it would be a good topic for a group project the two of them were doing with Kurt’s soulmate, this girl Danny had seen around the docks sometimes named Lacey, the two of them bound by their soul dog. Danny had been a little uncertain about working with her, but she pulled her own weight and didn’t make Danny feel like too much of a third wheel.

“Armsmaster appeared about six months ago in response to the increased Empire Eighty-Eight presence in Brockton Bay,” Lacey told them, reading off a sheet of notes. “Specifically, Kaiser’s attempts to increase parahuman involvement in the Empire.”

“What even are his powers?” Kurt asked, half leaning on Lacey to look at her notes. “Fighting four capes alone is kind of insane.”

“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Lacey told him a little dryly and slid some papers over Danny’s way so he could take a look. “I think they jumped him.”

“That doesn’t seem like something Lustrum’s gang would do,” Kurt said with a frown. “Normally, at least.”

“Maybe he’s like Hero?” Danny asked after skimming over a few of the rare photos of Armsmaster that appeared in the papers. “It looks like he’s got some kind of armor.”

Kurt and Lacey didn’t have any better theories, and the three of them spent the next couple of days scouring for what little information they could. They mostly gave up once it became clear it would be hard to find information on something that specific, so they all agreed to just half-ass their project and risk the bad grade, but parts of what they’d learned stuck with Danny.

Villains typically outnumbered two to one, but as far as Danny knew, there weren’t any other heroes in Brockton Bay besides Arsmaster. But, there were five parahumans in Lustrum’s gang, and at least a handful in Kaiser’s new group, plus that new solo villain, Marquis. It was pretty brave of Armsmaster to step up in the face of all that. Brave enough to inspire Danny to buy a mask.

Over the next week or so, Danny collected his rats from their hiding places around the docks and sent them patrolling the area around the campus, waiting for Armsmaster’s return.

Danny was getting pretty good at using his rats’ sight, but Armsmaster still spotted the rats before Danny saw him. 

Armsmaster stopped to peer at them and tried prodding one with one of his weapons. It didn’t do anything, of course. Danny’s rats were too tough to get hurt by a little poke like that, and it gave Danny enough time to catch up with his rats.

“Don’t shoot,” Danny called out, even though he had no idea if Armsmaster had anything like a gun. His name was Armsmaster, so it wasn’t unreasonable to assume, right? The other man whipped around to face him, weapon drawn, and Danny put his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, hey, I just want to talk.”

Danny knew he was probably a pretty pathetic sight. His costume was barely a costume, pretty lackluster with just a heavy green jacket, a hood, gray athletic pants, and a simple party mask that Danny had tried to give some semblance of a rat with house paint, glue, and aluminum foil. He’d met people at Halloween parties with better costumes.

Armsmaster, on the other hand, was wearing actual metal. Armor, like Danny had seen in the pictures. Not like the stuff knights wore in movies, but maybe something out of a sci-fi story. He looked a lot more like an actual hero than Danny did.

Armsmaster seemed to feel the same way because he dropped the defensive stance almost immediately. He tilted his head downward, angling it toward the rats. “These yours?”

Danny nodded and had his rats run to his feet. He had a few more in his pockets and a whole bunch in the bag strapped to his back, but he still felt a little better having more of his rats close by. “I’m a parahuman too. They’re part of my power.”

Danny couldn’t read Armsmaster’s expression through his helmet, but he could feel his eyes boring into him. “Well, you’re obviously not with Lustrum’s gang. You Empire?”

Danny shook his head a little harder than he should have. “This my first time, um, using my powers out in public. I’ve had them for a little while now, but I never really thought about using them to help the city until I saw you in the paper.”

Armsmaster definitely looked surprised by that. “You want to fight?”

Danny nodded, then paused. “My powers aren’t really good for fighting, but yeah. I want to fight.”

It turned out Danny wasn’t the only one. A few days later, after people had the chance to see that Armsmaster was back and Danny was with him, another parahuman approached them, a young man with a thick accent and some kind of massive lizard as his animal guide.

He teleported right in front of Armsmaster and Danny during one of their first few nights patrolling, prompting Armsmaster to hit him with his high-tech weapon, but the guy just appeared beside Danny a moment later, seemingly totally fine and unbothered.

“I’m Lee,” the stranger told them, crossing his arms and leaning back casually. He was wearing all black and had a full-face Halloween mask hiding his identity, which, in hindsight, was probably something Danny should have done. Much easier and better looking than trying to make his own mask. “I want in.”

Armsmaster hadn’t been unwelcoming to Danny, but he seemed a little more ready to accept Lee. Maybe it was because it was more obvious that he wasn’t Empire. Danny tried not to be too offended.

Still, Danny kind of liked not being the new guy. It meant Armsmaster wasn’t the only one talking when they met up on top of one of the university’s newer lecture halls to talk shop.

“The biggest parahuman threats are Kaiser’s gang and Lustrum’s,” Armsmaster explained, even though none of this should have been new information to Lee. “I wasn’t really worried about Lustrum, so I’d been focusing more on the Empire, but Lustrum might be planning to change her tactics. I don’t know why else her capes would have attacked me.”

“She’s been visiting campus a lot more over the past couple months,” Danny added, Lee nodding along. “I thought she was, like, trying to start an activism group, but it is pretty concerning that she had her capes attack Armsmaster.”

Lee looked in Armsmaster’s direction. “Did they hurt you badly?”

“Worst I got was a bruised rib, at least I think,” Armsmaster answered, and Danny felt a little bad for not asking before. He’d noticed that there’d been some time before Armsmaster reappeared after getting attacked, but he hadn’t quite put two and two together. He must’ve taken the time off to let his body heal. “I think it was more of a warning to back off.”

Danny grinned a bit. “I doubt she expected you to get more capes on your side!”

Armsmaster grunted. “Speaking of which, you two have names picked out? Danny, you said your rats found some places Lustrum might be using as a base, so you two might be making your first public appearance soon.”

“Hear me out,” Danny told them, pausing for dramatic effect. “Rat Race.”

Armsmaster and Lee didn’t really react, and Danny knew they probably wouldn’t, but it was still a little underwhelming. Lee just shrugged, and Armsmaster merely said, “That works. Lee?”

“What’s wrong with Lee?” Lee asked. “There are tons of people named Lee.”

“Not in Brockton Bay,” Armsmaster responded, and Danny wondered if there was another Asian man under that helmet. “Pick something else.”

“Ninja?” Lee offered, but didn’t sound too confident.

Armsmaster frowned a bit. “It might be too racialized, considering we’re probably going to be fighting the Empire.”

Lee looked like he wanted to respond to that, but he didn’t, so Danny jumped in. “Maybe something about your guide animal? He looks like he’s got a mean bite, so he might end up part of your cape persona too.”

The three of them looked down at the creature. It’d been pretty calm during all of their meetings, usually just lazily flicking its tongue out periodically when they talked, and it seemed to have no problem catching up with them when they ran along the rooftops. Danny still wasn’t a hundred percent sure what type of reptile it was, though.

“Monitor?” Lee tried. 

Armsmaster shrugged. “It makes sense with your teleportation power, but I think you could do better.”

They settled on just Teleporter. Armsmaster and Rat Race’s names were pretty to the point, and Lee didn’t seem to have a strong preference, so it worked well enough. It wasn’t like people on the street cared much about superheroes' public personas anyway. Danny and Armsmaster were probably the only ones who would be calling Lee that anyway.

But Danny underestimated how much Brockton Bay would need its new heroes. Within a month of Rat Race and Teleporter’s first appearance, Lustrum called for an androcide, and hundreds of women responded to her call.

Danny hadn’t realized it was happening until Lee teleported into his apartment to tell him he was needed. He got a very basic rundown of what was going on and then was thrown out onto the field.

“Lustrum’s liutenants are Diamond, Pageant, Dike, and Temptress,” Lee told him as he deposited Danny and a bag full of rats on a rooftop in the middle of campus. “Armsmaster wants to find Temptress first in case this is some kind of Master effect. He says that Pageant has a fire power, Dike has a water power, and Diamond can turn her body into crystal, so they will probably give your rats some trouble, but you can definitely stop some of the regular humans.”

Teleporter was gone shortly after that, and Danny got to work.

Danny set his rats free with instructions to attack anyone trying to kill anyone else, hoping that he wouldn’t have to use his rat vision to direct them. He really didn’t want to see the slaughter Lustrum had promised. He knew he should probably stay on the roof where it was safe, but he had a weapon from Armsmaster, and Danny knew he could do a lot more good if he had more rats, so he climbed down and walked into the closest student market he could find, eating as much as he could to have enough mass in him to create more rats.

It was pretty gross, but Danny was getting pretty good at making the rats at this point, so it really wasn’t that bad. The vomiting distracted him from the sights his rats were sending back to him, too. Not completely, but enough that he wasn’t totally overwhelmed by it all.

He probably should have been paying more attention, though, because he didn’t realize someone was killing his rats until maybe a dozen of them had been killed.

Danny hadn’t been expecting it. He’d never had anything kill his rats before, not that he’d tried that much. He tried focusing his senses to get a good look at what was happening, but most of the rats in the area had already died.

Diamond, he recognized, once he’d gotten a good view. It was probably the only one of Lustrum’s lieutenants that he could recognize on sight, being made of crystal and all. Maybe even real diamond? Danny didn’t know enough about that kind of stuff to tell.

Diamond walked casually through the campus streets, ignoring the mobs of women and fleeing men around her. Her hands were sharpened into long spikes, and Danny watched through a rat’s eyes as she jammed it into its back and tore it up until the stringy tendrils that made up the rat’s body failed to keep holding it together.

At least he knew how to stop his rats now, but that was pretty problematic for Danny at the moment. He stopped eating, produced a last few rats, and started fiddling with the weapon Armsmaster had given him.

It was basically just a taser, but Armsmaster had embedded it into a metal staff, so Danny had something to swing at an opponent if they got too close, but Danny was really not feeling confident that he would be able to fight her.

Thankfully, he didn’t have to because Alexandria showed up before Diamond could find the market Danny was hiding in.

Danny couldn’t hear through the rats’ ears, but he could see the solid blows Alexandria was landing on Diamond. Diamond staggered, and Danny thought she would go down, but Diamond surged back up and nailed Alexandria square in the jaw with a fist reshaped into a spikey mace. Danny winced, and he sensed his rats mirror the action. That had to hurt. 

He should probably get out there, shouldn’t he?

He was no Brute, and he lacked the muscle that Armsmaster and Teleporter’s frames had, but he had to do something, right?

Danny ran out onto the street, and once he had his real eyes on the two women, he ordered his rats to crawl up Diamond’s body.

Alexandria seemed surprised by it, surprised enough for her to take a step back, but it wasn’t a problem because Diamond had been surprised too. She stopped moving enough for Danny to wrap a few rat tails around her eyes and convince one of the smaller rats to try to crawl into her mouth.

Alexandria raised a fist and hit Diamond over the head at what Danny thought would be an awkward angle. Diamond went down all the same.

“Thanks,” Alexandria called out in Danny’s direction. “You’re on our side, I take it?”

Danny ventured over, trying not to look too mousy. He had his rats crawl away from Diamond. “Yeah. I’m working with Armsmaster and Teleporter. Do you know where they are?”

Alexandria didn’t nod or shake her head. “Armsmaster is working with Hero to take down Pageant and Dike. Eidolon and his guide animal are working on Temptress, and Legend is looking for Lustrum. I haven’t seen any other capes.”

“You haven’t found Lustrum? I can help with that,” Danny told her, and he got to work, focusing on directing more of his rats to spread out rather than focus on helping people. He felt a little bad, but the big-name capes were here now, which meant they could end this sooner rather than later if they properly put a stop to things.

He still let a few of his rats linger. He had some watch Hero and Armsmaster, curious if their powers were actually similar, like he’d suspected. They were doing pretty alright, but Pageant and Dike had the high ground, which meant Dike could flood the area and Pageant could keep the two heroes away with her fire. It was a ranged battle, which Hero and Armsmaster could handle, but it was far from an easy fight.

It looked like there was some kind of flying guide animal and another one in the water, which Danny found a little surprising. He’d never noticed a guide animal with Armsmaster, but he didn’t think it was Pageant or Dike’s guide animal. He stopped paying attention when the two animals synced up their attacks and launched themselves at Pageant and Dike, giving Hero and Armsmaster the chance to rush in. They would be fine. Danny could afford to focus his attention elsewhere.

Something grabbed one of his rats, and Danny realized it was Eidolon’s guide animal, fully not caring that his human was fighting and getting far more interested in chasing Danny’s rats around. Danny told the rats to try attacking Temptress in hopes it would encourage Eidolon’s goose to do something useful and shut off his senses in that area. That didn’t seem like something that needed his focus.

Danny spotted Teleporter sooner or later, watching his friend blink from building to building like he was running from something. His rats noticed a massive, glowing woman made of light chasing after him a few beats later.

“Found her,” Danny called out to Alexandria, and decided right then and there that she could handle this one.

“You’ve got an octopus,” Danny said, abruptly sitting down across from what looked to be a half-Asian man with his nose in an engineering textbook in the library.

The man jumped, looking startled, and the guide animal wrapped around his shoulders snaked down his arm and across the table toward Danny, curious.

“Yes?” The man looked confused, and Danny felt a little bad for just appearing to him like this. He couldn’t help it once he noticed him, though. The other man’s expression shifted, eyes going wide. “Are you my soulmate?”

“What? No.” Whoops. Danny could definitely see how he could have gotten the wrong impression. “It’s Danny. My rats your octopus during the whole Lustrum thing last month, but I couldn’t figure out what kind of guide animal you had.”

Armsmaster sighed, sounding annoyed. “You know I was trying to maintain a secret identity, right? I made sure my guide animal was always hidden when I went out on purpose. He’s not like Lee’s lizard. He’d get hurt if he got into a fight.”

Danny wanted to point out that he’d let him fight Pageant and Dike, but he didn’t think Armsmaster would appreciate that. He seemed annoyed enough with Danny as it was, but he sounded genuine when he said he wanted to keep his guide animal out of danger. How to lighten the mood… “You could give the octopus a gun.”

Armsmaster just stared at him.

“Eight arms?” Danny tried, and Armsmaster kept staring at him. Danny willed himself not to be the first to break his gaze.

Armsmaster gave in first, swearing softly and leaning down to fish a notebook out of his backpack.

The octopus joined their little team with an energy revolver a few nights later.

December 1992

Rat Race, Armsmaster, and Teleporter continued protecting Brockton Bay, mostly sticking to fighting the Empire as Kaiser kept fighting to expand its hold on their city, but they took down a good handful of non-parahuman upstarting gangs over the years.

Danny, Colin, and Lee, meanwhile, remained friends in their civilian lives, even after they all graduated. Or, well, after Danny graduated. Colin went on to do a Master’s program, and it turned out Lee was a little younger than both of them and didn’t even start college until Danny’s senior year. The point was, they kept up their hero work through it all, and Brockton Bay really took a shining to them.

They got better costumes. They made appearances on TV. They really were superheroes.

Still, when a call was put out for heroes to join the fight in Iran, Danny didn’t feel like the call was meant for him.

The announcement had interrupted all TV broadcasts, some woman explaining what was happening over footage of a towering creature tearing through Marun. Trying to explain, at least. Who could explain something like Behemoth?

There was no way Danny, Colin, Lee, and their two guide animals could stand up against that thing, but Danny still felt the need to argue when Lee voiced that thought.

“Lee, your teleportation could probably save a lot of people,” Danny said a little quietly. There wasn’t really anyone else around, so he wasn’t disturbing anyone, but it felt appropriate to talk softly in the face of what they were witnessing on the TV. “And Colin, they could probably use a brain like yours.”

“Your rats could probably survive a few hits, too,” Colin added. “Might not be able to do any damage, but we don’t know anything, and you could probably get some information.”

The two looked to Lee, and he gave in pretty quickly. Danny didn’t think he’d really been all that against going in the first place. Afterall, he was rather hard to kill given his power. It was more the idea of fighting the Behemoth that was the problem. It was truly daunting in a way that their cape careers to that point just hadn’t been yet, and one of their first fights had been against Lustrum, so that was saying something.

They called the number the TV broadcast put out for parahumans to use if they wanted to help. It wasn’t exactly a streamlined process, but they were on a plane to Iran with a dozen other capes within a few hours.

Behemoth was terrifying.

It looked so much bigger in person, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. Behemoth wasn’t just a Brute. It had ranged attacks. The lightning? That meant Danny wouldn’t be safe if he just holed up somewhere and had his rats do all the work for him.

Plus, there was the radiation, but he tried not to think about that.

He still tried at first. Holing up, that is. Armsmaster went off with some other techy capes, but Teleporter and Danny’s powers worked best together for search and rescue. Danny could direct Teleporter to people, mostly capes, who were trapped under the rubble, and Teleporter could check back in with Danny for the next target without wasting any time. It was a good system, and they must have been going at it for an hour before Behemoth ended up in the corner of the city they were working in.

Teleporter got Danny out of his hiding place before Behemoth was on top of him, but that didn’t change the fact that there was nowhere to go. Teleporter had a pretty big range, but it wasn’t helpful if he didn’t know where he was going, and Danny was too busy trying not to die to use his rats’ vision.

Still, Danny saw the lightning bolt coming toward them through a rat’s eyes just a fraction too late to warn Teleporter to teleport them.

Through those same eyes, he also saw a metal woman rush in to try to redirect the lightning bolt.

It gave him enough time to get Teleporter to get them to safety, but it was still a sight that stuck with him. At least until he was in mortal danger again. He couldn’t be letting himself get distracted thinking about unimportant things.

All in all, Danny only saw about three hours of the battle before Eidolon did something or another to drive Behemoth off. Danny didn’t see it, but he had noticed that the general vibe of the battlefield had changed, and a cape that Danny didn’t know told him what happened about ten minutes after it had.

Danny thought three hours was a long time, but he knew a lot of people had been there far longer, and the people who’d organized the mass transport of capes agreed. Anyone who wasn’t hurt or exhausted was on earthquake relief, search and rescue, cleanup, analysis, first aid, and whatever other tasks their powers let them do that regular people could not.

Danny and Lee were chosen for search and rescue, which was kind of expected, but search and rescue turned out to be code for finding bodies to send to an identification team. 

Danny had managed to tune out a lot of the death Lustrum caused all those years ago, but he couldn’t avoid it here. He needed to actively be looking through his rats’ eyes to be of any use.

Danny hadn’t heard from Armsmaster since they’d split up, and he was constantly terrified one of his rats would see Colin’s face staring back at him. It took its toll rather quickly.

Lee noticed and had him lie down. “You don’t need to be looking with your real eyes. You just have to talk. Try to preserve what energy you can.”

Danny stared at him. “Just here in the dirt?”

Lee shrugged, and Danny did what he was told. He was tired enough that he didn’t care that much that it was uncomfortable.

Lee almost immediately started maneuvering his monitor lizard so he was lying across Danny’s abdomen, giving him a comforting weight atop him. He smiled at his friend, knowing he wouldn’t want to be thanked, but feeling immense gratitude for him.

He didn’t really think about how it looked, because Armsmaster freaked out a bit when he saw them, thinking Danny was hurt, but it was something easy to laugh off. They laughed about it a little more than they probably should for a fresh battlefield, but they really needed it, and Danny relished in the relief that they were all alive.

Chapter Text

Early 1993

The announcement that the Protectorate was being founded was big enough news that there wasn’t any need for preamble when Rat Race, Armsmaster, and Teleporter met up for patrol.

“I’m just going to put it out there. I want to join,” Colin told them. His face was neutral, but Danny knew Colin well enough by now to know he was a little nervous. “I know we’ve all got roots here, but this is just an opportunity I don’t think I can pass up.”

“How come?” Danny asked, curious. Like Colin said, they all had roots here, but he thought Colin had the most to lose if they left. Danny didn’t have a head for everything Colin was studying, but he was pretty sure his friend had at least another year on his master’s program. He’d be uprooted the most if the three of them just up and left for New York.

“They call people like me and Hero Tinkers. Even just meeting other ones when we fought Behemoth, it totally changed how I could use my powers,” Colin explained, voice brimming with held back excitement. “Even just access to other Tinker’s tools and resources could change everything.”

“I’m interested too,” Lee said softly, glancing up at Danny, then looking down at his guide animal. “I saw a lot of soulmates find each other in Marun. Pretty much every cape has a guide animal, and I was kind of thinking about how other parahumans are the only ones we could ever really… I don’t know, connect with?”

“You think you’ll meet your soulmate in the Protectorate?” Danny asked, painfully aware of his own lack of a guide animal. Now that he thought about it, Lee was right. Basically every cape did have a guide animal. Sure, global rates were increasing, but the rate among capes was pretty unusually high, all things considered.

Lee shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. I was also kind of thinking it would just be nice to meet other parahumans. I’ve been trying to talk to those other heroes in the city. I don’t think most of them really like me, but I think Lightstar and I might be friends, and I think us both being capes kind of sped things along.”

Danny understood where Lee was going with this. He had other friends, sure. Kurt and Lacey were some of the best people in the world. But, Danny knew what he had with Colin and Lee was special in a way he would never have with anyone at the docks. Lee and Colin didn’t have jobs like Danny did to make friends at, though. Both were still in school and not particularly skilled at making friends in class. Danny understood the appeal of joining the Protectorate for them.

But he also knew they wouldn’t go without him. They were a team, the three of them. And Danny didn’t want to be the one to hold them back.

“We could probably negotiate something,” Danny suggested, “so you two can finish your degrees, or maybe we can make some argument about needing to be here to keep the Empire from growing too much. Joining the Protectorate doesn’t have to mean moving to New York.”

Lee and Colin looked a little relieved when Danny said that, and he tried not to think about how joining the Protectorate might make them lose the special something the three of them had.

Danny sort of knew that Armsmaster stayed in contact with Hero, but upon arriving at the new PRT headquarters in New York, he realized he had underestimated how close they actually were. Hero greeted them all, war too friendly for someone who’d only met them all once years ago.

Then, he realized that wasn’t actually true. Armsmaster didn’t know Hero all that well. Hero was just like that. He was just a genuinely friendly guy.

“It was all Alexandria’s idea. Parahumans and superheroes aren’t going anywhere, and that means we need something to give us legitimacy, funding, training, legal aid…” Hero explained as the four of them walked through the Protectorate base’s halls. He grinned a bit at Armsmaster and elbowed him in the ribs of his armor. “Tinker collaborations, lab space, materials…”

Danny was behind the two of them, in step with Teleporter, so he couldn’t see Armsmaster’s face, but he didn’t miss how he ducked his head a little in embarrassment.

Armsmaster coughed into his fist awkwardly. “Rat Race wanted to ask about the time commitment.”

Okay, way to throw him under the bus. Still, he’d take the opportunity. “Right. Armsmaster, Teleporter, and I all have commitments in our civilian lives in Brockton Bay, and we don’t want to abandon our city to the parahuman villains there.”

They wouldn’t really be abandoning them. There were five other heroes in Brockton Bay, totalling in three little groups, but they all tended to have their own areas of the city they watched over. The others would be okay without Armsmaster, Teleporter, and Rat Race, but there would still be a void that the city’s villains could take advantage of.

“Yeah, no. Sorry. A lot of people asked about that. We should’ve made it clearer,” Hero told them as they walked. “It would probably do more harm than good if we brought every superhero to New York, yeah? New York’s here if you want to be, but the expectation is that you stay in your current cities and just check in with us once in awhile. The Protectorate is supposed to be more of an alliance than a team, with the PRT making sure everyone gets the same support and resources, even if they’re not in New York.”

“That’s really cool, actually,” Teleporter murmured thoughtfully. “There’s not much reason for anyone not to join, right?”

“I mean, I’m biased, but I’d think so,” Hero told him brightly. “Are there other heroes in Brockton Bay?”

“Two other teams: Lady Photon, Brandish, and Lightstar, and Manpower and Flashbang,” Armsmaster listed. “They work with each other sometimes, but we don’t really know them all that well.”

“That’s kind of the trend through the whole country. A lot of solo heroes, maybe a team of three or four if someone’s lucky,” Hero told them. “It’s why we wanted to make the Protectorate in the first place, or part of it at least. You should ask them to join when you head back home!”

Danny, Teleporter, and Armsmaster did. It took awhile for all of the city’s heroes to end up in one place, but they still managed it.

The others weren’t interested.

“The answer’s going to be no,” Manpower said, speaking for the group. “We’ve been wanting to be part of a bigger team for awhile now, and we were going to reach out to you three about it before the Protectorate was announced. But we talked about it, and the majority of the team wants to focus on being local. Really make a difference here in Brockton Bay.”

Danny noticed how he said majority. He wondered which of the group wanted to join the Protectorate.

He also noticed that there were only three guide animals among them. It was possible the other guide animals were just elsewhere, but Danny thought it was more likely there were two soulbonds and a fifth wheel. That probably had something to do with the five of them sticking together.

Armsmaster didn’t seem bothered by Manpower’s response and merely nodded. “It’s understandable. The offer’s still open, and the three of us are still going to be active in Brockton Bay, so we’d be interested in working together more.”

It was about as amicable as that conversation could have gone. It was no real loss. Actually, if anything, they were still gaining a lot. Armsmaster, Teleporter, and Rat Race were getting Protectorate support while also gaining new allies without compromising their strength as a three-man unit. It was ideal for Danny, even if it’d probably be better in the grand scheme of things if the newly named Brockton Bay Brigade joined the Protectorate.

Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, there was another cape in Brockton Bay who had signed up with the Protectorate.

“That is definitely Diamond, right?” Colin asked, the three of them huddled around a folded-up newspaper sitting on Danny’s kitchen table. “The article says she’s made of metal, but that is definitely Diamond, right?”

“I’m going to be honest,” Lee started, “I don’t really remember what she looks like.”

“I think it’s her. I’m pretty sure she was in Marun,” Danny told them. Colin and Lee stared at him, the octopus on Colin’s shoulder following his human’s gaze, and Lee’s monitor lizard looking over from the other side of the room. Danny tried not to falter under their gazes and kept his voice steady as he explained. “She was metal there too. She jumped in front of this lightning blast to save me and Lee.”

Colin looked to Lee for confirmation, but he just shrugged, looking a little sheepish. “I don’t really remember. There was a lot going on that day, and I was teleporting a lot.”

“I don’t remember if I pointed her out to you or not,” Danny added, realizing he’d forgotten about it almost immediately. Like Lee said, there’d been a lot going on that day. “Maybe they had some kind of parole program for parahuman prisoners.”

Colin sighed. “I could see it. It would have been nice if Hero had told us, though. At least before she made a public appearance. If we end up fighting her, we’re going to look like Empire-sympathizers.”

Probably not, but Diamond’s first appearance back in Brockton Bay had been hitting an Empire hideout. It was heroic in the eyes of the public, a public that was used to capes like Danny’s friends and the Brigade fighting criminal parahumans, but Lustrum’s gang had butted heads with the Empire too, so Danny wasn’t quite sold on which side she was on.

Then again, she did save his life, so he was willing to hear her out.

Danny’s rats made it easy to find people, and Lee’s teleportation powers made it just as easy to confront them.

Diamond looked surprised when Teleporter, Rat Race, and Armsmaster suddenly appeared in front of her on the rooftop she was running along, but Danny thought she handled it well. She didn’t say anything, but she skidded to a stop and managed to look more surprised than defensive.

There was a beat of silence while they all inspected each other. Danny hadn’t really gotten a good look at Diamind during their brief encounter in Iran, but she looked pretty much the same here, at least in terms of her powers. When they’d fought the first time, Diamond looked more like, well, diamond. Her skin was more of a metal now, a touch of a bluish hue to it, but mostly the classic silver.

She had a proper costume now, though. That was probably a sign she was working with the Protectorate. Afterall, Rat Race, Teleporter, and Armsmaster had much better costumes now as well.

“Diamond,” Armsmaster started, taking the lead.

“Actually, it’s Platinum now,” Diamond—Platinum—said. She answered the question Armsmaster was about to ask almost immediately. “The Protectorate did a rebrand for any ex-cons who wanted to join up.”

“So you are Protectorate?” Armsmaster confirmed. He didn’t really sound suspicious, but Danny could tell he was trying to play up his voice a bit.

“Uh-huh.” Platinum seemed unfazed. “I’ve got a case worker from the PRT handling my parole conditions if you want proof, but I was kind of hoping to just prove that I’m trying to be good now before approaching anyone, then you guys came here and messed that all up.”

She didn’t actually sound mad, but Armsmaster leaned back on his heels a bit, so Danny wasn’t sure if he caught that.

“You saved me and Teleporter from Behemoth,” Danny said, half to break the awkwardness and half to give Platinum an opportunity to make her case. He wasn’t sure why, but he wanted her to. 

Platinum didn’t roll with the offer, though. “Did I?”

Danny wanted to sigh. “You redirected a lightning bolt that was going to hit us.”

“Oh! Yeah. I did that a lot,” Platinum said, and Danny wondered how he’d thought she was a scary supervillain. Maybe she was just off her game a bit, surprised by the appearance of the other capes, but she was not doing very well in this conversation so far. She seemed to sense it too, because she then added, “You’re welcome?”

She said it like she was trying to be coy, but it came out more like a question. 

Armsmaster made a noise that sounded almost like defeat. “I’ll verify with the Protectorate. Are you planning to stay in Brockton Bay?”

“Um, yeah. I know people are more likely to recognize me here, but my probation conditions said I had to pick a city with active parahumans, and it didn’t feel right to go any place else.”

Platinum’s eyes kind of roamed between Armsmaster, Teleporter, and Rat Race when she said that. Danny wondered if she was implying she’d hoped to have allies among them, or maybe that she’d been planning on trying to make amends.

They parted a little awkwardly, and Danny suggested they should patrol together sometime. It just kind of slipped out, and he meant it more as a formality, something he said to the Brigade a lot, but Platinum’s eyes seemed to light up at that, so he begrudgingly promised himself he’d at least try to have his rats hunt her down one of these nights.

Mid 1993

Platinum, or Annette, as he came to know her, was kind of awkward, like he’d suspected, but Danny pretty quickly grew to like her.

Danny still generally preferred to patrol with Armsmaster or Teleporter. They were a three-man team, had been for about five years now, but it wasn’t like Danny was a total social hermit. He liked people, but the Brigade was a little more focused on building up their own team, and the Protectorate base was too far away for him to make any real friends there.

Lee had said that he thought it would be easier to make friends with capes. Danny really felt that way about Annette.

She was back in school, trying to finish up her degree after cape stuff interfered with everything, so Danny could definitely relate to that. They talked about people they knew in the Protectorate, and how they were both having a hard time making friends with the Brigade, and shared data they’d learned about the local gangs, both old and rising. There really were too many gangs for a city with as many heroes as Brockton Bay did.

The conversations eventually became more personal, more about thoughts and feelings, and their civilian lives. That was around the time they decided to unmask, and it was not long after that the topic of soulmates came up.

“I noticed you’ve never had a guide animal with you,” Danny started, thinking that was the best way to broach the topic. 

It was late, and they were on a rooftop, which was where and when most cape socializing happened. They’d patrolled a bit with Armsmaster that night, but Teleporter had been busy, and Armsmaster wasn’t the social type, especially around Platinum. It had been a decent patrol, though, a couple of skirmishes stopping some gang activities for one of the newer gangs that Armsmaster had been tracking.

Danny thought she’d point out his own lack of a guide animal, but she just sighed and looked out at the city. “Yeah. I’d always hoped for one, but I figured I would’ve gotten one when I triggered if I had one at all.”

Well, that was pretty damn relatable. “Me too.”

She turned her head to look at him. “You don’t have a soulmark then?”

Danny shook his head. “No name, no first words, no compass, no timer. No color blindness or pain sharing or anything like that either.”

Annette’s expression shifted ever so slightly. “You did your research.”

Danny hummed faintly. “Yeah. I was really hoping for a guide animal, but I would’ve taken anything.”

She nodded along. Almost timidly, she asked, “Hoping for anyone specific?”

Danny had never really thought about that. “I don’t think so. I mean, I’ve thought about it, and I’ve had crushes on people, but pretty much everyone in my life has a guide animal, so that kind of keeps it from getting too far. Why, you ever hope for someone?”

Annette had a look on her face like she didn’t really want to explain, but she did anyway. “Ligeia, Circus, and Cherish shared a guide animal. I know I didn’t love them like they loved each other, but I still loved them, and I wanted more than anything to be part of their soulbond.”

Danny knew Annette was admitting something really vulnerable, but he honestly had no idea who those people were.

Thankfully, Annette seemed to pick up on that on her own. “Dike, Pageant, and Temptress. We all got let out of prison for the Behemoth fight and rebranded. Cherish got killed, and Dike and Pageant didn’t want to stick around after that. They asked me to go with them, but it just didn’t feel right.”

Oh. Her old teammates from Lustrum’s gang. That would be like… It would be like if Colin and Lee were soulmates, and Danny was still teammates with them. He could see how he might’ve wished he were their soulmate if he were in that position. He didn’t now, but he loved them in a way he didn’t love his other friends, so he could see that getting a bit mixed up if things played out a little differently. 

“That sounds tough,” Danny told her, not knowing what else to say. “I mean, I don’t know what it’s like to lose people like that, but I know what it’s like to want a soulmate.”

She shrugged and met his eyes. There was a glint of something that Danny didn’t recognize in her pupils. “I like men too, if that’s what you’re asking.”

It wasn’t what Danny was asking, but once he thought about it, it wasn’t all that bad of an idea. Afterall, he and Annette were friends, and who else were two unbonded people supposed to end up with?

Late 1994

“What happened?” Colin demanded as he and Lee teleported into Danny’s apartment in full costume.

Maybe it was a bit of an overreaction to message the two of them that they needed to have an emergency meeting, especially considering most of their emergencies included one or multiple of them getting shot by Neo-Nazis, but Danny was kind of freaking out right now.

“Annette’s pregnant!”

“Who?” Colin asked, and that was not the reaction Danny was expecting.

Actually, that was so unexpected that it stupefied Danny out of his panic a little. “Platinum?”

“Yeah.” Lee also sounded confused, sliding up his oni mask to look at Colin. “You know that.”

“I thought maybe it was another Annette.” Colin sounded kind of embarrassed at least. “I didn’t know she, uh, swung that way.”

Lee just kept staring at him. “You know Danny and Annette have been dating for like a year, right?”

“They have? You have?” Colin turned to look at Danny, surprise visible on his face even through his helmet. Danny wanted to bury his face in his hands. “You got her pregnant? On purpose?”

“Obviously not on purpose,” Danny said, both relieved and anxious that they were back on topic. “That’s why I’m freaking out.”

Colin had more questions and was being kind of generally useless, which Danny probably should have expected. Lee could be a sensitive guy, and he was trying at least, but Danny slowly became very, very aware that they were three men in their early twenties, and, despite being superheroes, three men in their early twenties were not good problem solvers when it came to this kind of thing.

“Should I call my dad?” Danny asked, and he heard it when he said it.

“Do not call your dad!” Colin and Lee cried in unison.

Colin’s parents were divorced, and it was bad enough that Danny was pretty sure his trigger event had something to do with that, so they ended up calling Lee’s parents, who did not speak English, so they had to wait a bit while Lee spoke to them. 

At first, Danny hung onto every word, hoping to decipher something from Lee’s tone even if he couldn’t understand what he was saying, but he distracted himself wondering if Colin could understand anything, which then turned into the realization that Danny could not for the life of him remember if Colin’s mother was Chinese or Japanese. He’d met the woman a couple times, and he’d known Colin for long enough that he should definitely know that. Lee was Japanese, he knew, which probably meant Colin wasn’t? They would talk about it more if they were both Japanese, right?

“My dad said you should marry her, but he might have just said that because my mom was like right there with him,” Lee summarized after way too long a call. “They seemed less into the idea when I said you weren’t soulmates, and they seemed kind of confused when I said neither of you had guide animals or marks. My mom said she was calling her parents, and that she’d get back to me.”

Okay, that wasn’t really helpful. Colin seemed to think it was, though. “Do you want to marry her?”

“I don’t know,” Danny groaned, because that was the problem wasn’t it? He wasn’t totally opposed to having children, though he’d never really thought about it, given his lack of a soulmate and all. Right now, the child was more of a symbol of his commitment to Annette than anything else. He wasn’t sure if he was ready for that kind of responsibility. “We haven’t even been dating that long. We’ve never talked about anything like that.”

“She ran with Lustrum’s gang. And I don’t mean that as a euphemism for being gay,” Lee clarified, glancing at Colin. “She might not want to keep the baby, or she might just be fundamentally opposed to marriage.”

Danny hadn’t really considered either of those things. He didn’t even know how to bring them up with Annette. Danny would probably never call her fierce in any other context, but she was a fiercely independent woman. She might not even want Danny in the picture at all.

It turned out not even to be a problem because Annette proposed to him about two weeks later. Danny was still a bit hesitant about it, but the look on her face when she looked up at him, crouched on one knee, ring in hand, told him Annette was in the same boat as he was, and he’d rather be in the same boat as her than a different one.

They were married before Annette went into labor, and when Taylor finally arrived, Danny knew they’d made the right decision.

Chapter Text

2000

Taylor’s guide animal showed up when she was four years old, which was a little concerning.

It had been awhile since Danny read up on the mechanics of soulbonds, so he got the most updated book he could from the library and tried to catch up on all the updates of the past twenty years.

With Taylor busy petting her new soul cat in the living room, Danny and Annette compared notes.

“Guide animals usually appear when one member of the bond hits a certain age, but they can appear earlier if the soulmates meet earlier than expected, or if one of them is in need of comfort,” Danny explained, glancing at the bullet list he had on half a sheet of printer paper. “That either means Taylor’s soulmate is a lot older than her, she’s going to meet them soon, or her soulmate is going through something difficult right now.”

“I don’t know which one to hope for,” Annette said, eyes trained on their daughter. She then paused, mind catching up with her words, and she looked over at Danny. “I mean, obviously, meeting soon is the best case scenario. Taylor is about to turn five, though. If she meets her soulmate now, she might not even remember it.”

“I’m more worried about what two five-year-olds will name a cat,” Danny responded, only half joking. Annette gave him a look that told Danny she took the joke seriously. She got up with a sense of urgency to bring Taylor back to the library to get some picture books about cats with cute names. She wanted to be on top of that and nip any potential problems in the bud, it seemed.

Danny didn’t really have the time to worry about Taylor’s new guide animal when there was so much else going on that he had to deal with.

The Brigade’s—now dubbed New Wave—defeat of Marquis a few months ago had really shaken things up, and every cape in Brockton Bay was scrambling to get their footing again. Former gang members were trying to start new groups, some going to the Empire, but the trend seemed to be that more new groups were trying to fill the power vacuum. One of the solo parahuman villains in the city managed to gain a bit of a following, forming the Archer’s Bridge Merchants, and a handful of Asian gangs from neighboring cities decided to move in to try their hand at claiming some territory in Brockton Bay.

On top of that all, the Protectorate and PRT were going through a reorg. Hero had been killed some time ago, and the Protectorate had finally gotten approval to set up proper teams in other cities. A new base was being constructed for the Protectorate and PRT, and the Brockton Bay team gained two new members: Dauntless, another family man, and Miss Militia, a recently graduated Ward.

It just left a lot for the team to do, and New Wave wasn’t being particularly helpful now that they were getting a lot of media attention. Lee was in charge of managing intel on the rising gangs, Colin was overseeing the personnel and resource expansion, Annette was handling the paperwork and bureaucracy side of things, and Danny was showing Dauntless and Miss Militia the ropes. But the new gangs were rooting around his part of town, which meant Danny’s work at the DWA was an important source of information, and his rats needed to be put to work, so Danny felt a bit like he was juggling three jobs at once.

They all just had a lot of things to do, so Danny was grateful for the weekend off with his wife and daughter. They hadn’t been neglecting Tayor or anything, but Danny knew these were years he had to savor, and he felt like he didn’t remember that enough.

A knock sounded at the door. Annette and Taylor immediately looked to Danny expectantly. Danny sighed, playing it up for Taylor’s sake, and got to his feet, resigned to his fate.

He looked through the window first, lifting the blinds with a finger, and saw a familiar face whose name he couldn’t place. A neighbor, maybe? Annette had been heavily pregnant when they moved here, and Danny had never really taken the time to know anyone on the street. Maybe someone else decided to take the initiative. Or maybe he’d just left the garage door open or something, and the guy thought he’d be a good Samaritan and let Danny know.

Danny opened the door to greet the man and was surprised to see three more faces. He hadn’t realized the man was carrying a girl on his back, maybe a couple years older than Taylor, nor had he seen the black rabbit hopping to catch up with the two humans, nor had he noticed Taylor’s guide animal winding around the man’s feet.

The cat ran right through the open door, and Danny heard Taylor cry out in happy greeting. Danny didn’t look over his shoulder, instead lifting his eyes to meet the man’s, hoping the guy could pick up on the silent question he was asking.

“Um, hi?” the man said, smiling a little awkwardly. He adjusted his grip on the girl on his back. “My name’s Mark, and this is Amy. I know this is pretty weird, but do you have a kid by chance? We followed Amy’s guide animal here, and…”

Well, shit. Not the worst thing that could have happened on Danny and Annette’s day off, though. Danny nodded at the man, then turned to call into the house. “Taylor! Annette! We’ve got a couple guests that I think you should meet!”

Mark let Amy slide off his back, and she held his hand a little tentatively as Mark followed Danny into the house. When they reached the living room, Mark spoke quietly to Amy and pointed in Taylor and the cat’s direction. He encouraged her to let go of his hand and stepped back, watching with a soft look on his face.

Annette and Danny had been playing on the floor with Taylor before Mark and Amy arrived. Annette looked up, almost startled, eyes meeting Danny’s. He nodded, and she hurried to her feet, letting Taylor, Amy, and their guide cat have their moment.

“Should we do anything?” Annette asked, whispering once she reached Danny’s side. Danny just shrugged. None of the books he’d read really had any advice about this.

“I don’t think so,” Mark told them. “When my wife and I met, I don’t think anything could have taken us out of that moment.”

Annette nodded along and said, “Let’s talk in the kitchen then.”

The kitchen still had a decent view of the kids if any of the parents had to step in, but Danny felt a little better not feeling like he had to whisper when talking to Mark. “You said you had a wife?”

“Um, yeah.” Mark suddenly seemed a little uncomfortable. He must’ve thought Danny was asking why she wasn’t there, he realized. It wasn’t what he’d meant, but he had been thinking it. “She, um… We adopted Amy pretty recently, and my wife isn’t too… taken with her.”

“Carol Dallon,” Annette said suddenly. Danny gave her a quizical look. What was she talking about? Annette seemed a little surprised by Danny’s reaction and told him, “Honey, this is Mark Dallon. Flashbang.”

Oh. Oh! No wonder he looked familiar. Danny had definitely seen him on TV. Flashbang wasn’t as big a personality as Manpower, Lady Photon, or Brandish, and he was still outshone a bit by Lightstar in Danny’s eyes since Lee and Lightstar were friends. No wonder he hadn’t known how he recognized him. Danny probably could’ve gone a few weeks without realizing it.

Mark looked even more uncomfortable now. He rubbed the back of his neck a little awkwardly. “I’m sorry about that. We didn’t- Well, we talked about how revealing our identities might affect the kids, but we didn’t think any of them were going to meet their soulmates anytime soon, so we haven’t even started considering how it all might affect other families.”

Danny realized that Mark wasn’t exactly on the same page as him and Annette. There was no reason he should have been, but Danny felt a little silly for not thinking of it sooner. “Oh, we don’t care that you’re a superhero.”

Mark blinked a couple times. Annette touched the kitchen countertop, absorbing the material and turning her hand into matching white stone. Danny slid open a drawer and had a rat poke its little head out and wave.

Mark visibly relaxed near-instantly. “Oh, thank god. Platinum and Rat Race. You guys have no idea how stressed I was about all this.”

Danny laughed and clapped Mark on the shoulder. “We were too. That makes this whole thing a lot easier, doesn’t it?”

Mark nodded and reached down to pick up the black rabbit. Danny had kind of forgotten about it until that point, the creature silent as it padded through the house after its human. That must be Brandish and Flashbang’s guide animal. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Carol doesn’t know Amy, and I followed the cat here, and I… I don’t know. Like I said, Amy’s new to the family, and Carol’s still getting used to everything. Amy’s soulmate being in a cape family is probably a good thing, though, right?”

Mark almost seemed to be talking to himself. Danny exchanged a glance with Annette. The version of Mark they were seeing didn’t really line up with the Flashbang they knew, not that they knew him well, and he’d mentioned that thing about Carol not being “taken with” Amy twice now.

“Can I ask?” Annette asked, and Mark nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, just don’t tell anyone.” Mark took a breath in through his nose. “Amy is Marquis’s daughter. She knows her dad was a supervillain, but she doesn’t know who. The PRT thinks that the children of parahumans are more likely to be parahumans themselves, so they wanted her to be part of a cape family. We were the best choice, I guess.”

Danny almost wanted to ask Mark if he thought Amy would be better living with the Heberts, but he caught himself before it could slip out. That would be a really weird thing to say. Besides, it sounded like Brandish was the one having trouble, not Flashbang. Mark had already done far more than Danny’s father would ever do by trying to unite Amy with her soulmate.

“The children of parahumans are more likely to be parahumans?” Annette echoed, turning her head to look in the girls’ direction. They were sitting on the floor across from each other, their guide animal marching back and forth between them, tail held high and proud. “Maybe the two of them being soulmates means something then, like they’re going to be heroes on the same team or something.”

Mark groaned, the sound somewhere between good-natured and serious. “Maybe don’t mention that when you meet Carol. I imagine you’d want your daughter to join the Wards, but Carol and Sarah have been talking about the kids joining New Wave, so we might end up with a… I don’t know. Calling it Romeo and Juliet sounds too dramatic.”

“The Protectorate and New Wave aren’t exactly feuding families,” Annette agreed, “but I see what you mean about the kids getting caught between us.”

Was that what that story was about? Danny should read more literature. God knew Annette had plenty of books lying around for him if he ever wanted to try. Who had the time for that, though?

“I’m Danny, by the way,” Danny said, mind catching up with what Mark had said. He hadn’t called Taylor by name. They’d forgotten to introduce themselves. “This is Annette, and that’s Taylor.”

“Mark,” Mark said, more for the ritual of it than anything. Annette clearly already knew who he was. He lifted his arms a bit, jostling the rabbit. “This is Midnight.”

“So cute,” Annette cooed, leaning down a bit to look at the rabbit. The rabbit didn’t react, its twitching nose the only sign it was a real animal and not a toy. Annette straightened and looked back at Mark. “Has Amy said anything about what she wants to name the soul cat? Taylor’s not the best at naming her stuffed animals, so I’ve been trying to get her to read more stories with cute names, but I don’t know if anything’s stuck.”

Mark just shrugged. “Amy’s pretty quiet. She’ll talk to Vicky a bit, but I think she would’ve been a lot worse off if her guide animal didn’t show up when it did.”

Danny had thought that Mark looked like the picture of a good father when he’d opened the door for him, Amy looking all cute getting a piggyback ride, but it was a real possibility that this was the first time Mark and Amy had ever gone anywhere together. Probably not. Amy had seemed a little clingy earlier, which probably meant she was comfortable with Mark, but still. Their relationship was new enough that Mark probably didn’t know her that well either.

“How long do you think we should give them?” Danny asked, glancing back in the girls’ direction.

“They’re probably fine now,” Mark said, following Danny’s gaze. “Carol and I had our moment on the Behemoth battlefield, so it really wasn’t that long. They’ve probably had enough time by now.”

He said that thing again. Their moment. Danny had read that something happened when two soulmates met, but there was very little data on what that something was. Should he ask? It was a little awkward, but Mark had surely noticed that Danny and Annette had no guide animal or marks by now. Then again, he would probably assume another type of bond over the two of them being unbonded.

Annette was already walking out of the kitchen, Mark close behind, so Danny didn’t get the chance to ask.

“Hi, sweetie,” Annette said, crouching down by Taylor. Mark hovered a few away, and Danny couldn’t see his face, but Amy’s eyes seemed a little brighter when she smiled up at him. “How did things with Amy go?”

Taylor babbled a bit in her four-year-old talk. She was a pretty good talker, better than Danny probably was at that age, but he still had to focus a bit to understand what she was saying. She was excited to meet Amy. They’d named their soul cat Lily, she told them. Annette had been worrying about that for no reason, it seemed.

2001

Being friends with another cape family was rather convenient, even if Danny was pretty sure Annette and Carol didn’t like each other. It meant both sets of superheroes had someone to watch their kid when one of their teams was off patrolling or dealing with some new threat. Sure, Taylor had other friends, but their parents would ask questions if Danny and Annette suddenly needed to foist their daughter off onto them one night.

Danny didn’t know what New Wave was doing tonight, and he didn’t have to. Amy was a sweet kid, and Danny didn’t mind having her around.

It was weird that their guide animal wasn’t, though.

Amy and Taylor noticed it too, and that meant Danny was getting a lot of questions he didn’t know how to answer. He was ready to try to find one of his books when Annette swooped in and saved him.

“It probably means you two have another soulmate you haven’t met yet,” Annette told them. “I had some friends like that. There were three of them in the soulbond, but two of them met before they found the third. They only realized they had a third when they were together, but their guide animal wasn’t around.”

Annette’s old teammates, Danny remembered. He’d sort of forgotten about them, but Annette probably thought about them quite a bit.

“Did they have to rename their guide animal?” Amy asked, sounding worried, glancing between the cat and Annette. “It’s not fair that our soulmate didn’t get to name Lily.”

“She’s Lily, though. We named her because we’re soulmates,” Taylor said, and Danny sensed some waterworks would be coming if they didn’t handle this quickly. 

He didn’t abandon Annette to talk the two girls through it, but boy did he want to. He wasn’t cut out for this soulmate stuff.

Early 2007

“Aunt Jess died,” Amy told the Heberts with a strange balance of disconnect and sorrow in her voice. She was probably still in shock. “Uncle Mike left.”

Danny knew about Jess, about Fleur, but he hadn’t known Lightstar left. He’d have to check in on Lee soon. There was no way he was taking that well.

…After he properly comforted Amy and Taylor. Taylor was probably old enough to get the talk about death, right?

Mid 2007

Danny didn’t remember when the team stopped being Rat Race, Armsmaster, and Teleporter and started being Rat Race, Armsmaster, Teleporter, and Platinum. He didn’t remember when it became Rat Race, Armsmaster, Teleporter, Platinum, Dauntless, and Miss Militia either, and he was sure it wouldn’t be long before it felt like Rat Race, Armsmaster, Teleporter, Platinum, Dauntless, Miss Militia, Battery, and Assault.

Still, Lee’s announcement rocked Danny’s world. “I’m leaving the Protectorate.”

“What?” Danny looked at Colin, and he couldn’t tell if his friend already knew or not. Probably, considering he was the team leader, but still. Danny thought they were close enough to be told outside of the biweekly team meeting. “Why?”

Lee looked upset, at least, but Danny didn’t know if that was better or worse. “You know how I’ve been taking the lead on investigating all the infighting with the Asian gangs?”

“Yeah,” Danny said, nodding along. It was a whole thing. The Merchants were a pretty stable force in Brockton Bay, now with three parahumans of their own, but the Asian gangs weren’t, constantly getting picked on by the Empire before any one gang could rise up. Something was different now, though, and Lee was trying to figure out why. He hadn’t had much luck, but Danny hadn’t known he was running into any problems, not more than usual anyway.

“Well, apparently, my powers have an effect on my brain. It’s why I have a hard time remembering fights,” Lee explained, and Danny hadn’t known that was a problem Lee had. Wait, no, he did. Lee had mentioned it before, like not remembering bits of the Behemoth fight, or even parts of the fight with Lustrum’s gang. Danny had always just assumed that he just moved too fast to really take in his surroundings. Apparently, it was something more than that. “I guess I’ve been using my powers a lot more lately, and the medical team noticed something was wrong, so they want me to dial it back for awhile.”

“So you’re getting benched, not fired?” Assault clarified, and Danny thought his tone was maybe a little inappropriate for the conversation they were having, but Lee didn’t seem to mind.

“I guess?”

“I’ve been talking with the PRT about hiring Lee as a consultant or having him run console,” Colin told the team. “Teleporter has been fighting for Brockton Bay for nearly two decades now. We can’t just let all that experience go to waste.”

Two decades? No, yeah, they fought Lustrum in 1988. That was shortly after Rat Race and Teleporter’s debut. Damn, had it really been that long? So much had changed since then.

Lee seemed grateful for Colin’s offer, and the rest of the team murmured their condolences and wishes for Lee’s good health. Danny did the same, but he thought a little hollow. Brockton Bay’s first superhero team was gone. It was the end of an era.

Late 2008

It became obvious what had been disrupting the typical patterns of Brockton Bay’s gangs very, very abruptly.

They hadn’t meant to pick a fight, but the situation escalated very, very quickly: all of the Protectorate and New Wave’s members against a fifteen-foot-tall dragon man and his huge, heavily armored guide animal. It was this big, reptile thing, almost mirroring its human in appearance, but, as scary as it was, it was still just a guide animal. Dangerous and willing to fight, but still just a guide animal. The dragon, on the other hand, was only getting bigger.

It was like fighting an Endbringer almost, only they didn’t really have the numbers to fall into their typical roles.

Or, well, Danny couldn’t fall into his typical role. During an Endbringer fight, he and Lee would usually be on search and rescue, but everyone else on the Protectorate team and in New Wave had decent offensive powers. Danny still had to hang back a bit, his rats giving him a good view of the battlefield, but there was so much fire, and they were in such close quarters that there was no one to rescue. They just couldn’t afford to get hit.

Still, someone eventually got hit pretty badly, and Danny’s rats gave him a perfect view of it all.

The Protectorate only had one Ward, and they had chosen not to bring him. New Wave hadn’t done the same with their junior member. Danny didn’t blame Laserdream for it, but Lady Photon and Manpower’s decision to bring their daughter to the fight would taint Danny’s relationship with them for the rest of their careers.

It hadn’t actually been that bad to start with. Laserdream had force fields, just like Lady Photon did, but they were a little weaker. Enough to keep the fire back, but weak enough that someone who knew the force fields were weaker could take advantage of it. Lung, as they would come to learn the dragon’s name was, did.

It was just fire at first, and then it was a physical blow that shattered the forcefield. There was then more fire, only Platinum was quick enough to shield Laserdream before she could get burnt too badly. There was no problem with that. Platinum was made of metal. She could take hits better than most of the people on the battlefield.

Lung seemed to know that, too. He didn’t avoid her, but the flames shot at Platinum seemed a little more intense than the others. Compensation, maybe? Or just trying to spread the fire enough to keep her back? Whatever it was, it wasn’t working too well. Platinum and Lady Photon were their best defensive powers right now, and Platinum was a little better at it, being on the ground and all. Danny didn’t realize it was having an effect until he grabbed her.

Platinum screamed as she was lifted off her feet, and Danny knew it wasn’t one of surprise. It sounded like she was in pain. Danny focused on his rats’ vision more, trying to get a better look through the fire, and saw that there were indents in Platinum’s waist where Lung’s claws were. Her body had heated enough to become malleable. 

“Teleporter!” Danny screamed as Lung threw her, but, of course, Teleporter wasn’t there. He hadn’t been there for a long time now.

Lady Photon tried to catch her with a force field, and it probably would have saved anyone else in the same spot. Platinum’s body had heated up too much, though, and Lung’s throw gave her too much momentum. Her body caved the moment it hit the forcefield and just kind of… fell.

Danny had to make his rats close their eyes. He didn’t want to see that.

Lung’s guide animal ran toward the spot Platinum had fell, the massive reptile’s tongue out like an excited dog ready for a snack, but Lung caught it by the tail and hoisted it up so the creature was pressed against his chest, head resting on his shoulder, almost holding it like a baby. Lung’s face was pretty inhuman by now, but Danny could still see the horror on his face. He hadn’t realized his fire was affecting Platinum so much. He hadn’t known that throwing her like that would kill her.

Danny didn’t really care if it was an accident, though. The guy still killed his wife.

Danny didn’t think he’d felt his father’s rage flare up inside him like this since before he triggered. 

Screaming, Danny sent his rats swarming Lung. Several were crawling up in mere moments, ready to bite at his vulnerable genitals and try crawling into his mouth. The fire stopped them, but Danny would keep trying.

Lung wasn’t keen on indulging Danny, though. He dropped his guide animal, commanding it to keep the rats back, and fled.

Danny tried to chase after him, but one touch on the shoulder from Armsmaster was enough to drain all the will to fight from him. The fight was over, and now Danny had to leave that world and enter the one where his wife was dead.

Chapter Text

2008

Danny’s friends tried to console him once they got back to base, but most of them needed too much medical attention for the PRT to be comfortable letting them just sit around with Danny. Armsmaster and Dauntless got burned by the metal of their equipment heating up, Assault and Battery got knocked around pretty badly… Miss Militia and Flashbang ended up alright, staying at a distance like Danny did, and they were far from the worst people to be with right now, but also pretty far from the best.

He wanted Annette.

Thirteen years ago, he’d been unsure. He’d been unsure if Annette was the one he wanted to share his life with, but a lot had changed since then, and Danny had long since stopped doubting. But now, she’d been taken from him by force, and Danny was left with a void where she’d once been.

Mark gave him Midnight, his and Brandish’s guide animal, to hold, but Hannah’s soul lynx was a little easier to cry into. Hannah held onto him, and Mark gently encouraged him to let it all out. Danny was a little too out of it to be able to judge whether it was helpful or not, but once he got a grip on himself, he knew it was better than being alone.

“What do I tell Taylor?” Danny asked when he could speak without gasping. Hannah’s face shifted like she hadn’t thought about that yet, but Mark spoke like he had.

“I think she can handle the truth.” He paused. “Maybe not the details, but she’s been around New Wave nearly her whole life. You and Annette being capes shouldn’t be too much of a shock. I think you just tell her that her mother fought in a very difficult battle, and she didn’t make it.”

They threw some phrasings back and forth and got into planning logistics. Taylor would be getting out of school soon, and she’d been planning on going to her friend Emma’s house. Mark would intervene and bring her home. Meanwhile, Hannah would drive Danny to his house and help him prepare what he was going to say.

Their plan got disrupted a bit when Taylor got home and stared up at the two of them, wide-eyed. “Rat Race? Miss Militia?”

…They’d forgotten to take off their costumes.

Danny didn’t know if that was better or worse.

Danny took off his mask, Hannah took off her bandana, and Taylor’s look of surprise shifted into one of shock. “Dad?”

“Hey, kiddo,” Danny said, trying to smile, but the corners of his lips didn’t quite make it high enough. He let a few of his rats poke their heads out of their little pouches on his costume. “Um, surprise?”

Taylor gaped at him. “Dad? You’re Rat Race? Does Mom know?”

“Mom knows,” Danny told her, sighing a little. He still couldn’t tell if this was a good or bad way for this to go. “Mom’s Platinum.”

“Mom’s Platinum?” Taylor somehow seemed even more excited by that. Should Danny be offended by that? Whatever. It didn’t matter. Taylor was looking around a little expectantly, and Danny knew where this was going. “Where is she?”

“I…” Danny’s mouth went a little dry, but he forced himself to keep talking. “Let’s sit in the living room.”

Taylor’s demeanor shifted. “Dad? Mr. Dallon?”

“Listen to your father,” Mark said, and gently started ushering Taylor toward the couch. Taylor sat down, as instructed, and Mark sat on the couch’s armrest, giving her space but remaining close, while Hannah hovered back a bit.

Danny thought about crouching down, but thought that might look weird from Taylor’s perspective, so he just stood facing Taylor, staying a few feet back so he wasn’t looming over her. He took a deep breath. “Your mom died.”

Taylor’s face went slack. “What?”

Danny had enough self-restraint to keep it all from tumbling out, but he couldn’t quite manage to hold it all back. He tried to remember what he, Mark, and Hannah had talked about. “This new villain appeared today. It took all of the Protectorate and all of New Wave to fight him, and we still couldn’t win. Mom didn’t make it.”

Taylor didn’t react, eyes still wide and face still frozen. 

Worry flooded Danny’s chest. “Taylor?”

And then his vision went black.

He didn’t know how to describe it, but it was familiar. Silhouettes. Inhuman. Inexplicably tied together. Something danced between them… light? It was totally abstract, something Danny’s mind couldn’t quite grasp, but he saw the picture it was painting. Tendrils, puzzle pieces dancing around them…

A third being. Something was missing, and something else took its place. An imperfect fit, but categorically correct. They clung to each other, pieces of themselves smashing and scraping into and against each other…

Four of the pieces weren’t connected to them, not anymore, but they were still here together, smashing and scraping. Two that didn’t fit, and now two newcomers, trying to decide…

“Dad? Dad!”

Danny felt something jostling his shoulder. A hand? But the beings didn’t have hands…

“Oh my god, oh my god.”

The hands left Danny’s shoulder, and the image faded, pulling him back to reality. “Taylor?”

Taylor was crouched over him, tears and snot running down her face. How did she get over him? She leaned down, throwing herself down on top of him, and wrapped her arms around him, sobbing openly. “Dad!”

Danny looped his arms around her back, a little confused. Why was he lying down?

“You just- You were talking, and then everything- You fell! And so did Mr. Dallon, and Miss Militia,” Taylor rambled through hiccups and gasps, “and none of you were moving, and I thought- I thought-”

“I think Taylor just triggered,” Mark said, and Danny looked over Taylor’s shoulder to see that he was getting up. He had his elbows on the armrest where he’d been sitting. He must have fallen off it.

“Did you see them too?” Hannah asked, and Danny realized she, too, was getting up off the floor. “The fighter, the scholar, and the strings?”

Danny didn’t know what she was talking about, but Mark seemed to. “The trigger vision.”

It didn’t sound all that important, especially when considering Taylor was half lying on top of him, crying her heart out. Danny got his elbows under him and started maneuvering the two of them to the couch, tears prickling in his own eyes even though he thought he’d dried them out, and tried to steel himself for what was to come.

Lee teleported himself, Colin, and Shaun in later that day, both Armsmaster and Dauntless wrapped up in medical tape. Danny wanted to ask how their injuries were, but he also kind of didn’t, and he knew that if there was any time he was allowed to be selfish, this was probably it.

Miss Militia retrieved Amy for Taylor and then left, Dauntless and Mark comforting the two of them, while Danny got a few moments with Colin and Lee.

Colin wasn’t all that great at being comforting, and Lee seemed pretty caught up in his own head, so they didn’t talk much, but Danny didn’t mind. They appreciated their silent comfort, even if Colin’s octopus and Lee’s lizard were more interested in glaring at each other than doing any comforting. Danny didn’t know what that was about, but Danny didn’t really care.

Shaun made sure they all ate, and Mark made sure Taylor was at least sort of stable, before leaving them all for the night. Danny let Colin and Lee take his bed, and he and Taylor pressed into her twin-sized mattress, neither really caring how cramped it was.

Kurt and Lacey came by the next morning, and that was when the problems started all over again.

Lee had already left, heading back to the PRT building to cover for Danny and Colin’s absence, and he really shouldn’t have been using his powers, but Danny was so used to it that he didn’t even think about the fact that no one had used his front door since the night before until Kurt was calling the house phone. Because why in the world would he be thinking about that? There was no reason there should be anything unusual going on at his house, except that there actually was.

“There’s a goose blocking your driveway,” Kurt said a little stiffly.

“Okay?” Weird thing to call about. Kurt was a dockworker. He dealt with bigger challenges than geese. “Shoo it away.”

Danny heard Kurt and Lacey talking, but the phone didn’t pick up the words until Kurt lifted his cell phone to his mouth again. “Do you mind if we go through the back?”

Weirder, but Danny didn’t care. He told Colin to let them in.

He really wasn’t expecting to see Kurt, Lacey, and their soul dog running, nor did he expect for Colin to have to slam the back door shut to keep the goose from squeezing into the house after them.

“How fragile are you feeling right now, Danny?” Lacey asked upon seeing him.

“Um, pretty fragile,” Danny said a little dryly, a little annoyed. These were two of his best friends. He expected them to act a little more sensitively. “You know, my wife just died.”

He saw Taylor flinch out of the corner of his eye, and Danny felt a stab of guilt. He shouldn’t have been so blunt.

“Poor phrasing,” Lacey told him with an apologetic grimace. “You think you can handle more bad news right now?”

Danny felt his stomach drop. He couldn’t even begin to speculate on what she might be talking about.

Colin crossed his arms, his displeasure visible. “Now isn’t really the time. Can’t it wait?”

“It can, but it’s pretty important. And time sensitive,” Lacey answered, but Kurt didn’t seem so sure.

“It could just be a regular goose,” Kurt told her, and a loud noise sounded against the back door as if the goose was somehow announcing that it was not, in fact, a regular goose.

Lacey scowled at her husband. “I know what I’m talking about.”

Their soul dog whined, glancing between them, and some of the tension in Kurt’s body left him, the man visibly giving in.

“I’m sorry, what’s happening?” Danny asked, his mind still catching up with everything his friends had just said. Something about the goose? Danny had hardly even processed that the animal was there in the first place.

“Yeah,” Taylor agreed in a quiet voice. She looked like she was going to say more, but then didn’t.

Lacey took a deep breath. “That is a soul goose.”

Again, really not what Danny was expecting her to say. “What?”

“It’s a guide animal,” Lacey emphasized. “You remember when you were a kid, and all the stories said that a guide animal was there to support and comfort you and everything like that? Well, geese are the exception, apparently. My brother had one. Terrible thing. Bit him constantly, and it attacked anyone who tried to get near him. Still a guide animal though.”

Danny felt his mind spinning. “Why is it trying to get in the house then? There’s no one here who…”

Danny trailed off, the dots connecting in his mind.

“My brother’s goose never left his side. Never visited his soulmate once,” Lacey told him, voice gentle yet firm. “He had it rough, though. I think his goose knew it, and that was why it never left. Thought he needed it to comfort him, or something. Bet his soulmate thought they didn’t have a soulmate either, not until he died, and it went looking for them. Maybe your soulmate’s the same, but the goose knows you need comfort more than them right now.”

Danny’s ears were ringing. “I don’t have a soulmate.”

Colin glanced in the direction that he’d last seen the goose, and then back at Danny. “I don’t think that’s true, Danny.”

“I don’t have a soulmate,” Danny repeated, more to himself than anyone. He looked at Taylor, then back at Colin. “If I had one, wouldn’t it be Annette?”

Colin’s eyes flickered to Taylor, then back to Danny. He didn’t say anything, but Danny knew what he was thinking. He just didn’t want to say it in front of Taylor.

Danny and Annette’s relationship hadn’t exactly been romantic, but what did romantic even look like in a world of soulmates? There’d been no instant connection, no moment where they suddenly realized they’d found the person their soul was bound to. They’d been friends, and then they’d grown closer, and then their connection deepened. That was what happened to people whose soulmates had died and the rare people who didn’t have any soulbond manifestation, at least as far as Danny knew. He’d watched every movie he could get his hands on that had anything like that and scoured whatever books on soulmates he could find for anything about boundless relationships.

Annette should have been his soulmate. Not this other person who hogged their guide animal to themself for, what? Over two decades now, assuming the goose had appeared at the typical age. How had the thing never visited Danny? He had a trigger event for crying out loud! That was the definition of a time he needed the comfort of a guide animal. What the hell had his soulmate been doing that would’ve kept the thing away during something like that? Or an Endbringer attack? Or any of the other countless things Danny had gone through in the past twenty years?

For the second time in two days, Danny could feel his father’s temper flaring up. He wanted to yell. He wanted to scream. He just didn’t know what to say.

“I don’t want a soulmate. Annette’s my soulmate as far as I’m concerned,” Danny said, and it came out more firm than loud. He leaned back in his chair and put his face in his hands. “A fucking goose. I don’t even want to see it.”

Kurt, Lacey, and Colin nodded along like they understood, and Taylor just stayed quiet, clearly just as thrown by the guide animal’s appearance as Danny was. 

But, avoiding the guide animal was a lot easier said than done. It was practically patrolling the area around the house, and it pecked anyone who tried to enter or leave the house pretty badly. It was bad enough that Danny tried calling Lee so he could get out of the house for a bit, but Lee wasn’t answering, which left Danny on his own.

There was no way to sneak past it. The goose, if it really was what Lacey said it was, was bound to Danny’s soul. It would find him no matter what. The only thing stopping it right now was the four walls of the Hebert home, so that was where Danny was staying.

He felt a little bad that it was his friends who took Taylor out, bringing her to soak in some comfort from her friends and eventually do a preliminary power testing in the wake of her trigger, but Taylor seemed just as upset about the goose’s presence as Danny did, so he tried not to let it bother him.

At least she was kind of moving forward. It was terrible that she triggered, but her life had gained a new purpose, whereas Danny was sort of stuck, both literally and figuratively. 

“They said I’m a Shaker 5, Thinker 1,” Taylor said at dinner, their first one alone since Annette died. Danny nodded along, trying to pretend he wasn’t sending his rats after the goose outside. “They think I could get a Master, Mover, or maybe even a Blaster rating too if I practice more.”

Taylor’s powers were a near-perfect blend of Annette and Danny’s powers. She hadn’t really tested them around the house, but powers were meant to be use, and there was no real way she could hide shaking the earth around the house. Her power was terrain manipulation, or, as Danny saw it, exercising her father’s Master ability over the materials around her, her mother’s Breaker ability’s domain.

“All I can really do is cause- uh, they called them Rayleigh waves. It’s kind of like an earthquake that’s just on the surface, like something’s rolling under the ground,” Taylor went on when Danny didn’t say anything. “If I focus, I can do smaller stuff too, which is why the power testing people thought I might get other ratings if I practice more.”

Danny could see a lot of uses for that. Master abilities had a lot of room for creativity, and even if Taylor’s powers weren’t quite Master abilities, they were pretty damn close. “Do you have an extra sense? To help you apply your powers?”

“Uh-huh.” Taylor nodded, then hesitated. “They think I get it from you.”

They both knew that, but Danny wasn’t ready to start talking about that yet. “Rayleigh could be a good cape name. Have you thought about whether you want to join the Wards?”

Taylor stiffened a bit. “I, um, I kind of talked about cape names with Triumph. He seemed excited about me joining the Wards, but I didn’t think you would let me.”

“Why wouldn’t I let you?” Danny asked, then instantly regretted it. He felt his expression dim. “Right. Your mother.”

Taylor had a bit of a pained expression on her face, but Danny could tell it wasn’t about what he’d said. “Mrs. Dallon asked me if I wanted to join New Wave. Not recently! Not, like, since I got my powers. Just, you know, before. They all always seemed to think Amy, Vicky, Crystal, and Eric would get powers because…”

Taylor trailed off a bit, realization dawning on her face. She looked expectantly at Danny, and he nodded. “Amy’s parents knew I’m Rat Race, and your mother was Platinum. Amy’s guide animal appeared around the time New Wave went public with their identities, so we recognized Flashbang.”

Danny didn’t mention that Annette was the one who recognized him. He didn’t want to talk about her right now, but it was like she was involved in every part of their lives.

“Does me and your mom being in the Protectorate change things?” Danny asked instead. “I would understand if you were interested in being part of New Wave.”

He would understand, but he wouldn’t like it. Carol encouraged him and Annette to join up upon learning their daughters were soulmates, but Annette had a criminal record that the PRT was covering up, and Danny liked his secret identity too much to consider it. Plus, they had Taylor to think about. Danny thought the idea behind New Wave was a good one, but he would bet anything Taylor would hate the kind of attention she got if the public knew her parents were superheroes.

Taylor confirmed his thought. “I don’t know. Um, don’t tell Mrs. and Mr. Dallon I said this, but Amy feels weird about everyone always recognizing her and knowing things about her and stuff. They’re still her family, though, and I always kind of thought if I had powers, I’d want to be a part of that, but you and Mom have a superhero legacy too! You were some of Brockton Bay’s first superheroes.”

“Um…” Should he tell her? Danny didn’t really want to talk about Annette still, but Taylor was about to make a huge decision, and he was realizing she was making it with false information. “Actually, your mom was a villain before she became a hero. I started going out in costume because she helped beat Armsmaster, and I helped arrest her a few months later.”

Taylor’s eyes bugged out. “Wait, really?”

Danny tried to tell the short version of the story, and he tried to do it without painting Annette in too dark a light. “She was a member of Lustrum’s gang when we were in college. The early version of the PRT decided to release some parahuman prisoners to help fight Behemoth, and your mom was let out on probation in exchange for joining the Protectorate. We started dating once she started working with me, Armsmaster, and Teleporter. The four of us were the original Brockton Bay Protectorate team when they started making city-based teams.”

“Wow.” Taylor’s eyes were still a little wide. “I can’t imagine Mom being a supervillain.”

Danny couldn’t either, even if he’d seen the worst of her crimes. “It’s complicated. We can talk about it another time. How did you like meeting the Protectorate?”

The Brockton Bay Wards program was still really only Triumph at the moment, and he was quite a bit older than Taylor, so Danny doubted Taylor had a lot of meaningful interactions at the base, but she seemed excited to talk about it all. She already knew a lot of the Protectorate members out of costume, and they’d been kind and encouraging during power testing, and they’d indulged her in a little bit of cape talk.

Danny was appreciative until Taylor mentioned the goose.

“Eidolon has a goose too,” Taylor said so tentatively that Danny forced down the desire to snap at her for bringing it up.

“I’m not Eidolon’s soulmate,” Danny said a little dryly. Still, he should have thought about that before. He wasn’t one for gossip, but even he knew about Eidolon and his awful goose. Not much, but enough that he should’ve thought to ask Colin if he knew anything about soul geese from his handful of interactions with Eidolon. “We’ve fought a lot of Endbringers together, and nothing’s ever happened.”

“I know, I know. Battery said her old Wards team…” Taylor trailed off a bit, cutting herself off. “Wait, is Eidolon technically your boss?”

“Technically. But you can say whatever you’re thinking. I don’t really know him.”

“Well, Battery said that the goose never leaves Eidolon, which I guess Lacey said was normal for geese, but Battery didn’t know that. The New York Wards team would meet up with the Houston, Philadelphia, and Boston teams a lot, so they had a bunch of bets going about different theories about Eidolon’s soulmate,” Taylor explained. “A lot of people think Eidolon doesn’t have a soulmate, and he just got the goose to match his personality, but Battery says he’s not actually that bad, just kind of weird.”

Danny had never actually spoken to the guy, but he’d heard the same. Obsessed with doing good and saving people, and always talking about legacy and the impact he’d have on the world, but also oddly rude and even inconsiderate at times. Still… “Armsmaster said that Hero really liked him, and Hero was one of the best capes out there, right up there with Legend. Maybe there’s some side to him a lot of people don’t see.”

“Maybe,” Taylor said with a shrug. It didn’t sound like she cared too much, that this was more of teenage gossip than anything of actual importance. Danny was fine with that. Having his rats chase the goose around outside all day was already more thinking about the goose and his hypothetical soulmate than he wanted.

Danny would have been content with hiding in his house until the goose went away on its own, but even a full two weeks after Annette had died, the goose was still there, and there came a point where he couldn’t ignore it.

Colin called, saying there was something important he needed to tell him in person. Danny expected Lee to come over, too, to teleport Colin in, but he didn’t, and Colin was left battling the goose to get inside.

Danny sent the rats to help, even though he’d long since grown tired of siccing his rats on the thing. It was still probably more humane than letting Colin have a real fight against the guide animal.

“What’s going on?” Danny asked once Colin was safely inside, the goose pecking angrily at the closed door. Colin didn’t say anything. “Progress with Lung?”

Colin’s expression shifted, and Danny’s stomach dropped. 

“Did Lung kill someone else?” Danny asked, fearing the answer, but Colin shook his head quickly.

“No. God, no. But, this might be worse.” Colin paused. “I take that back. That was insensitive, I’m sorry. Did you see Lung’s guide animal during the fight?”

Danny nodded. “That big lizard, right? He put it in armor. Used it to fight New Wave, mostly. Mark got a few bites from it, I think.”

Colin nodded along. “Did it look familiar to you?”

Danny thought about it. “Um, I don’t think so. Why?”

Colin grimaced. “That was Lee’s guide animal.”

A cold feeling spread through Danny’s body. “Lee is that monster’s soulmate?”

Colin nodded stiffly. “He left a note saying that he had to leave, but he’s sorry.”

That set Danny off. “He said he’s sorry?”

Colin just sat there and let Danny yell in his general direction. Danny knew that Colin didn’t really deserve it, but Colin had to understand Danny’s rage, too. Lee, one of his best friends, leaving him for his wife’s murderer. No one could control who their soul was bonded to, Danny knew that, but that didn’t mean they had to be together. Plenty of soulmates didn’t end up together! There was a reason Alan Barnes had so much success as a divorce lawyer. 

Lee could have talked to him, and Danny would have- He didn’t know. Supported him? Danny had a soulmate he didn’t want as well. Colin had a weird guide animal, too, only leaving his side for the first time a couple years before. It’d always been the three of them, and now Lee was leaving them for his soulmate? His soulmate who’d killed the woman that should have been Danny’s?

Colin let Danny yell and yell until, like rapidly flipping a switch, the yelling turned into pacing, and making his rats swarm, and then crying, and then Danny stomping off toward the back door. Danny saw Colin react through a rat’s eyes, half getting out of his seat and reaching a hand toward Danny, but he would be too slow to stop him. “Danny, wait. You’re upset. You’re not thinking clearly.”

“I know,” Danny snapped and let his fingers clasp the doorknob. “Isn’t that what guide animals are for, though? Giving us comfort when we’re upset? Because I’m pretty damn upset right now.”

The door opened, and the goose lunged inside, immediately driving its beak into Danny’s knee through his jeans.

“Ow, fuck!”

Danny tried to push it off, but the goose started flapping its wings, and Colin had to get involved. He wasn’t wearing his armor, and he didn’t have his usual weapons, so Danny’s rats were a lot more useful than anything Colin had to offer, but Danny had been having the rats attack the goose for some time now in hope of driving it off, so the goose was pretty good at fighting them off at this point.

Danny and Colin eventually had to give up and hide in the bathroom.

Armsmaster and Rat Race, the leader and second-in-command of the Brockton Bay Protectorate, defeated by a goose and forced to sit next to each other on a toilet lid.

“I’ll call Hannah,” Colin sighed, reaching into his pockets for his cell phone once both he and Danny had enough time to sit with what just happened. “I’ll have her bring over one of the guide animal containment units.”

It was a good idea, but the goose eventually figured out how to get out of it, and the Protectorate was left wrangling it back in pretty regularly. At least it seemed to get the idea Danny didn’t want it after the Simurgh attack in December, though, because Danny never saw it again until an Endbringer was practically at his own front door nearly three years later.