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Annette loved her family, as unconventional as it was.
Danny had been there first. They’d never dated, but Annette thought for a long time they might have. He’d saved her from Lustrum’s gang, and he’d stuck around afterward long enough that Annette thought they might end up together.
Then Danny introduced her to Kenta, and that fantasy was kind of ruined.
Kenta was sweet, though. Annette didn’t exactly know his whole story, his English too rough and Kyushu’s sinking too fresh for her to ask when they met, and too much history and familiarity between them to press when it wasn’t, but he was good to Danny, and that was enough for her.
Enough to agree to be their surrogate when they were ready to start a family. She had to pay for her master’s somehow, didn’t she? Kenta had gotten surprisingly good work in Brockton Bay despite being a refugee. It would have been worth it for the money alone, but Annette would have done it for free if it meant having Taylor in her life.
Taylor was Danny and Kenta’s baby first and foremost, and Annette didn’t mind. It let her get the degree that she needed to be a professor at the local university, and that was where she met Robin, her wonderful husband. He was a young veteran who went back to school to pursue his love of learning languages, and Annette found him rather interesting. And handsome.
It was only after they’d been together for some time that Annette learned he was Velocity, a member of the local branch of the Protectorate. He tried to keep her out of that part of her life, and Annette had to be a little grateful for that. Sure, she wasn’t exactly built for a “normal” life, but in a city of parahumans and gangbangars, getting involved in cape stuff again was a little too much for her.
The last member of their little family was Alice. Annette wasn’t sure exactly how Danny and Kenta came to adopt her, but she was a sister to Taylor and the last piece to make their little family feel complete, so Annette never questioned it. Danny, Kenta, Taylor, Alice, Robin, and Annette… Definitely not conventional, but Annette never wanted anything else.
“Are you sure you’re going to be able to behave tonight?”
“I really don’t know why you think Ken and I don’t like each other,” Robin complained as he grabbed his jacket off the coat hook, already waiting at the door as Annette slipped her shoes on. “He’s a great guy. We’re totally fine, I promise.”
Annette shot him a doubtful look, but didn’t say anything. She knew Robin would keep it together for Taylor’s sake, but she also knew he wasn’t totally telling the truth. Okay, she didn’t actually have reason to believe that Robin and Kenta didn’t like each other. She actually thought they were pretty chummy for years, but there’d been some kind of shift in their dynamic recently, and Annette felt like one of them was always about five seconds from taking a swing at the other.
Taylor didn’t seem to notice, though, always excited anytime all of her dads were in one place, and Danny seemed surprised when Annette brought it up to him, but she could picture the glares and sharp, hushed words they exchanged when they thought she wasn’t looking. They were not very good at hiding things as they thought they were.
Her best guess, Annette thought as she and Velocity pulled out of the driveway, was that Robin thought Kenta was mixed up in some ABB business. The gang had gotten a lot more powerful lately, jumping from two parahumans to five in just a few short years, but Annette couldn’t imagine Kenta knew anything about that. Sure, she knew he probably had some ties to the ABB. It was near impossible for any Asian person in Brockton Bay to avoid it, especially in the area they lived in, and she didn’t blame him for it, but Kenta really didn’t have the heart of a gangbanger. Robin was probably reacting to nothing.
“Did you remember Taylor’s gift?” Robin asked only after they were pulling into the parking lot of the Japanese place Taylor liked near Danny’s workplace. They usually went to Fugly Bob’s for this kind of thing, but it was Taylor’s sixteenth birthday, and that was a big deal, so Annette hadn’t really been surprised when Danny told her they were going to a nice place for dinner. Well, not nice, exactly, but nicer.
“Yes, no thanks to you,” Annette teased, unbuckling her seatbelt a moment before Robin shut off the engine to reach into the back seat to grab the bag. Nothing crazy. A few books, which were a pretty classic Annette gift, and a card with some cash and a promise of a day out. And from Robin, the latest Protectorate fan handbook and a few collectibles, which Annette thought was kind of cheap considering he was a literal superhero, but Taylor had loved that kind of stuff since she was a kid, so she wouldn’t give him a hard time for it. Too much at least.
Robin and Annette arrived before everyone else, but the restaurant had their table ready, so they didn’t have to wait. The Hebert clan arrived just as Annette started wondering when she should text them.
“Hi Mom!” Taylor grinned when she saw her, smiling in that same lopsided way that Annette did, and reached out for a hug. Annette got to her feet and accepted gladly. “I’m glad you could make it!”
“Oh, you know I wouldn’t miss this, sweetie. Happy birthday,” she told her, and then Taylor was reaching for Robin, leaving Annette to greet her daughter’s sister. “Hi Alice, it’s good to see you! How’s Boston?”
Alice accepted the hug from Annette, but it was a little stiff. Annette didn’t expect her to have the same ease with her as Taylor did, but she’d hoped Alice would be a little more comfortable with her by the time she’d left for college.
“It’s good. The semester ended just a few days ago, so I’m going to be back for a bit,” Alice told her and didn’t linger for Annette to ask any follow-up questions. She greeted Robin, and he knew her well enough to offer a hand to shake instead of going for a hug. Annette always found it a little odd, but they had their dynamic, and she wasn’t going to judge them for it.
“Hey, you two,” Annette greeted Danny and Kenta, getting up to hug the two of them even though they weren’t really sitting close to her. She came from a family that hugged every person when they arrived, so what? She thought Danny and Kenta could use it.
“It’s good to see you,” Danny told her, pulling her in with one arm. She squeezed him back and pulled Kenta in the moment Danny released her.
“I’m glad you could make it,” Kenta said, and Annette repeated what she’d told Taylor.
“I wouldn’t miss it,” she said, and she flashed a grin. “I was there for her birth. Dinner’s nothing compared to that.”
“Mom!” Taylor complained, and Annette just laughed, everyone settling down and taking their seats.
Robin shifted so he was sitting across from Kenta, which Annette thought he was first just doing to prove a point to her, but she realized pretty quickly he just wanted to talk about the menu. In Japanese. Or Mandarin? She knew Kenta spoke both, and Robin was proficient at about half a dozen other languages and familiar with the foods of at least twice as many places, but Annette really didn’t have a head for that kind of thing. Neither did Danny, and that was why they always let their husbands order the food at places like this.
They always did a good job. Annette didn’t always know what she was eating, but her boys knew how to take care of her.
Taylor chattered about what she’d done at school that day and her plans to hang out with her friends over the weekend. Annette asked Alice a little about college and tried not to sound too much like a nosy professor. Kenta and Robin’s conversation at the end of the table sounded like it was getting a little heated, but a lot of languages Annette didn’t understand sounded a little shouty, so that might’ve just been Annette reading into it a little too much.
It was Danny who interrupted them, which was a little surprising, but what was more surprising was the way he did it. “Everyone get down!”
He shouted, loud enough to alert the whole room. Annette had just enough time to wonder why he was yelling before the restaurant’s front window shattered, and a shirtless man in a metal mask was walking through the front doors.
“Big mistake showing your face in public after what you pulled, Lung,” Hookwolf thundered, and Annette realized he was looking right at their table. There were more people streaming in through the broken windows from behind him, two in costumes that Annette didn’t recognize, and fear swelled in Annette’s throat. The Empire was attacking the restaurant.
Danny was on his feet, and Annette wanted to reach out to grab him, to beg him not to do anything. His mouth opened, but instead of saying anything, he heaved. Annette thought he might be vomiting from panic, but it wasn’t liquid that erupted from his mouth. Black spilled from his lips- no, projected from his lips. Tendrils flew through the air, weaving around themselves, and then there was a rat on Hookwolf’s face.
Robin pulled on Annette’s arm and had her under the table before Annette could process what she’d just seen. He shielded her with his body, putting a hand on the back of her neck, pushing her down, but some part of Annette’s brain that prompted her to push her head against his hand, forcing her to gaze out from under the table at the scene unfolding before her.
“You dare attack my family in my territory,” a voice snarled. Some distant part of Annette’s brain knew it was Kenta, but it didn’t sound like him at all. It was deeper, far deeper. Intimidating. Somehow even more heavily accented.
“Big mistake,” another voice said, a girl’s voice, lighter, and Annette couldn’t tell if it was Alice or Taylor, but the restaurant was suddenly filled with bugs, and someone was lunging for one of the capes beside Hookwolf. Alice, Annette thought, but there was such a disconnect between what she was seeing and what she was thinking that Annette couldn’t be sure. Everyone in the room looked like strangers, her little world under the table the only thing that gave her any sense of familiarity.
“What’s happening?” Annette whispered, caught between watching the fight and burying her face in her husband’s chest so she didn’t have to see what was about to happen to her- wait, Velocity was here. “You’re not going to fight?”
She wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t. He had a secret identity to think about, but more importantly, he was the only superhero in a room with three supervillains and a whole bunch of Empire goons. Plus, they were inside, and his powers didn’t work so well in confined spaces like this. This wasn’t a fight he could win.
Still, he’d pulled her under here, and not Taylor or even Alice. Sure, he’d been at the edge of the table, so she was the only one he could reasonably grab, but still.
Robin looked unperturbed, though. “I think they have it handled.”
“What?” She heard the words, but her brain refused to listen.
Robin shifted, and Annette couldn’t tell if it was out of physical or emotional discomfort. “You know how you think Kenta and I don’t get along?”
Was he really bringing this up now? “Now’s not the time, Robin!”
“He’s Lung,” Velocity said bluntly, “and Danny’s that vigilante that’s been hanging around the docks the past twenty years. And Alice is Bakuda. And Taylor’s the Swarm.”
Annette felt her thoughts go static.
“Surprise?” Robin offered, and Annette turned her attention back to the world outside the underside of the table and watched her family kick the Empire’s asses.
Later, she’d find out Hookwolf was retaliating against some recent attacks from the ABB on a few of his dogfighting rings and some of the Empire’s more legitimate businesses, but Annette didn’t care at all. Danny and Kenta were getting an earful for letting Taylor moonlight as a cape, and Robin was getting two earfuls for not telling her that her daughter had superpowers.
She’d get over it eventually. This was still her family, and Annette loved her family. She’d intentionally tried to stay out of the capelife before now, but with five parahumans in her family instead of one, Annette could see herself getting into it. For them.