Chapter Text
June 15th, 2011
Danny Hebert looked out at the remains of Brockton Bay. The remains of his city, where he’d been born and lived his whole life, and in that moment he felt all of his 43 years pressing down on him like a terrible weight. It had already been struggling when he was a kid, and the advent of parahumans had only exacerbated the decline. And yet, the city had always managed to keep going, to keep limping along despite the efforts of villains like All-father, Butcher, Marquis, Lung, and more recently Bakuda. As he saw the scale of devastation now, though—the new lake that had been formed in what had once been about 40 blocks of residential housing, the decimated downtown and docks, the thousands of buildings that had structural damage from bombings, an Endbringer fight, and Shatterbird’s scream—he couldn’t help but wonder if this would prove too much for the city to recover from.
And yet, he still had a job to do. He locked his car door and walked the two blocks it took to get to the office space that the DWA rented out. The headquarters of the Dockworker’s Association had suffered some water damage during Leviathan’s attack, and the windows had all been blown out and taped over, although thankfully it was far enough north and far enough back from the bay itself to have been saved from total destruction. The parking lot was worse, having been cracked apart in the fight, and the water lines had ruptured, but at least they still had power. That was better than a lot of places in the city, which he knew was also why it hadn’t been fixed and likely wouldn’t for at least another six months.
“Hey Danny,” Paula said as he entered the main office. For the past two decades she’d been the secretary for DWA office, although he knew that she could still haul cargo with the best of them and had a right hook that could put a grown man down. “How’s the healing going?”
He shrugged. “It’s going,” he said. “Aches when I stretch it, but it could have been a lot worse. Would have been, if we hadn’t known it was coming. George doing alright?”
She gave him a so-so gesture. “He’s out of the woods, but he’s still in a lot of pain and he’s got a hell of a limp. Probably going to need to see a physical therapist, but god knows when we’ll get that chance with the hospitals the way they are.” Danny gave her a sympathetic grimace–he’d been lucky enough to get surgery pretty quickly, but after Shatterbird’s attack not everyone had been nearly as fortunate. He didn’t even want to think about how bad it would have been without Panacea there to help the most critically wounded after the Nine were destroyed.
“Oh, almost forgot,” Paula said suddenly. “I got a message that somebody was looking to hire a pretty big group for some blue-collar work.”
“Did they leave a name?” He asked.
“Fortress Constructions,” she said. “Haven’t heard of them before, but it might be worth something. Told ‘em to come in at 11, that work for you?”
“I’ll free up some space in my schedule,” he said, and she gave him a mirthless chuckle. They both knew that his schedule was about as full as a bucket with a hole in the bottom. It had been bad enough getting his people work before Leviathan and the Nine, but right now everyone was scrambling to recover from the devastation and the job market was thoroughly tanked.
A few hours later, and Danny had nearly forgotten about the appointment. He might not have much of an official schedule, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t work that needed doing. With the Union Leader, Mark, getting caught up in one of Bonesaw’s horrific experiments and likely to be out of commission for at least the next six months as he recovered, Danny was the de facto leader of the DWA as the next highest authority. He was plenty busy sending out emails, calling businesses, and compiling lists of possible resources on where work might be found. It was trickier than usual, and the Empire leaks (were those really only a month ago?) had revealed a number of seemingly upstanding businesses to be Gesselschaft fronts that had to be struck from the list of possible employers.
He backed through the door to his office, one hand holding a mug of cheap coffee from the DWA brewing machine that had, somehow, survived both Leviathan and Shatterbird’s scream. Probably because it was from a decommissioned navy vessel and was overengineered to an inch of its life. His 11 o’clock wasn’t supposed to be there for another few minutes, but he wanted to be thoroughly caffeinated for whatever Fortress Constructions might want.
“Know where you are, huh?” A feminine voice said from behind him, masked by a faint layer of buzzing.
Danny whipped around, nearly dropping his coffee. There, sitting by the office printer, was a tall woman wearing a mottled gray suit of layered armor plates. Her mask was far more intimidating in person than in any of the pictures he’d seen, with a flat face that slid down to carved carapace jaws and reflective golden goggles that felt like she was staring directly into his soul. A few insects crawled around her body, and a layer of crickets wrapped around her throat, although that was nothing compared to the biblical swarms that had flown over the city a few weeks ago, swarms she had used (if rumor was to be believed) to kill the Siberian, Cherish, Bonesaw, and Jack Slash himself. The only human aspect was her long flowing hair, which reminded him distantly of Annette’s, but on Skitter it served only to exaggerate the rest of her horrifying appearance.
She was also, he noticed belatedly, holding one of the posters that he’d gotten some of the out-of-work members of the DWA to gin up. Posters, he realized with dawning horror, that were warnings about the so-called Warlords of the bay, including Skitter herself.
“I didn’t mean to alarm you, I was just reading some of the literature you’ve been making,” she said, and then held up the paper in front of her. “Skitter is an unpredictable young woman tending towards acts of apparent kindness to those she deems her subjects and bursts of sudden and extreme violence towards those she sees as her enemies. The city is not funding work in her territory, as Skitter is handling matters there,” she read, then let out a little humorless laugh. “Well, I can’t exactly dispute any of that. I want to disagree with the ‘sudden and extreme violence’ bit, since most of the fuckers I’ve really violently attacked are child traffickers and serial killers, but after happened with the Nine I don’t think I really have a leg to stand on.”
Danny felt his heart pounding in his ears, but he forced himself to calm down. Skitter apparently didn’t go after the innocent, and if he’d never knuckled down to the Empire he’d be damned to give in to one of Brockton’s self-proclaimed warlords. Gathering his courage, he walked into the room, set down his coffee on his desk, and spoke. “Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but the DWA has never associated with gangs and that’s not going to change on my watch.”
“You’ve never knowingly associated with gangs, you mean. I know that you’ve had plenty of work through Medhall, before that whole disaster went down.”
He felt himself grimace. The reveal that Medhall had been an Empire front had been an absolute gut-punch for most of the city, himself included. Still, he had to hold his ground. “Look, none of the men and women here have money to spare for ‘protection’, or whatever you want to call it. We’re all blue-collar, and we’ve spent the past decade getting fucked over by the city. And nobody here has any interest in padding out your ranks of minions, I can tell you that. We’re not even in your territory!”
She let out a laugh, then, and it was surprisingly normal for a supervillain who had demonstrated a capability for cold-blooded murder. “You misunderstand, Mr. Hebert,” she said, and he was a little impressed that she’d pronounced it correctly and hadn’t said Herbert. “I’m not here to ask you or the DWA for money. I’m here as a representative of Fortress Constructions and I’m looking to hire a labor force, paid at a fair wage which we can negotiate to your satisfaction, in order to engage in reconstruction efforts for the city.”
He stared at her, because this was decidedly not his experience with supervillains. Not that she couldn’t be lying, of course.“You’re looking for workers? I thought you already had people in your territory to do that kind of thing.”
She shrugged. “I have some people, yes, but not many. Especially when it comes to skilled laborers with experience in construction and manual labor. You have people who need money, food, and water; I have millions of dollars in Slaughterhouse bounties and a need for manual laborers.”
“Why us, though? Why the DWA?”
“You come recommended by somebody I trust,” she said, putting the poster down on the desk. “Your daughter Taylor speaks highly of you.”
His hand clenched tight, and he tried to keep the infamous Hebert temper in check. “How do you know Taylor?”
Skitter laughed again. “She’s been working for me for a while, Mr. Hebert. Your daughter has an eye for resource allocation that’s been quite useful in the wake of Leviathan and the Slaughterhouse Nine.”
“She’s safe, then?” Danny didn’t want to seem desperate, but he couldn’t help himself. He didn’t have her phone number, he didn’t know where she was living now–hell, he hadn’t known she was still alive until three days after Leviathan’s attack. The worst part was that he didn’t have any idea how to reconnect with her, how to repair something that had broken years ago without him even realizing. So he had done what he always did when he didn’t know what to do in his personal life, throwing himself into his work instead.
“She’s as safe as anyone can be in this city,” Skitter said. “She’s one of mine, now. As your poster points out, I take care of my own.”
“Why her? What does a warlord want with a sixteen year old girl?”
Skitter met his eyes with an unwavering stare. “Like I said, she has a knack for administration that’s proven useful. My people need supplies and she’s good at making sure they’re efficiently distributed. I don’t give a damn about her age as long as she does a good job, which so far she has. Not to mention she’s within a year or so of my own age, anyways.”
“You’re seventeen?” Danny asked, incredulous.
“Something like that,” Skitter said, with another casual shrug.
He felt something in his stomach clench. He hadn’t given Skitter’s age much thought, but he’d idly thought she must be in her mid-twenties. The thought that one of the most terrifying capes in the city was still a minor was equal parts horrifying and terrifying.
Skitter was still talking. “Taylor mentioned that you’ve never knowingly worked with any gangs or parahumans before. I’d like to know why.”
Danny was still reeling from learning her age but he tried to pull himself together. “And if I said that I don’t want the DWA to associate with criminals?”
“I’d believe it was part of your reason, certainly. But I think there’s something else. After all, your wife ran with Lustrum once, didn’t she?” Skitter asked. She held up the poster with her image on it. “Skitter controls insects and senses what they do. Anyone with allergies to stings or insect bites would be advised to leave this area. She offers food, shelter and care to anyone who agrees to work under her, but the Dockworkers Association cannot suggest that anyone accept her offers, as her ulterior motives are unknown.”
He crossed his arms to hide his shaking hands. “Do you have a problem with that description?”
She laughed. “No, not at all. But I think it’s telling that the poster isn’t saying ‘don’t work for her because she’s a villain,’ but rather ‘don’t work for her because her motives are unknown.’ I think that you don’t work for villains because you either don’t know their motives, or you do know their motives and you know that they’re repugnant. Is that accurate?”
“Sure,” Danny said, narrowing his eyes. “Do you expect me to believe that you’re doing all this for purely altruistic purposes?”
Skitter sighed, and it was a more human sound than he’d expected from the infamous cape. “I’d hope that you might, but I understand that from your perspective it’s hard to trust me. Whether you believe it or not, Mr. Hebert, know that everything I’ve done has always been with the intent of protecting people as best I could.”
He gave her an unimpressed look. “Robbing a bank? Crashing a gala? Threatening the mayor’s son? You’re really telling me all of that was done to protect people?”
She shrugged, but her shoulders hunched as though she did regret some of it. “At the time, I thought I was going undercover to discover the Undersider’s boss. By the time I’d found out who it was, I learned he had a child that he kept chained up in his basement on a drip-feed of addictive drugs. Trust me, as bad as you might think things are with the Undersiders controlling the city, it would have been way worse if Coil was still alive. I had good intentions, but, well, the road to hell and all that.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
She stepped forward suddenly, and he had to resist the urge to flinch back. “My people are counting on me, Mr. Hebert. I have seven thousand four hundred and twelve individuals who are living in my territory and are looking to me for protection. Many of them don’t have working water, or power, or adequate shelter. I may have the funds to pay for repairs from the Slaughterhouse bounties, but I don’t have laborers that I can trust. There are too many desperate or callous people who might try to steal from or assault those under my care. Then I would have to make an example out of them, and that’s something nobody wants. But I trust Taylor, and she trusts you.”
She paused, as if studying him. Her whole body went still, unnaturally so. “If that reason doesn’t sound believable, then how about this one. The Empire is finished, the ABB disappeared with Lung and Bakuda, and the Nine cleaned up both the Merchants and Coil before they died. The Protectorate was crippled by Leviathan, and they proved to be impotent in the face of the Nine. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Hebert, the Undersiders run Brockton Bay, and I have no intention of ruling over an urban wasteland. Not to mention, once we get utilities up and running, I’m hoping to retain some of your services to return actual shipping to the bay, now that the old container ship is out of the way. This is an investment in my fiefdom, one which I have little doubt will see returns down the line.”
Danny closed his eyes. He thought about some of the pictures he’d seen, some of the rumors he’d heard: about how Cherish had been executed by Skitter from two blocks away, how Bonesaw’s body had been devoured by insects, how she had punished people by biting them with bullet ants and a swarm of wasps. Then he thought of how many of the Dockworkers or their families had been injured in the past month, and how many hadn’t had consistent employment for years.
Could he believe that she really was doing what was best for the city? She had been quick to reframe her goal, and it was clear that they both knew greed and power-lust was a far easier story to believe when it came to a villain than any real sense of benevolence. He reminded himself that the Undersiders had a very strong Thinker on their team; but then again, with that kind of ability it would have been easy enough to set up a shell company and never associate it with Skitter directly. Was it all a manipulation? Would he even be able to tell?
Skitter watched him, patient, unmoving. Danny had learned to trust his gut, over the long years of working as the DWA’s hiring manager in a city that no longer had any docks. He stared back at her for a long moment.
“Twenty-five dollars an hour minimum, plus hazard and overtime,” he said, after a long deliberation. “And I’m not going to force anybody to work for you, it’ll be volunteer contractors only.”
“Done,” Skitter said, reaching out. “Tattletale will be in touch later to hammer out the details, and we can have our lawyers talk with yours, but I can agree to those terms right now.”
He shook her hand, and wondered if this was what Faust had felt like. “Pleasure doing business with you, Skitter,” he said.
She gave another chuckle, although there was a rueful note that he couldn’t quite place. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Hebert.”
She turned to leave, and he noticed with some sick amusement that she seemed to be taking the window rather than the door. It answered the question of how she had gotten in, he supposed. There was a buzzing sound that grew louder, and then he could see a giant beetle the size of a horse rising outside the window.
A thought struck him. “Ah, one thing,” he said, and ignored the tiny voice that said it was stupid to ask for a favor from a warlord.
Skitter paused and looked back over her shoulder. “Yes?”
“Could you… could you ask Taylor if she wants to come home? Just for dinner, or something. I’m sorry to ask you, I just don’t know how to contact her right now.”
Skitter stared, and once more her whole body went deeply, unnaturally still. The moment lasted for long enough that Danny had time to wonder if he’d seriously fucked up, but then Skitter nodded. “I’ll pass it on, but I can’t promise anything. I don’t like ordering people around unless I have to.”
“Oh, of course, I wouldn’t expect you to,” Danny said. “I mean, thank you, Skitter.”
She gave him a short nod with her head. Then in one fluid motion, she threw herself out the window and onto the beetle. There was a buzzing sound and then she was gone.
Danny slumped, as the adrenaline of the past few minutes went out of him all at once. Had he seriously just agreed to work with one of the Bay’s self-proclaimed warlords? He knew that he should be dealing with that, he should be calling the DWA’s lawyers and talking with Kurt or Lacy, and he would take care of that soon. But for the moment, all he could think about was Taylor.