Chapter Text
Earth-Bet: U.S: Brockton Bay: The Docks:
Winslow High.
-Taylor Hebert-
‘This is new.’ Taylor mused, feeling more than a little shaken.
From behind a pile of benches, she peered through a gap. She’d taken cover as soon as she’d seen it, but—
Nothing could really prepare her for a fucking trench in the backyards of Winslow. And what caused it.
If you could rewind her life, you’d see--exactly fifteen seconds ago-- a missile of green lightning that sailed from over her head and crashed into the ground, sending dirt, mud and grass everywhere.
Including into her lunch. The tree behind her had a brand new hole in it to commiserate, too.
Steam billowed from where the scar in the ground stopped. A figure of a person climbed out, a cloud of steam covering him. Taylor tensed.
The person was a cape. She was almost sure of it. No unpowered human could survive that. They were also probably a man, from their build. He staggered a little, looking completely battered.
Of course he was. He carved a—she was repeating herself, wasn’t she? Taylor was a tad bit freaked out.
He was a cape. Whether he was a hero or a villain, that was up for debate. A debate Taylor wanted no part of, no thanks.
She stood stock still, trying to calm her pounding heartbeat. She'd simply hide until he went away. He couldn’t see her behind the random pileup of benches in the—
Green eyes snapped to hers. Taylor flinched.
So did the teenaged boy. Because that’s what he was, about her age, fourteen, maybe fifteen. His face was open in shock. His eyes were wide.
‘Fuck. He saw me.’ Taylor immediately turned, ready to bolt. No freaking way she was just going to stand there! He was a cape! Fuck if he looked like he’d been through a meat-grinder, hell if he looked surprised and relieved, she was out.
“Matte kudasai!” A raspy voice called out from behind her.
Taylor stopped. She momentarily wondered if he’d Mastered her to achieve that effect.
‘Was that Japanese?’
Turning around slowly, with her hands raised, Taylor’s mind whirled to figure out the best way out of this situation. She was facing a cape, clearly injured, clearly armored—Holy crap that was a lot of armor—and with no one around.
Not that it mattered. She was pretty sure that if she was shanked in front of her schoolmates, they’d more than likely turn the other way.
The boy was trudging towards her with a pained expression. He was limping.
“Tasukete itadakemasu ka?” He managed, even the effort of walking had seemed to make him pant.
“I’m sorry?” She replied. She thought she’d heard gibberish for the first time, but now she was sure. He was speaking Japanese.
A Japanese cape, in America, crash landing in the backyard of school. Her life was getting all the more interesting every single minute.
The boy, to his credit, seemed to take it in stride. He squinted for a second, making Taylor tense, before he spoke in his scratchy voice, “Help, please? I do not speak English.” He gestured towards himself, mimed speaking, before shaking his head.
It was almost like a video game. She had three options for herself. Option one was the good old, run the fuck away. The next option was to point him in a random direction and say police station and hope he’ll get the hint.
The last idea… Help him. Mind the ellipsis.
She really didn’t like the last idea. What were the odds that this man was a cape? He was very well armored, but he didn’t speak English? That made it more likely for him to be from PRT or the Azn Bad Boyz.
It didn’t make sense for the protectorate to bring in a cape who couldn’t communicate with the local authorities. On the other hand, the ABB, while focused on Asian culture still needed to live in Brockton Bay; where the primary language was English. A member still needed some command over English, especially a cape, for that matter.
Was it racist to call him ABB simply because he looked and spoke Japanese?
“H-how can I?” She stammered, letting her hands down. Her backpack was a few steps away, and her lunchbox was on the bench next to it.
‘This is a terrible idea.’ Taylor groaned internally. Why was she doing this, again?
Right. A heavily armored cape had casually climbed out of a trench he made by simply falling out of the sky, and then asked her for help. Her. Taylor Hebert. The nobody.
The boy, meanwhile, looked like he was slowly deciphering the question. Then he placed a hand on his vest-breastplate (Which looked painfully caved in), and said, “Midoriya Izuku.”
Right. Right, Midoriya Izuku. Didn't ring any bells. But that was probably his real name, not his cape name.
Even then, she didn’t know any cape that matched his description.
She carefully, slowly, harmlessly, pointed at herself, and said, “Taylor Hebert.”
He offered a shaky smile and a gloved hand. She tensed, staring at the outstretched limb. His hand was covered by a white glove, with golden knuckle-dusters. The paint had chipped off those and were partly covered with a rust colored substance.
Blood. Dried blood.
Would he be offended if she didn’t take it? If he was a striker, it would be game over if she took his hand. If he wanted to kill her for seeing his face, that is. If he wasn’t, and she didn’t take his hand, what if he decided to kill her for it?
She shakingly took his hand. Taylor felt dizzy.
It was warm. His hand was warm.
For a second, nothing happened. The boy shook her hand, which was more a limp noodle, and then let go. Awkwardly, Taylor let it fall back to her side.
“Ettoooo… Could you please tell... where, place?”
Taylor scrunched her eyebrows. Did he mean to ask where they were? That was easy enough.
“Winslow High. Brockton Bay.”
None of those got a reaction out of him, except maybe more confusion.
“United States?” She tried.
The boy’s eyes widened. “United States?” He breathed, more to himself than her. Taylor wasn’t sure why that shocked him so much. But she didn’t like it.
“You are sure?” He asked, looking like the answer would sting him. Not wanting to antagonize the armored cape, she nodded slowly.
That granted her silence for half a minute. Then the boy asked, “Shigaraki, dead?”
To which Taylor replied, “Shigaraki, who?”
The boy scrunched his eyebrows in confusion. He searched her face, and Taylor hoped the confusion she felt looked as genuine on her face. This boy just asked if someone was dead. She’d bet a hundred bucks that he was supposed to do the killing.
“Shigaraki Tomura?” He hedged. Taylor shook her head. “Star and Stripes?"
“Our flag?”
The boy looked at her in horror. Internally, Taylor was a little concerned now. Why was he so surprised by that?
“All—“ His throat bobbed. “All Might?”
Whatever the answer to that question was, he must’ve gotten it without her answering. He reeled, stumbling backwards and slamming onto the pile of benches behind.
“Nanda kore? You not joke?”
Even that did not require an answer. One look at her face, and he collapsed to the ground. Taylor contemplated running away right then, while he was distracted.
“You not know All Might? Hero?”
Taylor shook her head. Who the heck was that? Some Japanese cape? If the cape was as important as the reaction deserved, she’d know him if he was from the U.S. Honestly, with how shocked he looked, it was like this All Might person was some sort of Scion or Eidolon.
Weird.
“Um, look, but I’ve got classes, so can I go now?” She said, trying to sound as casual as she could. His freaked out expressions were freaking her out. Who knew if he snapped? Capes could just go nuts, and a normie like her wouldn’t be able to do anything about it.
For a few seconds, the boy didn’t reply. He had his hand clamped on his mouth as if trying to stop himself from puking, and was just sitting there, leaning on the collapsed benches.
“Wait.” He called, just before she could grab her backpack and get the hell out of there.
“Wait. Please.” It sounded desperate, she cursed how desperate it sounded, she hated that she couldn’t stop herself from looking to his face. Green eyes stared back.
“Please… help?” He said, although the last part sounded muffled, because he’d ducked his head into his mangled mess of a scarf.
Something twisted in Taylor’s gut. She didn’t like it.
“How can I? You’re a cape. Why would you need my help?” She blurted out, before she could stop herself.
Shit. That sounded too aggressive, didn’t it?
But the boy looked confused. “Cape?” He repeated slowly, as if tasting the word. “What is cape? Is it hiro?”
Taylor just stood there stunned. That was… what? Who didn’t know what a cape was? That was something Japan didn’t have? Did they call capes heroes there?
But that didn’t make sense. Capes weren’t just heroes, they were superpowered individuals. Heroic or not.
Taylor knew for a fact that curiosity killed the cat. She was a cat murderer.
“No, not a hero. People with superpowers. You know, fireballs?” When he didn’t seem to grasp that, she pulled out the hand motions, miming an explosion. Weirdly enough, that got through really well.
“Kosei no koto ka?” He shook his head, dark green hair—wait, dark green hair???—waving. “Etto… you means kuwerk?”
It took a moment for her to recover from her shock at his hair color. It took a few more to understand he was saying ‘quirk’ and not ‘quark’. Which naturally, led her to ask, “Quirk? No, I think you mean powers. Uh…” Taylor felt a little lost. How did quirks even relate to parahumans? They were completely separate—
No. They weren’t. The realization was shocking enough for her to take a step back. Quirk, as in a curiosity within a person. Something abnormal. Wasn’t that exactly what a superpower was? An abnormality.
It wasn’t that much of a leap in logic to call a superpower a quirk.
“Kinda. Quirks are powers.” She mimed an explosion again. “But people who have powers are called parahumans.” She mimed throwing the explosion. Taylor deliberately slowed down her speech, to let him understand clearly.
His mouth turned into an ‘o’, and for a second he looked lost. He shuffled around, searching for something on his waist and—
Where did he get that notebook. Where the hell did he get that pen? There were literally no pockets there! There was just armor! And no way were those tiny pockets on his belt big enough!
Did he have some kinda dimensional storage? And was he seriously writing that down?
He looked up curiously after furiously scribbling. His green eyes were sparkling. “Parahuman?” He prompted.
Taylor realized that, just then, that she’d forgotten that he was probably a villain.
She found it harder to believe by the second, though. If he was a villain, wouldn’t he have killed her or done something already? He’d gotten close enough when they shook hands (More like he did the shaking). Why was he interrogating her about powers and capes?
But. His power could involve her answering some of his questions. She didn’t know! Powers were weird like that.
So she picked up her backpack and just held it there. That was a trick she’d thought up when she was wondering about Masters. Masters essentially mentally diverted a person’s thought process to follow commands, didn’t they? Then those thought processes were unnatural.
Then, to her, picking up and holding her backpack was perfectly normal. If she was mastered, she’d drop it, because it wouldn’t make sense for her to continue holding it. She’s snap out of it, hopefully, because then she'd be aware, then make a run for it.
From her slowly picking up her backpack and cradling it in her arms, Izuku just stared at her, waiting patiently. He didn't look afraid or wary. ‘Success. He doesn’t notice anything out of the ordinary’
Taking a breath, Taylor gathered her thoughts. Where had they been? Right, “Parahumans are capes.” The armored teenager scribbled something more down, his tongue sticking out of a corner of his mouth.
“Capes not hiroes?”
“No. Hero capes are heroes.”
“Hiro cape? Then villain cape?”
“They’re villains. They kill,” She made a stabbing motion, “and do bad things in general.”
“Eto… you are hero cape?”
What. Taylor—how did Taylor even look like a hero cape? She brushed it off as a compliment to let her guard down.
“No. I’m not a hero cape. I’m a normie.”
“Normie?”
“I don’t have a power… no quirk.” She muttered, clutching her backpack. If she did have a 'quirk', then maybe she’d be able to fight back.
Maybe she wouldn’t have to eat alone in the abandoned backyard.
“Oh…” He said, looking sad.
Oddly, she didn’t feel any pity from him. He just looked… down. She couldn’t help but ask herself, ‘Why?’
“Less… people… normie?”
“You mean, there’s less normal people?”
He tilted his head for a second—Taylor could associate that to his thinking face-- before nodding.
Less people with powers? “No? Of course not. Very few people have a… quirk.”
He looked baffled, before scribbling something in his notebook. “Many?”
“No, not many. Uh, around 1 in 8,000.”
He didn’t understand, so she raised one finger, “One,” and then eight fingers. “in eight,” then she put down all her fingers, “Zero, zero, zero.”
Izuku’s eyebrows scrunched. “One out of eight-zero-zero-zero people, no quirk?”
Taylor found it hard to not groan. What was so hard to get? “Only one in eight-zero-zero-zero have a quirk.”
Izuku looked even more shocked with that. He stopped writing, just staring at Taylor, who felt increasingly like a deer caught in headlights.
‘Does he think I’m lying? Did I say something wrong?’
“Only…” He scribbled something down, before thrusting the notebook in her direction. She felt like flinching.
Taylor couldn’t make out what he’d written because he was a little too far away. She felt afraid of stepping closer.
Seeing that she wasn’t moving, Izuku took a step forward.
Taylor took a step back. Her heart throbbed in her chest, she felt it pounding in her ears.
The cape seemed to realize that he’d scared her—or was he just hiding his true nature behind a mask?—and raised both hands in a placating sign.
“Sorry.” He muttered, looking faintly embarrassed. She’d actually have been fooled by it. She had to give it to him, he was very good at acting.
‘Sorry?’ Taylor grumbled in her head. ‘Sorry, he says.’
‘Whatever I said, it must have shocked him into his real personality.’
Her heart was still racing. She realized that she was holding the straps of the bag in a white-knuckled grip.
‘His real personality, huh.’
Izuku—was that even his name?—scratched his cheek, still staring at her nervously. Waiting.
‘Fuck curiosity. I need to get out of here. He’s way too suspicious.’
“Uh, I need to go to the bathroom.” She said, as casually as she could.
She just threw out the first excuse that came to her head. It was as horrible as turning her back to him, and powerwalking away.
'Call the police? Would they believe me?'
She hoped to every god she could think of, hoping to hope that he wouldn’t follow or stop her.
Taylor quickly made her way across the yard, opening the back door.
The gods answered.
He didn’t stop her.
The redhead just behind the door did.