Chapter 39
Brian
Prison changes a man.
Makes him introspective. Maybe even regretful.
Brian figured it was the setting. When there was absolutely nothing to do, day after day, what was left but to think about the choices you’d made? The decisions that eventually landed you behind bars.
In Brian’s case, it made him think about his career as a villain. A pretty successful career, if he said so himself.
Starting small by robbing small stores and gas stations. Then taking things seriously by building up rep to become a reliable independent operator. Finally, a leader of his own team.
Overall, three years of thriving in Brockton Bay. As far as being a cape went in this city, that practically made Brian a Made Man.
So—no regrets on that front.
But… it didn’t stop the introspection.
It started with the PRT’s offer to join the Wards.
First things first, they made sure to confirm he was even eligible for the program. With his build and voice, Brian could easily pass twenty without trying.
Despite the team-wide gag order, that was the piece of info he had no problem surrendering, as a small investment into the future. Things like that dictated the severity of the PRT’s response to the Undersiders—or to him, personally. Being viewed as an adult leading a pack of impressionable kids astray wasn’t a good look, no matter how you sliced it.
It was that kind of strategic thinking that let him last this long and not become another statistic.
As for the offer itself...
Nothing as generous as wiping his record, but they’d seal it. Lock it away unless he screwed up. In return for cooperation, Brian would get a new coat of paint, a transfer out of the Bay, and a few quiet months playing junior hero before sliding into the Protectorate like he’d always belonged there.
What name would they pick for him? Smokescreen? Void?
He liked Grue. Not only did it fit his power and the chosen aesthetic, but also attracted a more sophisticated clientele who wanted a fixer with brains and not just another thug. Sometimes it also attracted pretentious assholes like Epoch, but, after three years, Brian got attached.
He didn’t seriously entertain the PRT’s offer, though. The gruff, no-nonsense Director that made it had only served to reinforce all Brian’s misgivings about working for the organization.
As a teenage villain, it wouldn’t be wild to assume he had authority issues. Most did. Looking at how his own team behaved, Brian wouldn’t fault anyone for coming to the same conclusion about him.
Except that wasn’t it at all.
In reality, Brian put great stock in authority, hierarchy, and respect.
What son of Marcus Laborn wouldn’t?
His father was a big man in every sense—broad shoulders, iron grip, iron rules. The man held the utmost conviction that life was simple, and every problem had a simple straightforward solution.
You cause trouble? Don’t.
Someone causes you trouble? Tell them to back off.
They don’t listen? You make them.
They still don’t listen? Then you weren’t trying hard enough.
Get in the ring, boy; I’ll show you how to throw a proper punch. Is that tears? Suck it up, Brian! Work on that attitude! You are a man! Show weakness once, and it’ll be exploited forever. I said stop sulking! No one respects that!
Feelings were something to be worked out in the ring with the boys, because a man was either calm or angry. Everything else was weakness leaving the body.
Brian was well aware of what people would say about that kind of parenting. But the thing was, Dad had been kind of right in the end. Despite being a hard-ass utterly devoid of nuance, his lessons—both in life and in the ring—had made Brian into who he was today.
Someone independent and self-sufficient.
Someone capable of overcoming his weakness and putting his abuser in the dirt.
Someone who could beat a man twice his age half to death to protect his sister.
In the end, like everything else in Brian’s life, it circled back to Aisha.
Ever since he’d realized that a fat wad of cash he’d made in a week as a villain was more than Dad made in two months, Brian had been working towards one goal: getting custody of his sister.
Giving her a real home, away from Dad’s total inability to raise girls and Mom’s no-fucks-given attitude and a parade of abusive boyfriends.
Everything was already in place. A nice apartment in a good part of town had been secured. Brian’s income trails and employment history had been carefully fabricated, courtesy of their mysterious boss. Lisa helped with quietly assembling a case that would tear Mom’s parental rights apart in court.
All that remained was waiting for his eighteenth birthday. Just a few more months.
Next to that, the PRT’s offer barely registered.
Even if—and that was a big if—Brian managed to wrangle the custody transfer from the PRT, being a Ward meant having commitments.
Classes. Patrol rotations. Debriefs. Mandatory meetings.
A schedule that wasn’t his own.
Brian wouldn’t be able to bolt out the door because Aisha had fought with Mom, then fought with Dad, then decided to hitch a ride to New York. Again.
And Brian didn’t harbor any illusions about being able to simply quit—even if he’d joined the Wards the day he triggered.
As things stood, the best outcome was Aisha going to Dad, a man who could raise his son a man, but hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with daughters. Or into the system.
His defiant, reckless, impulsive, unpredictable sister wouldn’t do well there. At all.
Hell, even if Aisha had been the most well-behaved girl in the world, Brian wouldn’t put his trust into fostering. No. Not after the horrors Rachel had gone through. Not on the promises of a woman who bribed Armsmaster into taking in kids he didn’t care for because the PRT needed more capes.
So yeah, definitely no regrets.
And besides, prison might change a man, but Brian wasn’t in prison yet.
He was in a PRT holding cell filled to the brim with bugs.
Breathing very carefully.
It happened a short while ago.
One moment everything had been normal, then a tidal wave of creepy crawlies spilled from seemingly everywhere, coating the walls and floors in a shifting, living carpet. Then the fliers joined in, thickening the air with angry, relentless buzzing.
It was an assault on all senses. Constant flickering of countless wings obstructed vision, and the ever-present droning made it difficult to hear.
Chaotic and disorienting.
He could only imagine what it’d be like if they were aggressive.
And that had been the only reason Brian hadn’t drowned the cell in his power yet, for all the good it would have done in this situation.
The bugs had invaded, the alarms went off, and people started screaming, but not one fly landed on him. In fact, the only reason he wasn’t blind inside the swarm was because the swarm kept its distance..
Brian didn’t know what was happening. He just braced himself and waited.
When the thick glass barrier serving as his cell door rolled upward, Brian was already moving, crossing the cell as fast as he could.
Which wasn’t very fast, because the cloud of insects was so dense that seeing past the arm’s reach was all but impossible.
Is this how it feels inside my power?
Brian’s darkness had this little quirk—he never experienced it. The thick oily smoke that swallowed all sound did not exist for him.
The way he perceived it was through a kind of pressure. His power created zones, where that pressure was lower, which, ironically, made Brian feel more exposed. Like there was less obstruction between him and the other guy.
For Brian, the imposing figure wreathed in shadows known as Grue only existed in pictures.
Yeah, the bugs are definitely avoiding me.
Not only were the fliers keeping distance, the living carpet of bugs made way under his feet.
When he pushed into the corridor outside his cell, a voice cut through the buzzing from the far end of the hall.
“Everyone! Over here!”
Lisa.
Rachel and Alec were already with her when he reached the intersection. They were all wearing orange jumpsuits but kept their masks on—except Rachel, whose identity was public knowledge.
Brian wouldn’t say “lucky her,” but at least she hadn’t been struggling to figure out how to eat through a motorcycle helmet without revealing her face. He was painfully aware it was only a matter of time before word about his skin color reached the Empire.
“Tattletale,” he demanded, trying to make sense of the situation, “what the hell is going on? Is this the Bug Girl?”
“Yeah,” she sighed, not looking too happy.
“How’d you get out?” Alec asked, looking way too relaxed. “I felt you leave before the cells opened.”
“The boss smuggled me a device inside a cutlet a few days ago. Pyrotechnical’s handiwork. It melted the barrier.”
“And you didn’t get blasted with confoam?”
“Emergency evacuation protocol overrides cell lockdown,” Lisa explained. “Security shuts down throughout the whole building, the prison ward included. We were supposed to be escorted out, but the guard assigned to open the cells... didn’t. I had to go to the control room and pull the lever myself.”
That explained the screams.
“Okay,” Brian cut in. “Is this the boss’s play? Does Bug Girl work for him?”
They had plans in place for this kind of scenario. If a job went bad and landed them in custody, they were to keep quiet and wait for the boss to bust them out.
That required more trust than the boss rightfully deserved, in Brian’s opinion. But it wasn’t like deals with the PRT couldn’t be made from a prison.
“No,” Lisa shook her head. “The Boss had other plans. I’m only guessing here, but I think he intended to bait the ABB into attacking the HQ with bad intel. The device he gave me was more to cover his tracks. He’s got people on the inside—they would have opened the cells. Something along those lines,” she added with a frustrated shrug.
Brian studied her. If she was even close to right, their mysterious benefactor had deeper hooks in the city than he’d let on.
It wasn’t a secret that the local office bled intel like a sieve. But there was a huge difference between informants and straight up subversion.
“So this—” he jerked his chin at the roiling chaos around them. “Is a coincidence?”
“Yes!” she snapped. “She’s brand new! No connections, no baggage, nothing. Fuck!” She stomped her foot like she couldn’t contain it. “I even told Piggot she wasn’t with us! Bug Girl would take the deal and it would’ve been good for her! Who the hell dropped the ball this badly?!”
Brian stared at her. “You wanted her in the Wards? Why?”
It made no sense.
She flung her arms out in frustration, the insects parting around her. “Grue, this is a crash-out. I don’t know what set her off, but she’s taken over the entire HQ. The guard who was supposed to open our cells? Swarmed. Same with every other agent in the building. As far as I can tell, aside from Bug Girl, we’re the only ones still moving around in here.”
Fuck. Breaking into the PRT HQ was already enough to put you on the map, but taking it? This ‘brand new’ girl was racking up some serious rep. Brian couldn’t recall anyone pulling off anything even remotely close to this.
Alec gave a long, appreciative whistle. Even Rachel’s posture shifted at Lisa’s words.
“A-alright,” Brian said, stumbling over the word. “Let’s just get out of here. We can discuss thi–”
“We have to find her,” Lisa cut in.
“Why?” Alec asked, tilting his head. “I mean, thanks for the assist and all, but how is she suddenly any of our business?”
Brian was with him on that.
Lisa hesitated. “How exactly are we planning to get out of here? We don’t have the dogs—”
Rachel literally growled, making Lisa hurry to calm her down. “They’re fine! Argent intentionally aimed to avoid harming them!”
Thank God, he thought. The last thing they needed was Bitch going on a crusade against Argent.
She turned back to Brian. “The HQ is getting surrounded. Velocity should already be here, but with this many bugs in the air he might as well be trying to run through concrete. Armsmaster and the rest will be on-site any minute.”
“All the more reason not to linger,” Brian said.
“No, listen,” she pressed. “What if we take the swarm with us? Even if we grab a car from the motorpool, the second we break the perimeter every hero in range will be on us. But with Bug Girl? It’ll be a piece of cake!”
That… actually sounded solid.
“Alright,” he relented. “You know where she is?”
“I can find her. Just get me to a window.”
It took climbing several flights of stairs, and Lisa nearly toppling out of a window trying to look up, but eventually she managed to triangulate the heart of the swarm.
“Got her,” she said, rubbing her neck. Brian had to grab the back of her jumpsuit to keep her from tipping forward.
Outside, the world had turned into something out of a nightmare. The roiling mass of insects was so dense it blotted out the sun completely, casting everything in a sickly, shifting twilight.
He couldn’t tell how far it stretched, but it looked like the mass of bugs covered the entire precinct. The endless buzzing created a low, oppressive hum that crawled under the skin.
And if the outside looked apocalyptic, the inside felt like a horror set. Empty corridors. Overturned furniture. Papers strewn everywhere, soaking in coffee from shattered cups.
Worst of all, human-sized cocoons.
“Please tell me these aren’t people,” Brian begged Lisa as they walked past.
“They are.”
“What is she doing with them? Are they dead?”
“No.”
“I think I know what this is,” Alec leaned closer to one of the cocoons. “She’s impregnating them with larvae,” he concluded.
“She’s not doing anything!” Lisa snapped. “People got swarmed by creepy crawlies; naturally some fainted. Bug Girl’s... restraining them? I don’t know. I’m not sure how much of this is conscious action.”
That wasn’t something Brian liked to hear.
“Tattletale, we are at ground zero,” he said, grabbing her wrist. “Are you telling me we could get attacked any moment?”
“I’m telling you, Grue, she’s crashing out. From what I’m getting, she’s been stockpiling insects all week. In the walls, the vents, everywhere. Nearby buildings even—her range is huge! Then something set her off and she went full Carrie. I... I think she ordered her swarm to attack the PRT, and we aren’t the PRT...” her face scrunched. “But bugs wouldn’t know the difference, so that means she can see... no, she can’t, insect vision is too different... Sound... Touch? We’ve been tagged all this time! Bug Girl is constantly aware of each individual bug! She controls each bug individually!”
That was... Brian couldn’t even imagine how that worked.
“Damn,” Alec complained. “I can barely coordinate four people, and she does all this? Talk about unfair.”
“So she ordered the swarm to avoid us?” Brian pressed.
“Not consciously,” Lisa said slowly. “I think she just attacked everyone she perceives as enemies. The PRT has been so shitty to her that we look good in comparison... Actually, we might be the only people who’ve had her back in a while,” she finished sadly.
“How certain are you?”
“She knows we’re getting close.” Lisa met his eyes. “If she wanted us down, we would be.”
“Tattel—”
“Suck it up, Brian!” she snapped. “We’re committed. I’ll talk her down.”
His jaw clenched, but Lisa was right. No use getting cold feet now.
They found Bug Girl on an overturned office floor, curled beneath a table. If not for Lisa’s power, they would have walked right past her, missing the dark shape tucked amid the chaos of toppled desks, scattered paperwork, and the constant churn of insects.
Bug Girl was hugging her knees tightly, hiding her face. If there was crying, it was masked by the droning of her swarm. The posture—the desire to fold in on yourself and disappear—wasn’t unfamiliar. And it wasn’t pleasant to look at.
“Oh, honey,” Lisa said softly. “What did they do to you?”
She stepped forward carefully, like approaching a wounded animal.
The moment Tattletale passed some invisible threshold, the bugs ceased their passive avoidance and covered the blond head to toe.
Brian’s muscles went taut.
Lisa didn’t flinch. It couldn’t have been comfortable for someone as germophobic as Lisa, but she stoically kept moving forward before lowering herself carefully in front of the girl.
“Hey, Bu—” Lisa cut herself off mid-syllable. Instead of finishing it, she pulled down her mask. “I’m Lisa. What’s your name?” she asked softly, ignoring the insects crawling over her freckled face.
Names weren’t traded lightly in their line of work. Between teammates, sure, but asking an unaffiliated party for theirs was a serious faux pas. Revealing your own wasn’t much better, and could be misconstrued in a number of ways; from stupidity to a trap, applied pressure or calculated imbalance.
But if Bug Girl noticed, she didn’t comment on it.
Brian resolved to trust Lisa. He had no idea how to console someone in that state, so hopefully the Thinker knew what she was doing.
Silence stretched, until...
“...Taylor.”
Her tone was… finished. Not angry, not even particularly sad, simply drained. Flat and lifeless.
“Good to meet you for real, Taylor. It’s been a rough day, hasn’t it?”
No response.
“You can tell me, you know?” Lisa prompted gently. Still kneeling, still letting the insects crawl over her skin. The only sign of discomfort Brian could spot was how tightly his teammate was gripping her own kneecaps. “I’ll listen. Promise.”
“They knew.”
Her voice was monotone, but it somehow resonated with the buzzing. Not an echo, exactly, but a momentary impulse that rippled through the entire swarm.
It was eerie enough to make Alec shift his weight while Rachel bared her teeth in distress.
“They?” Lisa repeated invitingly.
“All of them. Piggot, the Wards, Armsmaster, Miss Militia. The whole PRT knew.” Still droning, but there was unmistakable moisture creeping into the girl’s voice now.
And then the floodgates opened.
“M-Miss Militia was so nice to me, so convincing. I didn’t believe her, but some stupid part of me did, you know?” she choked. “And... And then I walked in and saw her, and she was having a great time, and she had that face, like every time they bullied me. And the others were the same. They were already laughing, already had been making jokes about me and—”
The girl was babbling now, sobbing words spilling out too quickly to follow. Brian had zero context for what was going on, but hopefully Tattletale’s power did.
“I always thought it was because of Alan, but it was her, always her. She hated me from day one and I don’t know why. Then Emma hated me, and the school hated me, and Dad hated me—”
Her voice cracked on the last word.
“Why does everyone hate me?” she whispered in a small voice.
It... it was raw.
The kind of honest, helpless confusion you’d expect from a child—only it hit harder because the voice belonged to an adult, choking on her tears.
Brian’s heart clenched. Open displays of vulnerability like that made him uncomfortable.
He never was one of those sensitive guys. He knew it. Not that he couldn’t empathize with people, it’s just that growing around tough people made you yourself tough.
If someone at the gym felt down, you tossed them boxing gloves, dragged them into the ring, maybe trash-talk a bit to lit a fire under them. Beat the sulking out of them, and let them hit you back to regain the sense of strength and control.
Wasn’t pretty but worked like a charm.
That was with guys, though. Women didn’t need to hide their vulnerability, and Brian was all out of practice with how to deal with it. Hug them and tell them it’ll be alright? That didn’t sound like enough.
Say what you want about Aisha, but all else aside, his sister was strong. Her worst had been miles better than what was in front of Brian right now, and he had almost killed the man responsible.
“I don’t hate you,” Lisa said softly. Even if it was simply the truth, the way she said it was surprisingly caring. “Look, let’s get you out of here, okay? This place is awful, and I think we’re all done with it.”
“Why? They know who I am. W-where I live. I have nowhere to go,” her voice cracked. “It’s over. My life’s over.”
In a baffling display of malfunctioning self-preservation instincts, the blonde practically lunged forward, grabbing the distraught girl by the shoulders.
“Nothing is over, girl!” she barked into the gleaming yellow lenses. “You hear me? Nothing!”
The bugs crawling Tattletale’s body sped up and the air shifted as waves of wings and chitin began to converge on her.
If Brian flooded the floor with his power, would that help? There were so many damn bugs!
“So what if the PRT knows your face? Rachel’s been living like that for years and she’s doing fine!” Lisa dared to force a bright smile despite insects crawling all over her face. “She’s been through a lot, you know? Her mother was awful, her every foster parent was awful, until the last one tried to kill her puppy—her only friend. The whole world failed her, but she never gave up. Now? She’s got her own shelter and like a hundred dogs in it.”
Brian had already braced himself to tackle Bitch to the ground before she lunged at Lisa and got them all killed. Surprisingly the expected violent reaction to airing her personal history never came. Not even a peep.
Rachel didn’t exactly look happy, but stayed still. Very still, in fact. Her eyes moved constantly, trying to track every insect in the air.
He could relate.
“I can’t go to college anymore. Mom was a professor, and I won’t even have a GED.”
“Pfft, girl. We can get you a master’s degree in, like, a few weeks,” Lisa scoffed theatrically. “Ah, but you don’t want it to be fake, do you? You want to prove yourself. We’ll get you a new identity! Ironclad! Brian over there had his whole life faked just to get custody—”
“Tattletale, what the fuck!”
“—over his little sister, so he can give her a good home! Fooled CPS like it was nothing!” her tone was getting increasingly manic. “Taylor-kun, this isn’t even a problem! Political science? Engineering? Sociology? Ah, Literature! A little makeup, a new name, and you’ll be defending a thesis in front of the committee!”
“...Dad will be angry,” Taylor whispered.
“Alec’s dad is Heartbreaker.”
He what?!
Brian’s head snapped toward his only male teammate.
“Do you know what he’s been through? His head’s all fucked up like you wouldn’t believe, but he’s trying to be better. Seriously. Trying to learn how to care about people, because he thinks it’s the right thing to do.”
Neither Alec’s mask nor his posture betrayed the slightest reaction to this sudden revelation about his hidden depths and tragic backstory. The guy just stood there languidly, observing the scene with arms crossed.
Was Lisa just making shit up to earn the girl’s trust? Alec was lazy and an asshole, but... yeah, perhaps not nearly as much of an asshole as he should be.
Heartbreaker. Fuck.
Was it too much to hope they parted on amicable terms and that it wouldn’t come back later to bite the team in the ass?
“We can all relate to what you’re going through, Taylor. But you know what? We’ve never given up. And neither did you. You’ve fought all this time, right?”
The girl didn’t respond.
“Just keep fighting,” Lisa begged. “There’s something you want, right? Something important enough that you went up against Lung for it.”
“…I just wanted to be a hero,” she whispered.
“And you still can be!” Lisa shot back instantly. “So what if the PRT throws a fit? Who cares about them? You’ve seen how awful they are, and that’s not even half of it! Real heroes do the right thing, regardless of what other people think!”
What was Lisa even talking about? How was any of that supposed to work? At this point Brian was pretty sure Lisa was just whispering sweet nothings in her ear.
Lisa pushed herself to her feet and held out a hand. “Don’t give up, Taylor. Just come with us, hm? We’ll get greasy pizza, soda… coffee? Tea? Yeah, some hot, fresh tea. Sounds good, right? Then a hot shower and a looong sleep. Everything will feel better in the morning, you’ll see. Just take my hand.”
Yellow lenses stared at Tattletale.
“Why are you doing this?”
The blonde hesitated. “…I just don’t want to stand by and watch you suffer.”
Brian didn’t want to be uncharitable, because he genuinely considered Lisa a friend, but he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow. The Lisa he knew did look out for her own—but going out of her way to help random strangers?
Nope. Not Lisa.
Worked like a charm, though. Slowly, hesitantly, Bug Girl took Lisa’s hand.
The moment their fingers touched, the bugs exploded from Tattletale, dispersing into the surrounding mass.
“Great!” his teammate flashed a winning grin. “You won’t regret this, Taylor. Trust me.”
She turned to the rest of them. “Now let’s get ourselves a car and get out of here.”
***
In the end, escaping the PRT headquarters had been almost laughably easy.
To be fair, whatever cordon the organization had hastily organized was never going to hold up against the sheer size of the apocalyptic swarm. How do you even pursue a vehicle, when everything within a two-block radius has turned into a hazardous environment that actively attacked you?
According to Lisa, only Glory Girl had managed to stay inside the swarm at all, and even she couldn’t see for shit. It didn’t help that they never stayed where anyone would expect them to be: not at the neat, obvious center of the bug storm.
They shook off pursuit simply by diving into an underground parking lot at the edge of Downtown to switch cars while the swarm passed them by toward Captain’s Hill.
Which was just as well, because by the time they got there, Taylor—the only one able to navigate inside the swarm—couldn’t drive and totally wrecked the nice Audi they borrowed from the PRT.
Regent wouldn’t shut up about being right that they should have stolen an armored van. Apparently, spending the extra time to find and remove trackers was totally worth it, if it allowed them to get their own ‘Undercar’.
From there, they safely made it back to their lair.
Despite what Lisa promised Bug Girl, there was no celebratory dinner. Everyone was too tired, and their guest was dead on her feet from sheer emotional burnout. By the time they’d peeled out of the prison jumpsuits, Taylor was already dozing.
Lisa gracefully offered her own room for Taylor to use.
When the blonde emerged after putting the girl to sleep in her bed, Brian had already been waiting.
He’d have preferred the rest of the team with him for peer pressure, but Alec immediately plopped his lazy ass on the couch and refused to move, while Rachel had to be physically stopped from bolting to the dog shelter. Even then, it only worked because the boss would have sent someone to look after the animals.
Not one for simply waiting, she was at the fridge, grabbing a bite.
“Alright, Lisa,” he crossed his hands. “Care to explain why you decided to blow our identities?”
Lisa rolled her eyes. “She’d have learned them pretty soon anyway.”
Yeah. Brian had already suspected that had been her plan.
“So you unilaterally decided to make Bug Girl part of the team?” he demanded testily. They had a process for that, and that process involved voting, not Tattletale making decisions for the whole team.
“She doesn’t really like being called Bug Girl. Or Five.”
“Lisa!”
“Alright, fine!” She threw up her hands. “Look, we were already looking to recruit someone anyway. She’d make a nice substitution for Spitfire.”
“Yeah?” he raised an eyebrow. “And what does Rachel have to say about it, hm?”
“She can stay,” the girl in question grunted, chewing on week-old jerky.
“Huh?” Brian took a double-take at the unexpected turn of events. If anyone would have had a problem with Lisa’s stunt, it was Rachel. The Spitfire recruitment fell through because Bitch drove her away.
Deliberately, because there was hazing, and then there was siccing a pack of dogs on the newbie.
...How come every woman in Brian’s life was so troublesome? Alec had been raised by the most infamous Human Master in the world and never caused problems.
Must have that Canadian in him.
“Won’t turn on us. Nowhere else to go. A bit of a wuss, but less than Spitfire. Bit back when push came to shove,” she curtly listed her reasoning.
“See!” Lisa gestured with both hands. “Even Rachel approves.”
The heavy look she got in return indicated that Bitch didn’t approve of Lisa, but it wasn’t important right now.
“Alec,” he grunted.
“Eh,” the prettyboy shrugged, booting the game console. “Don’t care either way. Lisa’s got a point—we were looking for someone anyway. Bug Girl’s obviously a heavy hitter. I mean, booting the PRT out of their own house? Legendary. And besides...” his tone turned lazy-sly, “We’re already halfway to making it a life-long friendship.”
He gave Tattletale a smile that, more than usual, didn’t reach his eyes. “I’ve gotta say, Lisa, that was impressive. A masterclass in manipulation. Just…” He blew her a chef’s kiss. “My old man never had the need for anything so pedestrian, but back home you learned what makes people tick and how to pull the strings. Helped to avoid dad’s moods—or put someone else in the line of fire.”
Looked like Brian wasn’t the only one pissed at the blonde for spilling their beans.
Lisa turned away from him, hugging her shoulders. “All I’ve said is true.”
“Really?” Brian asked, skeptical. “So her joining a villain team is step one in the process of becoming a hero?”
“I mean, if you step back from the PRT labels, ‘hero’ is a very subjective term.” At his unimpressed stare, she amended. “Look, Brian. What she actually wants is a place to belong. She’s been lonely and socially isolated for a long while. Treat her with a modicum of decency and she’ll warm up to us in no time. Everything else?” she made a small, helpless gesture. “Secondary.”
“Wow, Lisa, wow,” Alec mimed tipping a hat. “A vulnerable girl in difficult circumstances with nowhere else to go. Toss her a few scraps of attention and she’ll be eating out of your palm. I’d say game recognizes game, but this is one of those rare moments where I get to claim the moral high ground.”
“That’s not what’s happening and you know it!” Lisa snapped, spinning on him. “That girl was breaking at the seams! Still is! Am I being manipulative? Maybe! But it’s better than leaving her to her own devices!”
He just kept going. “Am I being groomed too?” He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I know you like them even younger, but—”
“Fuck you, Alec! What do you even want from me? An apology for airing your dirty laundry? Fine! I’m sorry! But we were on the clock, and I needed her to trust us—all of us.”
“Noticed you tactfully kept back your own,” Regent pointed out.
Lisa opened her mouth—then shut it again. For once, there was nothing clever to say. Brian raised an eyebrow too. Normally he would’ve stepped in, cut this off before it turned into a pile-on, but… yeah. The blond had earned some comeuppance.
“I ran from home, spent a year on the streets, and my name isn’t Lisa. Happy?” She scowled.
No one answered.
“Sarah. It’s Sarah. Don’t call me that.”
Brian exchanged glances with Alec. The guy shrugged, as if saying that was the best they were going to get.
“We done?” Rachel grumbled at Brian, already itching toward the door.
“No. We still need—”
The phone in his pocket chose this moment to start buzzing.
Pinning Rachel in place with a look, he stepped out of the loft to take the call.
“Hey, Rick, what’s up?”
“Hey, Brian! Where’ve you been, man? Almost gave up on reaching you,” a raspy voice said from the other end.
Rick was something of a retainer. Brian slipped him a few bills now and then to keep an eye on his mom’s apartment. They lived on the same floor.
“Busy,” Brian said curtly. They weren’t friends. “What’s the matter?”
Rick made a sound like he was taking a drag. He probably was. Whenever they talked, the guy reeked of weed, which was one of the reasons Brian never really liked him.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah. Listen, there’s been some commotion at your mom’s a bit earlier. Didn’t last long, but sounded like someone’s ass was getting busted.”
“What?! When?”
“Uhhhh… like half an hour back?”
“Did you call the police?” he demanded.
“Hey, I don’t need the heat, man—”
Fucker! Brian dropped the call and rushed out of the loft.
***
The mad dash to his car and then to his mom’s place was nostalgic, in a sense that half that word meant pain. Or so Brian had heard.
People were generally aware of trigger events, but a lot less people than you’d think knew the details, and half of them were wrong.
The majority simply thought it was the first time capes used their power. Or maybe some kind of awakening.
Brian had been the same. He hadn’t even realized he triggered at first, only figuring it out when his hands reflected all wrong in the mirror.
Obviously, he had questions.
Researching it on the Internet revealed there were none. Just theories that offered nothing concrete and muddied the waters. Extreme emotions, crisis points, pivotal moments, broken limiters... Zero proof.
So Brian had decided to hear answers straight from the horse’s mouth and stumbled onto an old interview where the Triumvirate explained their triggers.
Alexandria spoke about being your best self and never giving up. Work hard and overcome your limits until you triumphed in a burst of excellence that crystallized into amazing powers beyond human imagination.
Funny how well that fit Brian.
He had worked hard on his body and skills. He had triumphed over the bastard that made his childhood hell.
But all he could remember of that night was the feeling of monumental failure.
Countless hours spent at the gym. Sweat, blood, and tears spilled under the heavy blows of Dad, other trainers, and Brian’s gym buddies. All so he could look in the mirror at his large form and tell himself, ‘No one’s going to mess with this Brian.’
All so he wouldn’t be weak ever again.
But standing in Mom’s living room that night, in front of Steven? It was like none of that mattered. Like the past years never happened. He was still that weak and soft boy he’d always been.
Worse than weak, he was a failure.
Because the thing was? Standing between the guy and sobbing Aisha, Brian had realized that while he was working out at the gym, wrapped up in his own head and his own problems...
Aisha had been left behind, dealing with all the shit Brian had run away from. Out of sight, out of mind.
Guilt, shame and fear were so thick it was like standing in a noxious cloud. No matter how much air he took in, he simply couldn’t breathe. No matter how much he willed his body to move, he couldn’t.
All he wanted in that moment was to crawl into the darkest corner and hide. Take Aisha with him, and hide from that horrible, towering figure looking down on his small, insignificant form.
Then he fainted.
Everyone did during their trigger events, but Brian hadn’t known that at the time.
So when he came to on the floor, blinking up at the ceiling, his brain filled in the obvious answer: Steven did this. And from there everything collapsed into raw instinct—fight-or-flight with no room left for thought.
Hysteria.
The only thing that saved Brian from murder charges was Aisha. Even in that moment of tear-stricken panic, she managed to keep a cooler head than her oaf of a brother and try to pull him back.
Try being the key word. What actually snapped him out of it was her pained cry when his elbow caught her and sent her down hard.
Only then did he notice all the blood, and that the man, who was neither bigger nor stronger than Brian, was not moving and was barely breathing.
So yeah, he did triumph in the end.
Didn’t feel like it one bit.
Now, he was frantically searching his pocket for the key to his mom’s apartment he’d surreptitiously made, praying this wouldn’t be a repeat of that night. Or worse.
Mom’s boyfriends had gotten progressively worse over the years, and Brian would take anything—anything—over Aisha getting hurt.
Brian barged inside, nearly ripping the door off the hinges, and immediately felt it: something was very off. There wasn’t time to place it, though, not until he saw Aisha.
Was she safe? Was she alright?
He stampeded through the apartment, stopping at each room just long enough to see it empty, before finally reaching the kitchen.
The first thing he saw was his sister. Safe, sound, and quietly sitting at the table. Looking very glad to see him. Relieved, even.
His own sense of relief hit so hard, it almost made Brian sink to the floor.
Only then did he see a beaten-up body on that same floor and… someone short and familiar near the stove. Stirring the pot calmly and studying him with piercing amber eyes.
Wait… amber eyes, red hair, short…
Why was Lisa’s hooker here?!
Ever since Brian had walked in on him and his teammate, the boy had become the center of some very strained conversations among the team.
On one hand, he hadn’t started his career expecting clean hands. Villainy came with compromises: working with people of dubious moral character, doing jobs you didn’t ask too many questions about—that kind of stuff. Part of the parcel.
Take Epoch, for example. That asshole had not only left Brian with a strong dislike for time manipulation, but also with an overall impression that made it unsurprising to hear the Adepts had been taking advantage of children and the elderly.
On the other hand, there were lines Brian was unwilling to cross.
Lisa had spat and sworn she wasn’t hiring underage hookers. Her case was that the boy was a regular handyman, she wasn’t into young boys, and her power made physical intimacy icky anyway.
But, well... every one of those arguments fell flat, when every once in a while, Lisa would put on a ton of expensive make up—the kind you only noticed when you regularly saw a girl without—and a combination of stockings and a mini-skirt that left an enticing patch of skin visible in a way that could only be deliberate.
Seductive.
Alec had also taken one look at her hairdo and called it ‘the perfect grab bars,’ which, Brian had to admit... They were.
There was also the fact that Lisa had started doing beauty treatments she never cared about before. Like wearing cream masks every evening she spent at the loft.
Could be a coincidence, but while Brian didn’t know much about make up, fitness was another story. Lisa’s latest routine was very focused on glutes.
Suffice to say, nobody believed her, and the only question was whether the boy was a hooker or something else.
Then Regent had sneaked into her room searching for clues, only to find a frankly inappropriate number of photos, obviously taken without notice or permission. Not that he had to search hard, since they were all pinned to a wooden board in the middle of the room.
They all had been very uncomfortable around Lisa ever since.
…Well, Brian was uncomfortable. Rachel didn’t care, and Alec cared only insofar as it let him poke at Lisa.
And now that same hooker was standing in his mom’s kitchen. Cooking.
Before Brian could say anything, there was a spark of recognition in the hooker’s eyes. “Ah, you are Lisa’s boyfriend. I remember you.”
After delivering that baffling statement the hooker threw a glance at Aisha, who mimed zipping her mouth and throwing away the key.
“I see. Well, I believe you can sort this mess out?” he asked, gesturing with casual ease at the unconscious man on the floor. “You look like a capable lad, and your sister has been awfully insistent on letting you handle it.”
Who the fuck was that, even?
His brain was already running on fumes and there were so many questions that Brian didn’t even know where to start. His brain felt like a PC stuck on reboot.
“He totally can! Right, Brian?” Aisha’s eyes bored into him.
Feeling totally lost, he could only nod dumbly.
“Well, that’s that then,” the boy said, before turning to Brian with a serious expression. “I understand this is a family issue, but I would still strongly advise involving the police.”
“Yeah-yeah, you’ve already been a big help,” Aisha cut in fast. “You should go now. Weren’t you late for something?”
The boy glanced at the dim night beyond the kitchen window. The sun had set already. “I suppose you’re right. My sister is no doubt chomping at the bit to scold me for unprofessional behavior, or some such,” he sniffed, and then bowed slightly to the west, managing to make it both formal and sardonic. “Thank you for having me.”
“Wait!” Aisha jumped off the chair and rummaged through the unconscious guy’s pockets. After a moment she fished out a wallet, took out a few bills, and pocketed the majority.
She sauntered to the boy and tucked the bills under his collar. “It was awful at first, but the ending was very satisfying. Let’s do this again sometime,” she winked saucily.
Brian knew he had to say something—anything—but the only thought on his tired mind was that a literal hooker dressed more modestly than his sister, with her cropped top, short-shorts, and fishnets.
The boy sighed in exasperation. “Did you actually have any money to begin with?”
“There are other ways to pay,” Aisha sing-songed, waggling her eyebrows.
Shaking his head, the boy stepped out of the kitchen. His last parting words from the hallway were, “Don’t forget to turn off the stew.”
The clap of the front door finally broke Brian out of his daze.
“AISHA, WHAT THE FUCK?!” he screamed.
“Hey, bro,” she replied flatly. “Did you drop the soap?”
“AISHA!”
“That’s my name,” she droned. “Don’t wear it out.”
“Why was the hooker here?!”
Aisha paused, actually considering her answer. Then she looked him over with that critical, too-smart stare she got when she was about to be a problem on purpose.
“A girl has needs,” she said finally.
“Ais—”
“You know,” she continued, cutting him off without effort, “it’s funny how you’re more bothered by that than a literal body on the floor.”
Brian’s gaze slipped down. “...Who the hell is that?”
“Meet Trevor,” Aisha said. “Mom’s new, and soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.”
It was… just a guy. The usual flavor Mom went for: on the larger side, tough enough to be a bouncer and so shady you instantly knew he could get you drugs.
The only unusual part—besides the unmistakable signs of a severe beating—was that Brian had never seen him. Which was strange, because Brian made it a point to meet Mom’s boyfriends early and make sure Steven never happened again.
“What happened to… what’s his name? Liam? Lyle?”
“Lonnie,” Aisha waved a hand. “Died a while back. Crossed the wrong crowd during the Empire riots. Pity. I liked that one. You spooked him good.”
“Why’s he…” Brian’s frown deepened as he finally noticed another strange detail. “Where’d you get zip-ties?”
Both Trevor’s hands and feet were bound tight.
God, I’m really out of it. It’s been such a long day.
Aisha’s eyes darted around. “Uh… they’re cheaper than cuffs?”
“I mean,” she drawled, carefully avoiding to look at him, “If you’re in the mood, it doesn’t really matter if it’s plastic or metal, right?”
Brian rolled that around in his head for a few seconds. Let the implications click into place with a slow, miserable inevitability.
“They’re the hooker’s,” he said.
“Yep,” the little gremlin chirped, popping the last syllable.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and slowly counted to ten.
“Aisha. Why have I walked in on a tied-up man and a hooker in your kitchen?”
There had to be a reasonable explanation, right?
“Well, I thought to myself, how is it fair that only Brian gets to have a cavity search—”
“Aisha,” he warned, done with her antics.
“Ugh,” she plopped back into the chair and dropped her head on the table, looking absolutely spent.
Again, there was that feeling of wrongness that Brian couldn’t quite put his finger on.
“Okay, this one?” she said, pointing at the sleeping body without looking. “He’s bad news, Brian. Real bad news. The kind you don’t want to be alone in a room with.”
His blood ran cold. “What did he do?”
“Nothing yet, but only because I haven’t given him the opportunity. Other than that? Well, let’s just say he has wandering hands, bad eyes, and he doesn’t take a hint. I know danger when I see it.”
Brian breathed in relief. “Okay. So how does that turn into…” he nodded at the zip-tied bastard on the floor, “…this?”
“Well, when Mom mentioned Trevor got her an invite to this cool party and she’d be out for the night... Yeah. I knew something was up. The fucker’s been extra sleazy lately.”
Aisha made a face.
“Which is when I remembered a funny business card I found in your wallet. And my-oh-my, Brian,” her lips twisted into a smirk. “Does your girlfriend know? I knew hypermasculine was just another word for homoerotic, but damn. I feel bad for your beard.”
“It’s not—she’s not—” he scrambled for an explanation that wouldn’t involve sharing details about his cape life.
As a rule, Brian avoided talking work with his sister. Aisha—smart as ever in the most inconvenient ways—had long figured out he was a cape. Which cape in particular, had never been confirmed or denied. However, considering there were only so many capes in Brockton Bay that were male, in full cover and fit the timeline...
His identity being secret was only a polite fiction at this point.
Either way, Brian wanted to keep his sister as far from that world as possible.
“Anyway,” Aisha steamrolled right over him, “I called the guy here. Figured Trevor would back off if he saw a third party.”
Of course she fucking did. This was classic Aisha. The plan was so full of holes it was practically a sieve.
What if the hooker backed off instead? What if he got paid off? Decided to join in?
Did she think about any of that? Of course not. More likely she’d gotten an idea, decided she was a genius, and run with it.
With a heavy sigh, Brian’s tired body hit the chair on the opposite end of the table.
“That was stupid.”
What else was there to say?
“Well excuuuse me,” Aisha said, giving him a vicious stink eye. “My big bro was unavailable to handle my problems because he picked this week to fuck around with the Arms-family. Cops are out for the same reason. I’m guessing you don’t want the bluehats noticing you dropped off the radar, yeah?”
He was having none of that. She was angry at him—Brian got that. Didn’t change the fact that she was acting like an idiot.
Aisha had no clue how the game actually worked, and the police weren’t going to draw a straight line from Grue to Brian Laborn just because he’d been out of sight for a bit. Whatever problems his disappearance created could’ve been cleaned up with ease.
His sister was either rationalizing, or genuinely believed herself in the know by virtue of being related to a villain.
Besides, there was one glaring issue.
“Why not go to Dad’s?”
“And tell fucking what?” Aisha snapped. “That Mom got tangled up with another scumbag who had his eyes on me? Mom would looove it if he broke the restraining order.”
Fuck, he hadn’t considered that. Brian hadn’t been the only one who took Aisha’s safety seriously, but Dad had been far less patient and far less careful. Gotten burned for that.
“Where is she anyway?” Brian asked, mostly buying time to get his thoughts in order.
“Fuck if I know,” Aisha scowled, crossing her hands. “Ass up at some Merchant party or something. Wouldn’t be surprised if this guy’s got an in with Skidmark.”
Damn it all. Mom’s drug problem had been getting worse and worse, but if she was starting to source from the Merchants…
Brian’s fingers dug into the table hard enough to slip, the surface giving a faint creak. He glanced down... and saw his reflection in the tabletop.
Normally, Mom’s apartment could be charitably described as a pigsty: dust, grime, trash, leftovers. Sometimes, even used needles.
But looking around now?
The counter. The drawers. The pot simmering on the stove. The sink. The floor. Everything looked scrubbed to the point of sparkle. Even the walls looked… pristine.
That was what bothered Brian all this time!
“Finally noticed, huh?” Aisha smirked. “Shirou’s work.”
“The hooker?” Brian asked, taken by surprise, before his eyes lit up. “Wait, so he’s an actual handyman?”
“Nnnaaah,” Aisha drawled with a shit-eating grin, crushing his hopes. “He’s one hundred percent a hooker. The cheapest, nastiest hooker in the Docks, even. I mean, two tenners for, like, four hours of work? That’s how you know he’s in it for the love of the game!” she cackled. “That guy just loooves getting down and dirty.”
He cringed. He cringed hard.
Brian had hoped to avoid having this conversation. Hoped Aisha hadn’t done something as stupid as to sleep with a hooker. Despite all the evidence to the contrary.
“W-why would a hooker clean the house? And he cooked that, right?” he said, grasping at straws and pointing at the pot.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” Aisha struck a pose, one hand propping up the other elbow, finger pointing up. “It’s called the boyfriend experience, Brian. A virgin like you wouldn’t know, but every girl dreams about a guy who’ll clean the house, cook her dinner, and beat her mom’s boyfriend.”
“Beat—the hooker did that?” Brian stared at the bastard on the floor.
“Um,” she hesitated, “Yeah. Trevor was drunk. And high. Shirou barely had to do anything.”
Brian leaned over the table for a better look.
The guy’s face was bloody and swollen, but only on the left side of his face. If Brian saw something like that back at the gym, he’d say the guy had been knocked out with one of Marcus Laborn’s famous wallops.
But his dad was a towering six-foot-six, weighing in at 220 pounds. Lisa’s hooker had been barely taller than Aisha.
Did he hit this bastard with a bat? There hadn’t been any—
“It’s like a dominance display, you know?” Aisha kept talking, getting faster and louder. “My boyfriend can beat up your boyfriend, Mom, so you should listen to me and stop doing drugs type of thing. Talk about service, right? Shirou even introduced me to his family!”
“Wait, what?” Brian snapped his head toward her.
“Yeah, I had a chat with his sister,” she mimed holding a phone. “She’s his pimp or something. And ooh boy, from her tone? Shirou’s coming home for some serious bitchslapping.”
It was… none of his business. This day had already been long, and Brian had no time to care about the personal life of some random boy.
Even if the idea of someone exploiting their younger sibling in this manner made his stomach churn.
“Let me just get this straight,” Brian said in a last desperate attempt. “It was some weird roleplay thing? He was just here pretending to be your stay-at-home husband. You didn’t actually… y’know. Do anything. Right?”
“Oh, we did a lot, actually.” Aisha leaned back in her chair. “You see how tired and sweaty I am, bro? Shirou worked every surface while I got him all wet and slippery.”
She snorted.
“If you catch my drift.”
Brian’s face hit the table. “Why? Aisha, just why? Of all the stupid, irresponsible things you’ve done—”
“Because while you were having fun at the PRT,” she scowled, “I was sitting here wondering if I’d ever see your stupid ass again!”
Brian just stared at her. “You slept with a hooker to get back at me? Are you being serious?”
“Yes,” she jutted her chin. “And I’m going to do it again every time you get yourself tossed in a slammer.”
He had no words. Brian had spent a whole week in a cell, broke out and that was what he came back to? One week without his supervision, and...
No. No, he just didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with it right now. He’d snap, and she’d deserve it, but then she’d run away to do something even more stupid.
Later. They would have this conversation later.
“Whatever. Let’s just call the police.”
“Yeah, no. Look, Brian, this guy? He has to go.”
“What do you mean?”
A switchblade flashed in her hand.
“I know you’re a softy, bro,” she gave him a look. “So I can do the deed myself. But I’d really appreciate your help with the body.”
Brian’s eyes tracked the knife. Then Trevor on the floor.
Suddenly it clicked.
“…The hooker was here as a witness,” he said slowly.
“The hooker was here as an accessory to murder,” Aisha corrected. “Didn’t expect him to be that young or so good at fighting, though,” Aisha continued. “Good job showing up when you did, because I’d barely talked him out of calling the cops. Been lying out of my ass about my big buff bro coming home soon, ’cause the guy just refused to leave.”
Now her nonsensical plan started to make more sense. She wasn’t just counting on some random guy to protect her.
It was still moronic, but...
Just how bad had Mom’s new boyfriend actually been? Was Aisha telling him everything, or was she trimming the edges so he wouldn’t explode?
When would this end?
Brian knew the answer. It would only end in a few months, when he hit eighteen and took custody of Aisha. Until then…
He had no intention of leaving her behind again.
“Grab your things,” he ordered. “We’ll get you in the car, then I have a call to make. You’re staying at my place.”
Regent’s full power was too problematic to use most of the time. For something like this, though? Perfect.
And if Brian wouldn’t have put it past Alec to be okay with murder before, recent revelations only made him more certain the guy wouldn’t mind.
Honestly, the real challenge would be getting Alec to drag his lazy ass here.
“Turn off the stove,” Aisha said, pushing to her feet. “At least Mom will have something to eat when she gets back. If it doesn’t go bad.”
By the time they reached his car, Brian remembered something important as he held the door for his sister.
“By the way, we’re getting you a doctor’s appointment tomorrow.”
“Lisa, please take better care of your plumbing. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty, but that was seriously disgusting.”
“STDs are a serious issue.”
The panic on her face was immediate and spectacular.
“Wait! Brian, I was joking! We didn’t...!”
Brian shut the door in her face.
A/N
Honestly feels like two chapters. Do they work well together, or should I post them separately in other places?Also, when writing Sophia's chapter, I couldn't get over the question of what the fuck happened to Steven.
The story never really read like she killed him, but then why wouldn't Sophia of all people kill the person who caused her trigger? The only way I could reconcile it if she simply couldn't, but why? Then I got an idea when brushing up on her relationship with Grue. Honestly, considering all the similarities between Sophia and Brian, I wouldn't be surprised if in one of the earlier drafts of Worm they were either siblings, or versions of each other.
I mean, it's kind of weird how there are two abusive men who triggered two different kids with shadow powers at practically the same time. And, well, it had never been stated in Worm that Brian's mom's boyfriend lived with them right?
So my answer to that conundrum is that Steven was out of Sophia's reach by the time she mentally got to a place where she was prepared to do the did.