Chapter Text
In this line of work, you never knew what a new day could bring.
Miss Militia had been in the game more than long enough to expect the unexpected, indeed, things had been relatively calm for Brockton Bay of late. No rampages from Lung, a bare minimum of Empire 88 activity. She liked it when it was like this, when she could just get on with being an actual human alongside being a cape.
However, surprises still came even in these times.
“Potential Parahuman?” she asked, watching as the PRT agent before her nodded.
“The father said so, apparently they've been running into some troubles with her power and he's talked her around to coming to speak with us,” he explained, passing the paperwork to Hannah. She glanced it over. It was sparse with details, some transcript of a conversation between the aforementioned father and the person who had taken the call.
Of course, written transcripts struggled to convey emotion, so it read as a rather bland summation of facts.
The man's daughter had clearly triggered as a Parahuman, and in a way that permanently affected both her quality of life, her anonymity and in such a way that she could no longer lead a conventional life. Well, powers that affected a person in such a permanent way were unusual, but of course everybody knew about Case-53's, even if there weren't any in the ENE Protectorate or Wards, they liaised often enough with Boston, who had quite a few, to have read the guidelines on first interactions.
So all in all, there was some degree of precedent for what she was likely walking into here.
“Thanks, Henry.”
“Any time, chief. They're in for ten, err, room six.”
She nodded, and saw the man off.
Hannah didn't have much time to prepare, and her schedule was busy enough presently, she needed to review the Wards equipment in the next day or two after a few more requests had gone up the chain. Discussions about Vista and Clockblocker's loadout had been a hotly debated topic of late and unfortunately, it was going nowhere fast.
But still, as a matter of course, she checked her schedule for the day, handled a few smaller matters and prepared herself for this meeting, and when the time came, went down to room six.
The meeting room itself was not large, but not small either. It was a little bland really, with a window protected by a metal shutter that overlooked part of Lord's Street, although with how dreary and overcast the day was, there was not much to see.
Inside a man sat, arms neatly folded on the table, looking quite the picture of nerves. He wore a blank mask, although it was likely just a courtesy to protect his identity.
“Thank you for meeting me, sir, I believe you were the one who called the PRT about your daughter?
“Yes, that's correct,” he nodded.
“I was led to believe that she would be joining us?” she glanced at the chair beside him, which was empty.
The man promptly winced even as a small voice filled the air.
“HEY! I AM HERE!”
Hannah blinked, and looked down. Indeed, standing on the table beside her father's carefully placed hands was a person... a tiny person no taller than three or four inches tall, although with the way the girl had her hands on her hips, she was clearly very unimpressed with Hannah. Two sets of delicate, dragonfly like wings extended from the back of a tiny hooded jumper she was wearing.
... Okay, so the daughter was a fairy.
That was the first thought that struck her.
Even if she hadn't been raised with American fairy tales, you could only avoid such things to a certain degree when companies like Disney existed, and she had gone through a phase of watching old American films a while ago to familiarise herself with the culture.
The girl certainly glowered at her about as much as the fairy from the Peter Pan film.
Hannah coughed into her hand.
“Ah, sorry, I didn't see you there.”
“Hmph!”
Clearly, that was not the response the girl wanted, as she promptly crossed her arms and sat down on her father's forearm as if it were some manner of gigantic sofa.
Said father sent her a slightly strained and apologetic smile.
“Sorry, we've been through a bit over the last day or two,” he said.
Well, the paperwork had said that the man's daughter had gotten Parahuman powers, and it was obvious what they were... it was just a very unusual situation to deal with. So, trying to salvage the situation, Hannah took a seat carefully and did her best to put on an apologetic air.
“Sorry for that... anyway, we don't have a provisional name for you, what would you like me to call you for this meeting?”
“... I didn't really think about it, just call me... fuck it, Taylor.”
“Okay, Taylor, I am presuming you can fly?”
“Yeah...” after a moment, the girl took to the air---
And she was ridiculously fast. It was less flight than it was darting about from place to place, and in-between was a blur. Her wings were near invisible, she flew forwards, backwards, upwards and down with the same ease, like a human hummingbird. A faint hum filled the air as she did so, and all throughout she had her arms crossed over her chest, as if just a little self-conscious about being watched and putting on a show.
“Well, that's very impressive, I imagine that has made a lot of things easier for you in terms of every day living,” Hannah commented when the girl landed back on the table.
She didn't seem too winded by the effort, even though if she really was like a hummingbird, that probably took a lot of energy, and the sheer speed of it...
“I guess...”
“But you mentioned that you had been running into problems?” she asked.
“Yeah... I'm stuck like this,” the girl explained. “And I can't go back to normal, ever since the l---since I got my powers... and like, I'm stronger than I used to be, I can lift things that I probably shouldn't seeing how small I am.”
“So you're stronger proportionally... but even then---”
“Yeah...” the voice was mopey. “I can't even lift a full cup anymore, dad's been having to pour things into a shot glass for me... and I don't have any clothes except these,” she pulled at the hem of her hoodie. She didn't say any more, but her father took the opportunity.
“... I tried buying clothes for dolls, but they were too uncomfortable for her,” he explained, and the fairy on the table ducked her head, looking embarrassed.
It was quite an amusing thought, but Hannah managed to hide her reaction.
“Everything's a lot harder at this size, even if flying makes up for a lot of it,” the girl grouched.
“Well, that's very difficult, and I imagine school is rather impossible now as well?”
The girl said something under her breath, but Hannah did not manage to catch it. The girl's father, glancing at her, took the initiative and moved the conversation swiftly along.
“We're wondering if the PRT could help, we're kind of out of our depth here.”
PR would have an absolute field day with the girl if she could be convinced to join the Wards, a real life, pint sized fairy? Glenn Chambers would personally rip apart the building if he didn't have the opportunity to direct this one. But still, the PRT could certainly offer a lot of help, and it was clearly needed. Private tuition, help with sourcing various things to make the girl's life easier... the back and forth on points took quite awhile, but ultimately, it all went in one direction.
The girl, Taylor Hebert, would be joining the Wards.
Taylor was not a happy camper.
“... Tinker Bell.”
She said in a tone so dead and devoid of anything approaching emotion that she was honestly impressed. The sheer disdain with which she felt for the name was palpable, she could probably scrape it out of the air and spread on toast for its intensity.
Not that such was recognised by the PR team facing her, a trio of demons as terrible as the Three Blasphemies in her mind. Each meeting with them was a torture in itself.
The first gathering had been swift, they had decided on her 'angle' within seconds of meeting her, the immediate discussion had been about her outfit...
... She didn't actually mind the results of that conversation too much.
It was simple, it was sleek... fuck, it was elegant, a little white dress over pants, perhaps a little too feminine for her normal style, but she could bear it. To go with it was a tiny visor to disguise her identity (as if such mattered when she was permanently stuck at four inches tall!) and to complete the arrangement, a tiny rapier that was pretty sure would just be a modified sewing needle.
The PR team probably thought that they were being very smart, giving her such a tiny weapon.
But Taylor was pretty sure that they underestimated what a needle being stabbed into a person in the right place at speed could do... she would need to read up on her anatomy but a two-inch needle could definitely reach an artery in the neck, right? Or go right through an eyeball.
Presently, she was most certainly not considering the practical applications of such.
“It's genius, isn't it!” crowed the man of the hour, the terror of nine states and heroic Parahuman's across the nation, Glenn Chambers.
“Or madness.”
“My dear Tinker Bell, the two often go hand in hand,” the man gave her a knowing smile, like some manner of sagely patriarch dispensing wisdom to his juniors. At that moment, Taylor felt an overwhelming urge to throw the shot glass of water she had been provided at his head, preferably after accelerating to full speed.
She held back.
Barely.
She would be in the training rooms later, and would get to stab and throw things then. Or she could just go for a nice long fly to work out her nerves. There were countless things in this world that couldn't really be appreciated from ground level, and of late she had done a lot of flying far above peoples heads to look around the Bay.
Oh sure, strong winds were always an issue, but she flew at such speeds and with enough control that it was not really a problem most of the time.
But still.
“I don't like Tinker Bell as a name.”
“I'm sorry my dear, but there's almost nothing else, most fairy related names are quite unpopular because of the Fairy Queen.
Now she got to be compared to that maniac. Taylor sighed and tried to marshal some argument for another name... even as she sensed that there was virtually no budging on the matter. No, she would have to save her strength and pick her battles.
“We also considered 'Sprite' but we've run into problems with the Coca-Cola company before.”
What.
Oh, right, the drink called Sprite.
What the hell was her life!
The Ward's quarters only had so many rooms... and with Taylor at the height that she was, the bed provided was more akin to a football pitch than somewhere she could realistically sleep. She may have greater proportional strength, but getting out of a bed which had a blanket thicker than her entire body was not going to be easy.
The matter of bathing was also troublesome; a jet of water from a shower would knock her over, a bath was a decent sized lake in size and depth to her.
Unfortunately, the solution to these was not one that she found herself enthused by.
“... What the fuck is this? she asked, shoulders slumped as she stared with disdain at her new lodgings.
Her new quarters were, unmistakably, a large doll's house set atop the rooms' chest of drawers.
Admittedly, it was a lot more professionally made than the sorts you gave to kids to play with, with real glass in the windows and fully furnished with miniature furniture. It looked like the sort of doll house where the front could slide out on hinges, but the small door in the front centre also looked like it was completely functional, and there was a little platform for her to land on as well.
“It's your new home here. And language, I don't mind but the Director would.”
Taylor put her hands on her hips to convey her disdain, but Miss Militia didn't seem too fazed by it.
So she busied herself with exploring the doll's house.
It was, credit where it was due, probably expensive. The rooms were perhaps a little on the small side, but much closer to anything sized for her. Especially now that human sized rooms were vast caverns more akin to an aircraft hangar to her now than they once had been.
The doll's house had been properly upholstered, even if she was not very fond of the wallpaper, it was not as if she was some manner of interior decorator or snob for such things. She would need to ask for a piece of sandpaper or a nail file at some point though, there were a few rough edges that had not been caught and at her size, a splinter was a lot more painful to deal with than before.
In the kitchen there was tiny crockery and plates, and to her surprise---
“There's a few little pieces of Tinkertech, Armsmaster speciality is miniaturisation, so making you a tiny fridge, kettle, and a few other things didn't take him too long,” Miss Militia explained, her voice slightly muffled by the walls of her new home.
“... That's nice of him,” she admitted. There were no tea bags of course, but at this size, she could just dunk entire tea leafs in and strain them out with ease. “What about the bathroom?”
“All fully functional, getting it hooked up to the wall took a little while, it's why it's a bit late.”
“... Okay, maybe this rules.”
She would be able to actually have a bath without having to ask her dad to pour water from the kettle into a cereal bowl and then waiting for ages for it to cool down enough for her to use. It was so demeaning and made her so helpless and reliant on another person.
“What was that?” came the voice of Miss Militia from beyond the walls of her new home, and she replied;
“Nothing.”
The little sitting room had a slightly stiff sofa, the upstairs had a room entirely dedicated to being a wardrobe full of clothes for her that were actually comfortable and soft! They were perhaps in need of a little wearing in, but she would actually be able to wear them, which was the most important thing!
“We're having a second one made for your home so that you won't need to worry about troubling your father for basic amenities any more,” Miss Militia added.
Taylor nodded, then realised that the other woman couldn't see it.
“Thanks. I mean, it will make things a lot easier.”
Despite all the irritation and aggravation that had been caused by joining the Wards, it was impossible to deny that this little house arrangement would really make plenty of things easier. Even if it was just a little demeaning to be living in what functionally amounted to a child's toy.
Her good mood was spoiled by the arrival of a certain Ward.
She had enjoyed a somewhat interesting series of interactions with her fellow Wards.
Gallant and Aegis were alright, she had seen little of Kid Win and Vista had been delighted to have a 'Ward smaller than her', which had irritated her. Shadow Stalker was... yes.
But the worst of them all---
“Hey Tinks, congrats on getting on the property ladder!” crowed Clockblocker.
She stepped over and opened a window, pushing a head out. From here, Clockblocker and Miss Militia were a pair of titans stood in a doorway that was in the far distance.
“I will stab you!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, and a delighted cackle was the response from the white clad Ward.
She got her revenge later that night through the use of a pair of nail scissors; Dennis was a deep sleeper, and the hysterical scream upon waking to find his eyebrow had been cut off had been delightful.
Despite the stipulations of a Wards contract requiring a certain amount of activity across multiple categories, it would be foolish to think it was divided equally across everyone.
A Ward with a Thinker power typically was required to do far fewer patrols than a high rating Brute, it's just common sense to have the former on console and the other communicating back.
Taylor had a power that was very useful in one way, but not in others.
She was very weak compared to her fellow Wards, even the slap of an irritable child could knock her out of the air if her superhuman reactions didn't save her. She could contribute to fights as a highly mobile asset, although she had not tried using her little rapier yet (taking out eyes was perhaps something not to be considered lightly) but she could help in other ways!
But on the plus side, she was an outstanding reconnaissance asset.
The downside...
“FUCK OFF!” Taylor screamed at the top of her lungs as she carefully evaded the menace chasing her. She could easily outspeed them, but this one was canny and had tried to ambush her from above.
Taylor shot downwards, darting as swiftly as a hummingbird through the gaps of a billboard, and was gratified to hear her pursuer slam into its back.
“Tinker Bell come in, what's going on!”
“A seagull tried to take its chances,” she grouched, glowering around her in case another bird felt like trying to make her lunch.
There was silence from the Console.
At least Gallant was kind enough to silence the line whenever he burst into laughter at the punchline that was her life.
“Are you okay?” he asked, a second or two later, and whilst he did a decent job of hiding his mirth, there was still a hint of it there.
“Yeah... anyway, not seeing any trouble along the boardwalk...” she said. “Decently busy here today, I'll keep an eye out.”
Beyond marauding predatory birds, almost nothing contested her command of the air. Even though there were other fliers in Brockton Bay, most of them didn't have the visual acuity to see a four-inch tall figure flying in the distance, something she had used to her advantage to tail Rune the other evening, constantly relaying information back to base until other Heroes could catch up.
But there was nothing going on today.
Not even Glory Girl chasing her down trying to talk her ear off, Victoria Dallon had taken a shine to her, for better or worse she wasn't sure.
Probably worse, popular girls like her and Emma were always trouble.
She called in to Dean to check the time, and was gratified to see she was ahead of schedule, which mean't she had time for a treat.
Flitting down towards the ground, she moved to the front of an ice cream stand.
“Hey,” she called out, making sure to speak up to catch the vendor's attention.
“Oh? Ah, hello, Tinker Bell!”
Because she needed plenty of food to fuel her flight, numerous street vendors had gotten used to her stopping by to grab some. It was something of a security risk, but at the same time, her public image was certainly helped a lot by people taking pictures of her patronising local businesses.
She was... really, really popular with young girls in the 'Disney Princess phase.' Apparently a few bits of her merchandise had sold out already, and PR wanted her to do once weekly meetings with fans that came to came on tours to the Headquarters.
The idea terrified her.
“Mummy, look there's a fairy!”
“Hey, is that the fairy girl?”
Taylor tried not to hunch her shoulders, even as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She still wasn't used to the attention, after years of being bullied for her appearance by the gruesome threesome, it felt wrong to have people cooing over her just because she looked like a damn fairy.
Even now there were children getting closer, trying to get a good look at the freak---
“Same as normal, Tinker Bell?”
“Yeah, I mean, yes please Mike,” she said, distracting herself, but ready to dart to the side the moment one of their little hands tried to grab her out of the air.
Instead of giving her a whole cone and a scoop of ice cream probably heavier than she was, Mike cut off the end of the cone with a sharp knife and made an extra small scoop of vanilla to sit on top. The result was comically small compared to the man's hand, and even though it was only an inch and a half long, it was practically the size of her torso.
“Thanks Mike,” she smiled at him, and began patting down her dress for the tiny business credit card that Armsmaster had made for her---
“Don't worry about it Tinker Bell, something tells me business might be going up in the next few minutes,” the man gave her a grin, and Taylor smartly rose a few feet in the air before anybody could make a lunge for her.
Well, she would take the free ice cream... it was so tiny it probably barely cost him anything, and by the looks of it, she had brought him some new customers for the next few minutes.
She gave a little wave to a few of them, and several cheers and big waves back were her reward.
Okay, maybe it was a little adorable.
Landing atop the roof of the ice cream stand, she ate her treat in relative peace, and then zoomed off to continue her patrol.
This bank robbery was going well.
Lisa had warned the others about the costume switch in the Wards, so they wouldn't be taking them by surprise, and they had been able to grab the money and create quite a commotion. Quite why their mysterious benefactor was so keen for them to rob Brockton Bay Central Bank was unknown to her, indeed, a lot of their directives were an infuriating mystery, but she was slowly piecing things together with time.
But more of that could come later, right now, she needed her head in the game.
The plan to send out the hostages first and then have Grue release a cloud of darkness had worked out well, Angelica and Brutus had Aegis on lockdown. Bitch was riding Judas towards Vista even as Gallant and Kid Win tried to take her down with various blasts and lasers---
Boof!
She blinked.
A large bubble of containment foam had expanded, engulfing Bitch even as she was atop her dog. Which one of the Wards had containment foam? Just a glance earlier had indicated that none of them were armed with grenades, her power hadn't noticed anything.
Lisa narrowed her eyes.
Aegis was busy in combat with the dogs, Clockblocker had somehow time frozen himself and Grue's cloud of darkness was doing its job. So who had thrown the grenade? Shadow Stalker wasn't present and anyway, she normally used a crossbow... maybe Kid Win fired it?
Bzzzt!
There was a sound, a humming, and a blur in the corner of her vision
She whipped around---
And then something was being sprayed in her eyes.
Pepper Spray.
Her power didn't need to help with that one, she could tell that it was pepper spray from the rapidly building agony, thank you very much---
And then it was sprayed into her mouth.
It was difficult to describe just how utterly ghastly the taste was even as her eye wept and, automatically, she reached up to rub at her eye, which only worsened it. She could barely see, she couldn't talk properly for the way her tongue was practically spasming in her mouth.
A tiny figure, a mosquito darting about, she had heard of this cape, Tinker Bell, fucking Tinker Bell.
Lisa's solitary good eye that wasn't streaming with tears had just long enough to look up and see the little shit floating above her.
But how? Grue and Bitch were watching the doors, surely the dogs would have noticed---wait, the windows, the little shit had gotten in through the windows set high in the wall even as the rest of the PRT and its forces were arranged outside.
A window shattered suddenly, a table knocked over, she couldn't see what was going on because of the pepper spray. her power was going haywire trying to feed her information.
She was hoisted suddenly into the air.
Glory Girl.
Fucking Glory Girl, because of course the big, strong Brute would burst into the bank to protect her sister and mess up Lisa rather than fight the giant hellhounds outside using Aegis as a squeaky toy.
“Great work, Tinks!”
“I'll spray you next if you call me that,” came a grouchy voice that was accompanied by a loud humming noise.
“Heh, sorry, habits die hard... you got the foam?”
“Yup... man, these are heavy...”
“They're heavy when the grenade is bigger than you are!”
Wait, they were going to use a containment foam grenade on her? She tried to shout at them, but her tongue was so busy recoiling from the lingering (and escalating) taste of the pepper spray that she could do little more than garble gibberish.
“Okay, three... two... one...”
She released from the hold of Glory Girl, and she landed with a jolt.
Meanwhile, Tinker Bell, who had been holding the grenade with both arms wrapped around it in a bear hug, released it, grabbing the pin as it fell and yanking it. The pin came loose, the grenade span through the air as it fell, and the two fliers backed away rapidly.
Lisa desperately tried to slap it away, knock it towards some other corner of the bank---
She missed.
By a lot.
The grenade bounced off the ground with a loud clink, and then detonated.
Fuck her life.
At the very least, she was spared from having to see the resulting conflict between Grue, Bitch and the PRT plus Glory Girl. Probably for the best, really, she was too busy weeping and cursing the existence of taste receptors in her mouth, pathetically trying to spit into the foam to rid herself of the god-awful taste.
It was nowhere near as big a dent to her pride as knowing that she was brought down by fucking Tinker Bell.