Chapter Text
Velocity hated being the only Protecotrate member native to Brockton Bay.
Or, well, technically, Triumph was a Protectorate member native to Brockton Bay, but he’d graduated recently enough that Velocity didn’t feel it was wrong to lump him in with the Wards, all of which were native to Brockton Bay. He didn’t count.
It would be more accurate to say that he was the only Brockton Bay superhero who was at all tapped into the ABB’s role in the Brockton Bay supervillain gang dynamic.
“You arrested Nerodia?”
He’d been about to head out for patrol with Dauntless when his teammate casually mentioned the Wards’ achievement earlier that afternoon. Velocity ditched him immediately, rushing to find a PRT agent to direct him to the room the Wards were getting debriefed in. He had to stop this before things could get any worse.
When he arrived, Director Piggot was on her way out, and Armsmaster and Miss Militia were talking to Clockblocker, Shadow Stalker, Aegis, and Vista. Piggot and Armsmaster schooled their expressions well, but the rest jolted in surprise when Velocity burst into the room.
“Yes?” Clockblocker was the first to speak up. “I mean, we really didn’t mean to. I tapped her with my power at the beginning of the fight with the Undersiders, and she was frozen for the whole fight.”
“The PRT agents hosed her down with containment foam,” Shadow Stalker added, sounding a little annoyed, but Velocity didn’t care about that. “We didn’t even get to fight her.”
“You have to let her go,” Velocity said, glancing between Armsmaster and Piggot before settling on Piggot.
Piggot had seemed ready to leave, content to leave whatever Velocity was panicking about to Armsmaster, but Velocity’s words made her stop, and she firmly planted herself where she stood in the conference room. “And why would we do that? The PRT isn’t in the habit of letting supervillains go.”
“We were planning on identifying her and contacting her parents about becoming a probationary Ward,” Miss Militia added a little more ambicably. Velocity hadn’t really thought that far ahead, about what the PRT was going to do with Nerodia, but that made sense. She was a minor as far as they knew, and offering rehabilitation was pretty standard.
Still, Velocity shook his head. That wouldn’t work. “She’s Lung and River Rat’s daughter.”
He expected at least Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and Piggot to know that, but everyone in the room stared at him as if he’d grown two heads.
“Pardon?” Piggot asked, raising a brow.
“Hold on, Lung and River Rat?” Clockblocker said in a tone that told Velocity he wasn’t taking this seriously at all. “Like, the mysterious leader of the Docks and the guy who runs around his territory controlling rats?”
Velocity wanted to sigh, but he didn’t. Sure, it wasn’t like any of this was written out on PHO or in the PRT files, but he still expected at least someone to know about the Asian gangs’ history in Brockton Bay.
“In 1988, Behemoth appeared for the first time in Marun, Iran. The Protectorate and PRT were formed in response,” Velocity recited, and he saw a series of annoyed looks flicker across a few faces in the room. “In 1990, Leviathan appeared for the first time, sinking Kyushu, Japan.”
“We know this already,” Shadow Stalker said, but Velocity ignored her.
“Kyushu was the first time the public saw Lung. They called him the Man Dragon. They’d thought he was another Endbringer for awhile, but he became a man again after the fight, and he helped a lot of refugees get off Kyushu after the attack. He brought a lot of people to the US and started uniting all the Asian gangs in Brockton Bay, forming the ABB,” Velocity went on. “A cape called Pied Piper was running the docks and protecting the DWA at the time.”
“River Rat,” Armsmaster confirmed, even though Velocity could tell he didn’t know where he was going with this. He said it almost like a question. Velocity nodded and made a sound of confirmation.
“He changed his name after they got married. It was this ceremonial union bringing the ABB and the DWA together. Um, ‘92, I think,” Velocity explained, recalling the day he’d heard the two local supervillains’ announcement. Same-sex marriage hadn’t been legal yet, and it was still what they would come to be known as the Golden Age of Superheroes, so it had been a bit surreal. “My, um, Annette and I were in college at the time. Basically, every Asian person in the Docks went out during the celebration.”
Annette included, and he’d gone with her. Their relationship had been still a little new at the time, Robin having gotten her out of Lustrum’s gang maybe a year before. Robin remembered that day mostly because it was the first time her family had included him in any… Well, anything. Annette’s parents were two Chinese immigrants, and they weren’t thrilled about their daughter dating a white man. But their community’s leader marrying the leader of their dock worker neighbors’ leader was enough to invite him to celebrate.
It’d been a big moment in Robin and Annette’s relationship. He remembered that was the day he thought it might work out between them.
Velocity pushed the thought away. He was trying to make a point. “You all remember when Nerodia showed up. She’s got the same powers as River Rat and Lung, and the Docks community is pretty certain she’s their daughter.”
At least Annette’s parents said so last time he’d visited them. Annette’s mother said Nerodia looked like the girl she often saw Lung bring with him to the market. How she so casually mentioned seeing the most powerful supervillain in the city at the market, Robin couldn’t fathom, but a lot of the people around the Docks talked like that. What was even more surprising was how the PRT didn’t know Lung, River Rat, and Nerodia’s identities since, apparently, everyone who lived in the Docks knew what they looked like.
Piggot didn’t look convinced. “Lung hasn’t made a major public appearance since Brockton Bay got a Protectorate branch. We have no confirmation on his powers. And that isn’t how powers are inherited.”
What? Oh. Right. There was no way River Rat and Lung were Nerodia’s biological parents. Or, well, not no way, but Robin really doubted it. Still… “Even if you don’t believe me, you have to know Lung’s gang is going to retaliate.”
That, at least, Velocity knew he didn’t have to explain. Everyone in the city knew why the Protectorate and PRT going up against Lung, the ABB, and their allies would be a problem. There was a reason an Asian gang had survived in a city with a neo-Nazi gang with as many parahuman supporters as the Empire. There were more superheroes than either gang, but only barely. As much as Robin hated the rampant racism in Brockton Bay, it was a good thing the two gangs would never work together. They could squash the Protectorate, Wards, and PRT in a heartbeat.
Piggot might not believe Velocity’s words in their entirety, but she wasn’t stupid. This wasn’t a little win for the Wards. This was something that could spiral into something much bigger.
“Transport Nerodia to the Protectorate base,” Piggot barked to Armsmaster, and all the capes in the room stiffened, ready for orders. “Discretely, if you can. Militia, alert the PRT of the situation. I’m going to see if we can get any help on standby from Boston. Velocity, prepare the base for attack.”
Velocity nodded and started organizing the Wards. He was certain this was going to end badly, but they had a plan, and he could only hope they could minimize the damage.
It was so stupid.
I hadn’t even gotten to fight! The Undersiders and I had been hitting one of the Empire’s dogfighting rings, and I’d gotten hit by Clockblocker’s power before anything could happen.
I’d seen him coming too, and I swore he was surprised he managed to nick me. Seriously. I’d leaned back, feeling my power start to grow, and the next thing I knew, I was smothered in containment foam.
If the PRT knew how my power worked, they’d probably call me a Changer/Master/Mover. Perks of being a second-generation Cape. I got powers from both my dads, which was pretty cool, even though I knew I was probably imagining any similarities there. They told me they’d tell me who my biological parents were when I turned eighteen, but I was pretty sure one of them was my biological father. I mean, first of all, Wasian, and secondly, it hadn’t taken that much for me to get my powers.
Growing up, my dads had always told me parahumans got their powers from trauma, and that I should hope I never got powers, even if it made me more like them. I’d triggered during an Empire attack on our territory, and yeah, it’d been scary, but I hadn’t really been in that much danger. Sure sign I was a second-generation parahuman. Research on New Wave said that the children of parahumans triggered far more easily, and they often inherited an enhanced version of their parents’ power.
My powers took more after Dad’s than Bàba’s powers. Dad was a Master through and through. His powers were a little gross, but he really was pretty powerful. He could generate these little, writhing black vines from his body—usually with his mouth, but he could do it with his hands too—that he could twist together to make these freaky rats. Not only were they super strong, but he could also see through their eyes, hear through their ears, control a bunch of them at once, and use them to control regular rats, too. Really, classic Master.
Bàba’s powers were even stronger, but they were harder for him to use. He said his power was escalation. The longer he was in a fight, the bigger and stronger he got. I’d never really seen him get that big, maybe a foot taller at most, but Uncle Lee had a newspaper clipping with a picture from when Bàba had fought Leviathan. I wasn’t that great with gauging size, but he’d been as tall as Leviathan, and Leviathan was big. Bàba was by far the most powerful cape in Brockton Bay.
My power was a good mix of the two. I could generate those writhing black vines that Dad could, but I couldn’t turn them into rats or anything. The best I could do was treat them like little snakes, but truth be told, I was barely a Master. It’d taken me awhile to figure out, but I practically sweated those things out, making them as I moved, sort of like how Bàba’s power got stronger the more I fought, and I could sort of wrap them around myself and absorb them through my skin to fuel my Mover power.
I was fast. Really fast. There was a limit, sure. The faster I went, the faster I burned through my snake-like fuel, but I lacked a lot of the other limitations other Movers had. I could go fast in one direction, or I could be more agile, or I could throw a bunch of punches really fast.
That was why it was so embarrassing I’d been caught by my Clockblocker. I was pretty sure he’d expected me to dodge his attack, to run away and alert my team that the Wards had arrived, but I hadn’t been fighting yet, so my power hadn’t started building, and he just sort of tapped me, and then I was captured.
If Bàba had been caught, I feel like he still could have gotten out of the containment foam. Sure, he wouldn’t have been fighting, but his power still probably would have clocked it as a threat, and he would have grown big enough to get out of the containment foam. But not me. Nope. The containment foam totally stopped me from moving, and that meant my power was useless. A pair of handcuffs on my hands and another pair on my feet, and I was stuck in a PRT prison.
I wasn’t too worried. Or, well, the Undersiders might get chewed out a bit for letting me get captured, but the parahumans who were actually members of Bàba’s gang? Dad could find me in no time and drown the PRT in rats. Bakuda could blow a hole right in the side of the building. Oni Lee could teleport right in. Even better, if they worked together, Dad could give Oni Lee the intel needed to teleport right in and grab me, and Oni Lee could plant a few of Bakuda’s bombs around the PRT HQ. Really, what were they thinking bringing me here?
Maybe I was a little cocky.
“You’re Lung and River Rat’s kid?” Armsmaster asked, appearing outside the bars of my prison cell.
I flashed a grin and nodded. “You’re in trouble.”
“You’re being transported,” Armsmaster told me, barely reacting, and waved for some PRT agents to come in.
I felt my face fall, and I knew everyone saw it because they’d taken my mask while ago. I wasn’t sure how long it’d been since the fight, thanks to Clockblocker’s power, but I couldn’t have been in this cell for more than an hour, probably a lot less. Bàba and his gang might be on their way, but I wasn’t so confident anymore.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked, and I started struggling against my handcuffs. Shit, the handcuffs still being there probably wasn’t a good sign either. They surely were planning on taking the handcuffs sooner or later, right? But they hadn’t, which meant it hadn’t been that long. I knew I couldn’t break through them, but maybe if I moved enough, I could generate a little snake to worm its way out of here and find my dads… Let them know where I was…
Armsmaster wasn’t the generous type, though. He didn’t tell me anything, merely stepping back to let the PRT agents do their thing.
No one had really believed Velocity when he told them what Lung’s power was. They thought it was hearsay, merely an urban legend. If their roles were reversed, Velocity would probably react similarly. A man turning into a dragon big enough to take on an Endbringer was pretty unbelievable, but Velocity had spoken to people who had escaped Kyshu, and he believed the fear in their eyes and the humble awe in their voices. Lung’s power was real, and today they were all seeing it firsthand.
The PRT ENE HQ actually had pretty good defenses. It had a system that could bar all the windows, and it had a forcefield generator much like the one around the Protectorate base. All that did very little against Lung’s gang, though. Oni Lee could teleport right through it, depositing Bakuda and the Undersiders neatly on the other side and scooping handfuls of River Rat’s vermin minions right in along behind them.
The worst part of that was that the Protectorate couldn’t even stop them because Lung was right there, covered in scales and spewing fire. Velocity had only seen him a couple of times, most clearly on the day Lung had gotten married, and Lung had just looked like a regular man back then. This was definitely not a regular man.
He screamed and yowled, and it was wordless, his mouth so misshapen that he couldn’t speak. He hurled waves and waves of fire, and it very quickly became clear that it was going to take all the Protectorate to fight him. The Wards would have to handle anyone who got past the barrier.
If it were all the Protectorate against Lung, Velocity was not certain they could have won, but River Rat’s presence greatly tipped the odds in Lung’s favor. He hardly seemed to notice the flames, sending his rats through them to run up to the Protectorate capes and plaster themselves to their faces. Velocity couldn’t even think about how he could go about fighting Lung, devoting all his focus to making sure Lung didn’t kill his teammates when River Rat managed to blind one of them.
Somehow, through all of that, River Rat was still managing to do something with his rats that Velocity couldn’t see. He wouldn’t have realized if River Rat hadn’t repeated his words after Lung abruptly froze, suddenly stopping in the middle of the fight. “She’s not there.”
Lung roared in response, and River Rat seemed to understand him. He didn’t respond, though, merely shrugging helplessly. It was like all the fight had drained out of him. Both of them.
The Protectorate members didn’t stop, but they slowed, confused. River Rat took advantage of the opportunity, and his rats lunged. Velocity shot forward, trying to stop as many as he could, but it took time for him to build up his speed, so he only managed to keep them off Triumph. The others had seen the attack coming, though, and defended themselves well.
“Where is she?” River Rat shouted, and the rats kept swarming. Lung didn’t attack, but he was rumbling, and there was fire still rolling off him. The dynamic had changed.
Armsmaster held his head high. “Somewhere you won’t find her.”
Velocity didn’t really think that was true, but he thought it might be enough for the attack to stop.
It wasn’t. River Rat and Lung continued their attack, but Velocity realized it was just to buy Oni Lee, Bakuda, and the Undersiders time to get out of the PRT HQ, and then they were running.
The Protectorate didn’t pursue. There was no point. They were hopelessly outmatched. Lung’s gang was only leaving because they wanted to. They’d realized Nerodia wasn’t there, and they didn’t care about the Protectorate anymore, so they were just walking away.
Velocity felt a little bad. They just wanted their kid back, afterall. More pressingly, though, he worried what Lung and River Rat would do to Brockton Bay to get her back. He didn’t know what was going to happen, but he was certain that they’d only seen a fraction of their power today.
I didn’t know where they moved me, but I could tell it was still in Brockton Bay because I saw the Brockton Bay Protectorate members and Wards still buzzing around.
Actually, it was kind of weird how much they were around. Didn’t they have better things to do? There were a surprising number of them, mostly Wards, when Armsmaster and Dauntless came to talk to me, though they hung back and let those two take the lead.
“We’re not able to get an ID on you,” Armsmaster said without any preamble.
Dauntless elbowed him, which surprised me. Were they trying to do good cop/bad cop? Even so, that was a level of ease I was not expecting. Weakness, arguably, showing Dauntless didn’t respect Armsmaster’s leadership. Probably not, but I thought it, so that meant something, right?
“We’re concerned,” Dauntless said, and I tried not to make a face. They had me locked up, and he was going to play the “we care” card? “Velocity says River Rat and Lung are your parents?”
“They are,” I said, even though I knew I shouldn’t be telling them things. The fact River Rat and Lung were my dads wasn’t really a secret.
“How did that come to be?” he asked, and I felt a flash of annoyance.
“They’re my dads,” I insisted, and I saw something flicker on the faces of the capes whose masks didn’t cover their full faces. I quickly corrected myself. “I mean, obviously, biologically, I’m not- They’re still my dads!”
“Surrogate or adoption?” Armsmaster asked, and I squeezed my lips shut. He didn’t need to know. He didn’t let up, though. “By using your parahuman abilities for criminal activity, you’ve lost a lot of rights, but you’re still a minor, which gives you some protections and leniency. But you still need a parent or guardian to act on your behalf, and we have the warrant for a DNA test. If you’re adopted, we’ll have to investigate how your parents got you. If you’re a surrogate, we’re in a position to negotiate with them.”
I didn’t really believe him. Parts of what he was saying didn’t add up, even if I didn’t know what they were. Still… “Lung’s my biological father.”
I wasn’t certain, but I had been leaning that way for awhile. Plus, Bàba was an immigrant. I wasn’t totally sure how matching DNA worked, but I assumed there was some kind of database, and Bàba probably wasn’t in it.
There was no guarantee of how things would unfold, but I had a sliver of hope that even if Dad was my biological father, me saying Lung was would push the Protectorate to ignore it in favor of identifying my mother, at least for a bit. It was a total reach, but it was something.
Shit. Was I going to find out who my mom was? I hadn’t really put a lot of thought into it, not in awhile at least. I didn’t really care, but if my dads weren’t able to act as my legal guardians, there was a good chance I was going to meet my mom pretty soon.
The days following Nerodia’s arrest were somehow both quiet and impossibly busy.
The ABB didn’t attack the PRT again, but the Empire was stirred up by their attack, and there seemed to be some drama among the city’s villains, though Robin didn’t know what it was. He usually only saw the aftermath of skirmishes when the PRT got called in for clean-up.
He visited Annette’s parents and a handful of his old college buddies a few times during that time. The ABB and the DWA were worried, and Lung and River Rat had people looking for their daughter, but most people weren’t feeling very optimistic about it.
Velocity reported all this back to Armsmaster. Even though he’d visited the people he knew around the Docks for himself, he knew the PRT needed to know these things. They'd better have a good plan for what to do with Nerodia, or they’d be in real trouble. Velocity hadn’t heard of any plans to transport her out of Brockton Bay yet, but he knew they’d have to if they wanted to make her a Ward, and whenever that happened, Lung’s gang would be ready.
Velocity was a little surprised when Armsmaster called him in for a meeting. Being the only Mover on the team, he was usually more of a field work kind of cape than a behind-the-scenes or administrative one. He was especially surprised when he entered the conference room to see Nerodia waiting.
He’d seen her without a mask briefly a couple times, but he’d never really gotten a good look at her. She had long, dark curly hair, but beyond that, she looked only ambiguously Asian. Mixed, if Robin had to guess. She was young, too. That was the other thing he noticed. Maybe fifteen. Shadow Stalker’s age, if he remembered correctly. Not that he particularly liked her, but this all sort of reminded Robin of when she’d been arrested.
It’d been different then, of course. Shadow Stalker had been a vigilante, not a member of a prominent parahuman gang. Still, Nerodia didn’t really look like a supervillain sitting here like this.
Armsmaster and Piggot were the only ones present when Velocity arrived, other than Nerodia, that is. It was a little odd. Maybe they were going to talk about ABB stuff?
“The DNA test came back,” Armsmaster said, getting right to it, and he looked at Velocity, not Nerodia, when he said it. “Nerodia’s mother is Annette Swoyer.”
Robin froze.
“I don’t know who that is,” Nerodia said, sounding confused. Out of the corner of his eye, Robin saw her look up, glancing between Armsmaster and himself. Something in the back of his mind urged him to look back at her, to search for any signs of Annette on this girl’s face, but he very suddenly realized he could feel his heart beating against his ribcage, making a terrifying heat spread through his chest, and he could hear his blood roaring in his ears, making all the little sounds around him feel a little muted.
Shock, he knew. Annette was this girl’s mother? But that would mean…
He did some mental math. Fifteen years ago, he’d been in the military, but… Lung would have still been married to River Rat. Unless their marriage was purely for show, to secure the alliance between the ABB and the DWA, but Robin really, really doubted that. Had Annette agreed to be their surrogate? Or worse…?
He shook his head. He couldn’t think like that. He forced himself to look at Nerodia and said, “She’s my wife.”
“Oh. Oh!” Robin heard the moment she had the realization. Now that he was looking at her, Robin couldn’t stop staring. Her hair did seem a bit like Annette’s, or was he imagining things? She had a wide mouth sort of like hers, that he was pretty confident about. “Why isn’t she here then?”
“She died three years ago,” Robin said bluntly, and immediately regretted the defensive way he said that. She was his late wife, but she was also this girl’s late mother, and he shouldn’t say such things so harshly.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” Nerodia paused. “I’m guessing you didn’t know about me?”
Robin shook his head and kept shaking it, trying to shake out all the possibilities from his mind.
“What Armsmaster failed to mention,” Piggot interjected a little dryly, “is that Nerodia’s father is Robin Swoyer.”
What?
Robin felt his head stop shaking, his gaze fixing on Piggot, jaw slack with shock.
“I don’t know who that is either…” Nerodia trailed off, and, again, Robin could hear her moment of realization. She turned and stared up at Robin. “That's you, isn’t it?”
“And since her mother’s gone, and we can’t find any legal identity for her,” Armsmaster started, and Robin knew exactly how he was going to finish, “that means you get to decide what happens to her, Velocity.”
Robin was making a break for the door before the final words left Armsmaster’s mouth.