Chapter Text
After all these years of being a parahuman, even with these brief bouts of fantasizing for more, Danny had resigned to his fate. He’d be camping outside city borders with a swarm of rats for the rest of his life. The life he often imagined with this hypothetical superhero team just wasn’t realistic. He couldn’t be around people. His life wasn’t going to change, and he’d long since accepted it.
But then it did. Danny’s life changed. One day, out of the blue, everything was different.
“Door!”
Danny had been doing what he did the majority of his waking hours and just sort of sitting around. He’d found a decently comfortable log to sit on, and he’d swiped a couple books on his last supply run to a city, and he was just flipping through the pages and relaxing in the morning light when this thing just appeared in the air in front of him.
He knew instantly that it was a portal. He’d seen movies before. But knowing and comprehending were two different things. He knew it was there. He could see it. His brain just didn’t want to register it because something like that should not be there.
There were no clear borders, no frame like on a door or a window. There was the forest and the rats, and then there was something off the cover of an apocalypse story.
A city, clearly, maybe a town or village, but ruined. Wreckage and debris everywhere. Noise bleeding through the air, impossibly loud but indistinct. Danny didn’t know what it was, just that it was there. And there was movement, people in the background doing things that Danny’s poor eyesight couldn’t make out.
Still, the energy came through. On Danny’s side, things were calm, maybe a little boring. On the other, there was a tension, a static so thick Danny felt it the moment the portal opened, and so did the rats.
They lunged, and Danny heard a yelp from a familiar voice. “Fuck! Oh, hey, Rat Rage!”
“Hero?” Danny recognized his power armor, but it was a little beat up, more scuffed than he’d ever seen it. He’d been fighting. “What’s going on?”
“Um…” Hero looked away, distracted by something Danny couldn’t see. “I really don’t know how to explain it, but we could use all the help we can get. You don’t have to, but the portal’s here if you want it.”
“I’ll help,” Danny said quickly, even though his heart was pounding quite possibly louder than he’d ever heard it. The portal was a surprise, but Danny had been living in a comic book, or maybe a horror story, for a long time now, and he could roll with the punches. Besides, he couldn’t just keep sitting there when it was so obvious his friends needed help.
The rats were already running through the portal, ready to attack whoever and whatever lay on the other side. Danny stepped into the stream, the rats covering his feet as he walked through the portal and into the ruined city.
The portal remained open behind him, but Danny still turned to look behind him, up and over the edge of the door, and he saw what Hero had been reacting to. “What the hell is that?”
He had to crane his neck back to see it. It had to be fifty feet tall, maybe taller. It was humanoid in shape, but no one who looked at it would ever think it was human. It was heavyset with a stocky frame thick enough to support its massive head, barrel of a chest, and jagged hands. It was dark, but even with his bad eyesight, Danny could tell it was craggy, like it was made of rock. He’d never heard of a parahuman made of stone, nor had he ever heard of one that had grown so large. This was something new.
“They’re calling him Hadhayosh,” Hero told him.
“Him?” Had that thing been human?
“It, him, her, it doesn’t matter,” Hero responded, shaking his head a little too much. It didn’t make Danny feel much better. “Do you think you can get your rats to attack it?”
No. They didn’t do anything Danny wanted them to do. He opened his mouth to answer, and he abruptly realized that the rats weren’t going after Hero’s feet anymore. He looked around and saw his rats running deeper into the battlefield.
Right past about half a dozen capes and into the piles of debris that probably used to be a building.
“Seriously?” Danny shouted, feeling heat bubble in his stomach in a way that he hadn’t felt in years. He hadn’t realized he hadn’t felt it in years, not until it was back. He was tired, both mentally and physically. Tired of being alone, tired of sleeping in uncomfortable places, sometimes even too tired to be angry. For years and years, the rats attacked every person around him, but now, when there was a chance they might actually be helpful, they were fleeing? They decided they knew how to hide now of all times?
Light flickered in the corner of Danny’s vision, and he looked up just in time to see Hadhayosh throw a lightning bolt at what had to be Legend.
He dodged it because, of course, he did. He was Legend. Danny had seen his powers in action. He was likely the fastest living thing on Earth, and he could activate his power at the speed of thought. It was still a terrifying moment between the lightning arching off Hadhayosh’s fist and Legend reappearing.
And then the rats moved. Danny looked down, and a big stretch of the ground was black, hundreds if not thousands of rats running toward Hadhayosh. Danny felt his stomach flip. They were attacking! Had he done that?
“How many rats do you have?” Hero asked, and Danny shrugged. He really had no idea. Legend hadn’t tried obliterating his swarm since that first time, so there were years of growth here, and Danny collected massive amounts of pests wherever he went. When Danny stood in an open patch of land, the rats went on so far that he couldn’t see the ground. Danny didn’t think the numbers were in the millions, but it could have been a few hundred thousand.
But they were still rats. Enhanced rats, but still rats. Even with how many of them there were, they couldn’t actually move that fast, and the portal was a bottleneck. They ran across the battlefield toward Hadhayosh, and Danny just sort of watched them go. It’d take awhile for them to get there.
“Try to get somewhere safe,” Hero told him, and he started moving. He had things to do other than babysit Danny, Danny realized. His tech could probably provide all kinds of information that would be useful in the fight, or maybe he had built a weapon strong enough to hurt that monster.
Danny was scared to move, like his rats would suddenly stop what they were doing if he changed anything, but he knew Hero was right. He nodded mutely and ran off to find somewhere to hide.
Danny didn’t know how long the battle went, but he was certain it was hours. The city had already been wrecked by the time he got there, but it wasn’t like it was going to get better. Later, Danny would learn that Hadhayosh was going after an oil field a few miles away, but for most of the fight, he’d just sort of been vaguely aware that the creature was moving, and he wandered after it from a distance with a handful of other parahumans who were stuck on foot.
It was frustrating being so far, until he heard the casualty count. Suddenly, Danny was grateful his powers had the range they did. He could watch his rats climb up Hadhayosh’s rocky skin while staying out of Hadhayosh’s line of sight and far from his kill aura. That was a power he had, apparently, and that was a lot more terrifying than anything else Danny had seen since parahumans first appeared.
The battle finally ended when Eidolon got some new power that seemed to hurt Hadhayosh. It wasn’t over immediately, but there was one moment where Eidolon was blasting Hadhayosh with some kind of beam, and the next, Hadhayosh was burrowing into the ground, finally fleeing.
The people Danny had been hoofing it with cheered, crying and embracing each other with relief and joy. Danny didn’t know any of their names, but in that moment, he felt closer than he’d ever felt to anyone.
Danny’s friends caught up sooner or later, costumes a little tattered, all looking utterly exhausted. Still, Danny saw the way Legend froze when his eyes fell on him. “Rat Rage?”
That stupid name. Danny almost corrected him, but his lips wouldn’t part.
Legend whipped around, turning on Hero. “You brought him?”
He was angry, and Danny felt a stab of pain in his chest. Legend didn’t want to see him?
“You didn’t see the rats?” Alexandria asked, sounding genuinely surprised.
“No! I was trying not to die! What the hell, Hero?”
Hero seemed unfazed. “I’m not going to apologize. He’s strong, and we needed help. I’m not going to just not call him because you’re worried he could’ve gotten hurt.”
“You were worried about me?” Danny asked, the words just kind of slipping out. The anger melted from Legend’s face, and he shifted, looking sort of embarrassed.
“Yeah. You’re my friend,” Legend said, and he stepped forward. Danny almost missed the way he leaned in, and then his arms were around him. A hug. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you.”
Not the first time they’d hugged, but they’d never hugged like this. It was always more of a half-hug, the kind of thing guys did. But this was a real hug, two arms and everything. Danny could feel Legend’s chest against his own and his chin resting on his shoulder. His grip was tight, and Danny was pretty sure this was the closest he’d ever been to a human being.
Legend lingered, and Danny felt his mind kick itself, and he brought his hands up to return the embrace, patting his friend on the back. He sort of expected Legend to pull away after that, but he didn’t, and Danny realized Legend was probably more upset to see him than he’d thought. “I’m okay. I promise. Really, Hero told me to stay away from the action. I never really got close. I should be the one worrying about you.”
Legend’s hold on him finally slackened. “I can turn into a living laser. You’re you.”
Somehow, the way he said it didn’t make Danny feel less than. There was a weight on that final word, like Danny was the special one and Legend was just some guy. He shook his head. He was the one who could afford to be in danger. The world needed Legend, not Danny Hebert.
He didn’t say that, obviously. It would just work up Legend even more. Instead, he just let Legend stay close until the parahumans turned their attention away from their victory and toward helping the survivors.
It was maybe an hour before Danny’s rats started attacking people again.
He should have expected it, but he hadn’t. It was a wonder that they’d attacked Hadhayosh at all. Danny had no idea why they had. It’d been a miracle, but not a big enough one for Danny to somehow be rid of his powers or anything like that. He was digging around the rubble one moment, watching his rat leap to bite someone the next, and running for the desert not even a blink later.
Legend caught up with him before he made it too far. “Rat Rage?”
“Danny,” he corrected, even though that should be the last thing on his mind right now.
“What?”
He swallowed. Now wasn’t the time for that. “The rats, they’re attacking people again.”
Alarm flashed across Legend’s features. “Door! To, um, wherever Danny came from. Wherever his stuff is.”
It was kind to not force Danny to abandon his stuff, but the perplexity from the order overwhelmed it. Door? Hero had said the same thing, and then the portal had appeared. What was going on? Was this what the world had come to? Portals and giant monsters? Were these things normal?
Still, Danny wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity. He was willing to run out in the desert, but he knew he would surely die within a few days. As much as he hated his existence, Danny didn’t want to die, and dehydration or heat exhaustion seemed like a terrible way to go. So, he stepped through the portal, and the rats followed.
“Keep it open. Actually, open multiple. Give the rats more places to go over,” Legend ordered to thin air, and more portals opened up. “Thanks.”
Someone else’s power? Legend had never mentioned working with other parahumans. Neither had any of the others. There were other parahumans here, though. Danny had spoken to them. Or, tried to speak to them. A lot of them didn’t speak English. Native to wherever this place was. Somewhere in the Middle East, he assumed based on what he’d seen and heard. There really were parahumans all over the world.
“Are you going to be okay?” Legend asked once Danny had crossed over. He sounded torn.
Danny nodded. “Go. I know you have stuff to do.”
What exactly, Danny didn’t know. Even when he’d been trying to help, Danny was a little confused about what he was supposed to be doing, how he could help that place heal from the terrible thing it had just experienced. Legend was… He wasn’t Danny. Anyone who wasn’t Danny probably had a fair amount to offer, but Legend was also a real superhero. He could probably clear debris with his lasers or fly hurt people to hospitals. Hell, even just his presence would probably do some good. Give people hope or whatever.
Danny didn’t think he was jealous. He’d had plenty of moments like this one, and plenty of time to reflect on how he felt about them. They just made him aware of how great Legend was, and how it didn’t make sense for him to hang out with Danny.
He tried to push the thought away. Eidolon felt the same way about Hero, and Danny thought Eidolon was a good guy. But after Legend didn’t come visit after a few days, Danny was getting a little nervous.
It was actually Eidolon who came, and the sight nearly sent Danny into a panic.
“Is Legend okay?” Danny asked as his rats threw themselves against Eidolon’s forcefield. The hero hardly blinked.
“Yeah. Sorry, I assumed he’d texted you or something.”
“What?” Texted?
Eidolon leaned back on his heels a bit, clearly surprised. “Oh, um, it’s a technology thing. You can use your phone to send written messages to each other instantly now.”
Danny didn’t really get it, but he sort of got what Eidolon meant. “Is that like that door thing?”
“The portals? No. That’s, um… You can’t tell anyone.”
Danny gave him a flat look. He didn’t have anyone to tell.
Danny saw the moment the thought hit Eidolon. “Oh, right. Um, so it’s a parahuman power.”
That was it? “That’s it?”
Eidolon shrugged. “It was a bigger deal in my head. The people who are making Alexandria’s Protectorate idea, Doormaker helps them, so he’ll help transport us when we call.”
“Could you do that the whole time?”
“What?”
“Could you do that the whole time?” Danny repeated. He’d thought about it when he was waiting for Legend. He hadn’t wanted to, but he had. “The portals could have helped me a lot. You could have sent me to Antarctica or an island or something.”
Eidolon stared at him. “How would that have helped you?”
“I don’t know! I’d be away from people.”
“But you need food. And clothes. And I don’t think you want to be reliant on us bringing that kind of stuff to you forever.”
That was a good point. Legend and Hero were the kinds of guys who would make a promise to do something like that, but now that Eidolon was saying it out loud, it made Danny kind of uncomfortable. “Still. You know how much I’ve thought about going to Antarctica?”
“You’d die there,” Eidolon said a little blandly.
“Well, in my imagination, I have somewhere to live. Like those researchers.”
“Alexandria’s getting some traction with the government,” Eidolon said suddenly, and it sounded like a non sequitur. “She thinks the government’s going to be really generous after the Behemoth attack.”
“Behemoth?”
“That’s what we’re calling Hadhayosh now,” Eidolon said a little impatiently. “If we get the money, we could probably try to build you some kind of place away from people so you don’t have to worry about them attacking everyone.”
“I’ve been indoors before,” Danny responded. He’d stolen plenty of tents, and he’d found cabins here and there, stuff like that.
“No, I mean something like a submarine or a space station. Somewhere you could be inside with other people without the rats getting in there.”
That did sound nice. The hug Danny and Legend had shared after the Behemoth attack had only been possible because the rats weren’t attacking. Any other physical contact they’d had was brief, usually with Legend flying Danny away from the swarm or blasting them away with his lasers.
“I don’t want to get my hopes up,” Danny said after a few moments, even though that sounded really, really nice.
Eidolon shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t either, but I’ll tell Hero. He’d probably be able to figure something out.”
And now Danny was stuck in a fantasy of having a real home again, one where maybe Legend could hug him again like that.
Legend was apologetic when he finally came to see Danny, but he was excited, too.
“It’s going to happen,” he told him, practically beaming. “It’s finally happening!”
Danny was happy for him. He really was. This was huge for Legend, huge for his friends, and huge for parahumans as a whole. That didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about what this meant for his and Legend’s friendship.
“Are you- are you interested?” Legend asked Danny almost shyly when he finished gushing about all the progress he and Alexandria had made with their parahuman superhero team program.
“In what?”
“Joining.” Quickly, he added, “I know it’s not super, you know, feasible, but you were able to direct your rats against Behemoth, and you know about the doors now, so we can figure something out. You’d still be a real member.”
The fact that he had to clarify that at all meant Danny wouldn’t be a real member. Legend would believe it, but no one else would. “I don’t know. I’m not a hero.”
Legend actually looked surprised, but then Danny watched his expression shift as he thought about it. One could argue Danny wasn’t a villain, but the general public probably thought he was. Danny was a plague traveling from city to city, forcing city-wide evacuations and quarantines. There was no way people saw him as a hero.
“Well, joining the Protectorate could change that.”
Danny couldn’t really see it. “Maybe for other parahumans, but I think Rat Rage is a little too far. I mean, my power is to make rats attack people, Legend.”
“Keith.”
“What?”
“Keith. My name’s Keith. You told me yours, so it’s only fair,” Legend—Keith—told him, and Danny couldn’t help but squirm. He hadn’t meant to do that, and now Legend was making a whole thing out of it. Legend’s face fell a bit. “You don’t have to call me that if you don’t want to. I just- I wanted to tell you awhile ago, but we’ve never really talked about, you know, our identities from, um, before.”
“It’s fine,” Danny said, and he was pretty sure he meant it. “Honestly, I never really liked the name Rat Rage. It was just a thought I had, and I didn’t think I was going to see you again after that first time.”
Legend laughed, soft and light. “And now you’re stuck with me!”
Danny felt a ghost of a smile appear on his own lips. “Yeah, I guess. I don’t think Danny can be a member of the Protectorate, though.”
Legend shrugged. “Why not? We could probably find some way to spin it. Or you can just think of a new name. We still have a few weeks before we’re officially announcing the team, and you don’t have to join right off the bat.”
“I’ll think about it,” Danny told him, and he brought it up when the rest of his friends visited in the following days.
“Wrath has the word rat in it if you’re committed to the anger thing,” Alexandria told him, and it was bad enough that Danny had no problem declining it.
“Rat Rage comes from Rat Race, right?” Hero asked. “You could go with that.”
“Eraticate,” Eidolon suggested when Danny asked him. “Lean into the destructive aspect.”
Danny didn’t love the rat theme. His name needed to be somewhat related to his powers, but the rat part was kind of obvious. He didn’t need his name to say it.
“Vermin,” Danny told Legend a few days before the deadline.
Legend didn’t even try to pretend he liked it. “That’s kind of mean.”
“I know. I’m reclaiming it,” Danny told him, because that was what Alexandria had told him when he’d asked the others how he should pitch the name to Legend. Alexandria and Eidolon would be behind it, he knew, and Herow would be a little hesitant, but Legend would need a little more convincing.
“It makes it sound like you are vermin.”
Danny shrugged. “It’s how I feel.”
“Danny-”
Danny shook his head. “Don’t. I know you see me one way, but it’s not how I see myself. I feel like vermin among… I don’t know, not vermin?”
Danny had drawn out the metaphor plenty of times in his mind. The dirt that heroes stood on. A peasant walking alongside princes and princesses. A lowly demon watching the angels fly. A rat spreading disease on a beautiful ship, ready to poison whatever land it docked at.
Legend wouldn’t want to hear any of that, though. Alexandria, Eidolon, and Hero got it. Danny felt like shit after he got his powers, but they’d felt like shit before they’d gotten their powers. Legend, as far as Danny knew, had never felt like that, and Vermin was Danny’s way of communicating how he saw himself.
Legend didn’t look happy, but Danny could tell he was giving in. Vermin was going to be a superhero.
Alexnadria and Hero were the next to visit, a combination Danny was pretty sure he’d never seen in all the years he’d been friends with them.
They brought some drawings of costume ideas and came back a couple days later with the costume Danny had liked most, grooming supplies, and an announcement that the nearest city had evacuated, so they could break Danny in somewhere to clean himself up and get some good photos in his new costume.
Danny didn’t really get the costume thing, even if he’d read superhero comic books as a kid. Recognizability and all that, but Danny was probably never going to be wearing this thing again, assuming he actually did any Protectorate stuff at all. If Behemoth attacked again, Danny would be showing up in his dirty jeans and a sweaty t-shirt, and there wouldn’t even be anyone around to see, not anyone who wasn’t fighting for their life anyway.
But it was kind of fun, making himself look nice and doing a photoshoot with his friends. The rats were in the way a lot, always trying to attack Hero and Alexandria, but Hero had his hover platform, and Alexandria could fly pretty fast, so they were able to play off each other to draw the rats around as they needed.
Danny thought they turned out pretty nice, and he was sort of glad the public was going to see that version of him, and not the real him.
He still kept the costume and supplies Alexandria and Hero had given him, though. It was a little silly, maybe, but he liked the version of him in those photos, and he wanted to keep looking like him, even if no one was around to see it most of the time.
Hero gave Danny one of those modern, high-tech phones that Eidolon had mentioned, and all four of Danny’s friends had come to see him so he could watch a recording of them being sworn in by the president.
Legend had a nice speech about the vision for the Protectorate and the future of parahumans in the United States, but after the main part, after the part that all the news channels could be playing and kids would be reading transcripts of in school for decades, there was a part where Legend introduced some of the other heroes who would be joining the team. It wasn’t part of the main event, more of an aside with a reporter who’d asked about expanding the team, but it felt plenty big to Danny. He didn’t recognize any of the other names, but Legend had given more than a few lines about how Vermin wasn’t really a villain, and how he’d risen to the call to action when Behemoth attacked.
It was very professional, not at all like how Keith really talked, but it was still nice to hear. And the way Legend said it made Danny think people might listen.
There was talk of making some kind of living facility for Danny. Not in Antarctica, but they still had Doormaker drop Danny out there just to see what would happen. They were all curious.
Nothing really happened at first, other than the five of them just kind of standing around feeling cold, but Eidolon’s power gave him a sensory ability sooner or later, and informed them that the fish and krill below were ramming themselves into the ice, trying to get to the surface, and there were some swarms of albatross making a beeline for them.
Not as bad as the city, but bad enough that they didn’t stay for long.
The experiments with Doormaker didn’t lead Danny anywhere good for camping out, but they sparked some ideas about managing Danny’s power.
Danny didn’t need to be around his rats, but they needed to be around him. They would attack anyone and everyone unless they were near Danny and there was no one else around. If they were away from Danny, the rules changed, and their attention was more on getting back to him than attacking people, though they were still pretty aggressive. But the doors meant they could be contained.
Hero constructed a few deposits, big, impenetrable storage containers that Doormaker could just make a portal for Danny to slough a bunch of rats into. Danny would rather Legend just destroy them with his laser blasts, but Hero and Alexandria insisted it would be good to have some numbers on standby, and they ended up being right because Behemoth appeared again just a few months after the Protectorate was formed.
It went kind of the same. They were in Brazil, not Iran, and they knew what they were fighting, so there was a little less panic, but barely. It was still pretty bad. But Danny’s rats went after Behemoth, not his new allies, and they remained quiet for a little bit after Behemoth fled underground, just long enough for Danny to meet some of his new teammates. It didn’t go too bad, but Danny found himself not particularly hoping to see them again.
“I have enough friends,” Eidolon later told him when Danny voiced his thoughts to him. Danny had to agree. When he was a teenager, four would have seemed like so few, but now, living the life Danny had, a mere four made his life feel so incredibly full.
They got Danny a house.
It was more of a cabin, but there were appliances and furniture, and it was inside, and there were no rats, and it was bigger than the apartment Danny had grown up in, so he wasn’t anywhere close to complaining.
“There’s a forcefield system to keep the rats out,” Hero explained when he showed Danny the mechanism. “You have to shut it off to leave the house, but I think I might be able to figure out some kind of biometrics to make it easier to use.”
Danny shook his head. “I don’t mind. This is great.”
The house was built defensively, so the worst-case scenario was that just a few pests snuck in when Danny was walking in and out, and the rats really only moved with purpose when there was something to attack, which probably wasn’t going to happen if Danny was going outside. He wasn’t dumb enough to go wandering around when he knew there were people in his range. There was a roof entrance for flyers and a couple different setups for the PRT to bring supplies, everything from drop points outside of Danny’s range to automated drones. He was living in luxury.
But more importantly, Danny could be clean, comfortable, and around other people.
It was really just Hero, Eidolon, Alexandria, and Legend, but Danny didn’t really want anything more, at least not yet. Their visits were still a little sporadic, having lives outside of Danny and all, but Danny’s whole life had changed, and he didn’t mind the extra time on his own to adjust to it all.
He looked forward to the visits, though. It was mostly Eidolon at first, not having as many other commitments as the others, but Legend still made a point to come at least every few days. He was Danny’s first friend since he got powers, and there was something special about their friendship that Danny was starting to worry they would lose if things kept changing.