(THE “S” STANDS FOR HOPE) CHAPTER EIGHTY: TAYLOR

Taylor knew it was a bad idea, but she was already halfway through it.

That was kind of how these things worked with her.

The costume came out of the back of the closet without much thought. Her fingers moved on their own, muscle memory doing the work while her brain lagged behind, still somewhere back in the living room where the TV had been playing that clip again: Superman, standing in front of reporters, talking like everything could be fixed if people just… tried.

She hadn’t meant to watch the whole thing. She hadn’t meant to leave the living room after, leaving Aisha arguing with Brian about something that didn’t matter and her dad in the kitchen. But then she was dressed, mask in hand, staring at herself in the mirror.

“You’re done,” she told her reflection.

It didn’t argue.

She put the mask on anyway.

Out the window, up the fire escape, onto the roof. The city opened up around her like it always did, and the bugs came with it, spilling outward to fill in the gaps. Instinctively, she adjusted to the wide, strange sense of seeing everything at once.

She moved across the rooftops, jumping the first gap, then the next, letting her body remember what her head didn’t want to think about. There wasn’t much to find. A couple drunks, one argument that fizzled out before it turned into anything, and some idiot checking car doors and getting spooked by a passing truck. The kind of small, petty stuff that used to slip through the cracks when bigger things were happening.

Now it was just… that.

She should’ve felt good about that. Instead it felt like showing up late to something that had already ended. A world that didn't need her anymore. 

She slowed on a rooftop, crouching near the edge, letting the swarm spread wider, just… checking.

Nothing.

For a second she considered heading back. Dropping the whole thing, going home, and pretending this hadn’t happened. Then her bugs noticed something, and her head turned skyward before she realized she was doing it.

There.

A shape against the sky, flying.

Her stomach flipped before her brain caught up.

“…No way,” she breathed.

Superman.

The word hit hard and fast and stupidly hopeful. Her bugs climbed higher, spreading out, trying to get a better read, and came back with nothing useful. They moved around him, near him, but it was like trying to feel a person through a glove. 

Did that even make sense?

Did it matter?

Despite her mind urging her not to, she moved towards him. At first, she kept her distance, tracking him as he drifted lower, slower, like he wasn’t really paying attention to where he was going.

That part felt off.

Superman didn’t move like that. Every video she’d seen and every clip replayed on the news had a distinct purpose to it. Even when he looked relaxed, there was some direction, even unseen, underneath. This guy just… floated.

She followed anyway.

By the time he dropped to a rooftop, she was already close enough to cross the gap in a couple seconds. She slowed as she got there, landing light, letting the swarm spread out before her to settle in a loose perimeter.

He didn’t react like people usually did when she appeared. There was no visible tension in his stance, or even any sign that he cared about it. He didn’t even turn towards her right away.

That put her on edge.

“Hey,” she called. 

He didn’t react right away.

Then he turned, and oh.

He looked… average.

There wasn’t any other word for it. He was just a normal man in a plain, white bodysuit, standing on a rooftop like he’d wandered there by accident. If she’d seen him on the street she wouldn’t have looked twice. Except her bugs kept sliding around him like he didn’t fit properly in the space he was standing in.

And there was something else. Something harder to pin down. The way he stood, maybe. There was something almost familiar about him.

Her guard went up another notch.

“Do I know you?” she said, stepping a little closer.

He took a second to answer.

“No.”

His voice didn’t match anything she expected. There was no confidence behind it, but still, an authority shone through. 

“You’re lost,” she said, more of a statement than a question. It slipped out before she could stop it.

His mouth twitched into something not quite a smile.

“Something like that.”

There was no further explanation.

“Okay,” she said. “Then who are you?”

Another pause, longer this time, and he looked at her like the question was harder than it should be.

“David,” he said finally, and there was something dry in it. Tired, more than anything else.

She waited, but nothing followed.

“…Right,” she said. “Just David.”

He didn’t correct her.

For a second neither of them said anything. The city noise drifted up around them, distant and normal in a way that made the moment feel even stranger.

Taylor watched him. He wasn’t looking at her like a threat, or like someone he needed to impress, or even like someone he needed to figure out. He just… looked. And then his gaze drifted past her, out over the city again, like he’d forgotten she was there for a second.

That shouldn’t have been reassuring, but it kind of was.

“And what are you doing flying over Brockton Bay in the middle of the night, David?”

He let out a breath that sounded halfway to a laugh and didn’t quite make it.

“I was… thinking, and just ended up here,” he said.

She stared at him.

“That’s not—” She cut herself off, exhaling through her nose. “That doesn't really make much sense.”

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m starting to get that.”

There was something off about the way he said it. Like he was only just realizing it himself.

Taylor hesitated.

Everything about this screamed wrong enough that she should’ve called it in or left him to his devices. Instead she found herself studying him a little more closely.

Lost.

The word came back, stronger this time.

It sat there in the way his shoulders held, in the slight delay before he answered anything, and in the way he kept glancing off at nothing in particular like he was expecting something to be there and it wasn’t.

She’d seen that look before in the mirror.

Her chest tightened again, sharp this time, and she glanced toward the direction of home before looking at him again.

This was really a bad idea. 

Her brain lined up all the reasons in quick, neat order: unknown variables, potential threat, responsibility to the people waiting at home, and the fact that she wasn’t even supposed to be out here in the first place.

She ignored all of them.

“Have you eaten?” she asked.

He blinked at her.

“I—what?”

“Food,” she said, gesturing vaguely. “Dinner. You look like you haven't eaten”

“I’m fine,” he said automatically.

She snorted softly. “Sure.”

He didn’t respond. That said more than anything else he’d said so far.

“My dad’s cooking tonight,” she said. “Meatloaf.”

Why was she saying this? 

“He’s… really good at it,” she added, because apparently she was committed now. “Like, better than it has any right to be.”

She paused. 

“You can— I mean. You can come by. If you want.”

David just stared at her.

“You’re inviting me,” he said slowly, “to your house.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t know me.”

Taylor shrugged.

“I know enough,” she said. “And if you turn out to be a problem… I’ll deal with it.”

It wasn’t a threat. It didn’t need to be.

He looked at the swarm, then back at her.

Something in his expression changed, like something had clicked into place or maybe slipped further out of it.

“…Your dad makes a mean meatloaf?” he asked.

She huffed out a quiet breath, something almost like a laugh.

“Yeah,” she said. “He does.”