The Docks aren't exactly bustling when you arrive. Eight o'clock is the shift change, when the overnight workers have signed out and the people working the morning shift sign in, and you arrive a bit after that. Everyone is already hard at work.
Looking around, you can see that they're two separate shipments. One is being loaded on the eastern side of the docks, where you can vaguely see Kurt operating a crane, lifting large steel shipping containers onto several railway cars. The other is filled with much smaller boxes, which over a dozen dockworkers are manually lifting onto trucks.
Dad leads you over to a small grey building near the dock's fence. It's signposted 'ADMINISTRATION'; beneath it is a smaller sign, obviously added later, that says 'Dockworker's Union— Office Open 8-6 M-F, 11-3 Weekends'. A man in his mid-thirties greets the two of you with a bland smile and a monotone "Hello, Danny" as you step inside— the receptionist, since he's sitting behind a thick wooden desk with panes of what you suspect is bulletproof glass between him and whoever comes in the front door.
"Heya, Thom," Dad says with a smile. "Anything happen while I was gone?" Thom only shakes his head, so the two of you proceed down the hallway without further comment, until Dad leans over and says quietly, "He always sounds like that. His wife told me a story about how she yelled at him for talking in a monotone during their wedding." You snort inelegantly in response.
He leads you to his office— you know because he's affixed a crooked wooden sign to it, reading "Office of Danny Hebert". And there's a brass plaque sitting on his desk reading 'Danny Hebert— Union Steward'. And there's a photograph of your family sitting on his desk, turned half-away so he could view it from in front of his computer.
Well, and he told you as you approached it. That was, admittedly, probably the biggest hint.
"Right," he says when he finally makes it in. "Pull up a seat and I'll show you some of what I do. Lunch break is at half past eleven, so I'll introduce you to everyone then."
You'd never really put much thought into what Dad actually does at work all day. You'd kind of assumed he was like a manager, directing people about and assigning them duties. As it turns out, that was entirely wrong. The role of a union leader— "Union Steward," he stresses to you— is apparently something entirely distinct from a manager.
He actually spends most of his time doing three things: catching up on news from the broader union and disseminating any new information to the workers in the union, checking to ensure the Docks complied with state and federal policies and regulations, and investigating incidents involving union members as reported to him by his workers.
"It used to be a lot worse than it is," he tells you at one point. "When I took the job, back when you were a kid, the Docks were headed downhill with the Graveyard and all. They'd cut almost half their staff by the time I stepped in. The manager was terrible at his job. They later found out that he'd joined the Empire and started embezzling funds, which is when they let him go and hired Rebecca to take over. But the standards for workers at the dock were terrible, and the guy obviously didn't care much about following state safety standards. It took me years to get enough of my people hired in that work was actually getting done according to schedule, and it wasn't until they hired Rebecca that the council considered the Docks worth investing in again."
There's a fascinating system in place. Dad responds to emails with crisp efficiency, clearing out a backlog of over four dozen emails in before the clock even hits half past ten. Some of them are from the Union, memos for him to read over later, but a lot of them are emails from workers in his care or members of the Dock's managerial staff. His fingers snap out over the keyboard, shooting out responses almost faster than you can read them.
From what you can tell, there's a struggle over pay rises. The council has agreed to an ongoing contract, including a small pay rise each year to match inflation rates. The Mayor has refused to allocate additional funds to hire new employees, however, and with the Docks becoming more active, workers are having to work longer hours to meet the new demand.
"Don't they get overtime pay for that?" you ask, staring at the computer screen. Dad stops typing for a minute, looking down at you.
"They do, but that's not what this is about," he replies. "The boys are feeling underappreciated. The Mayor is demanding longer hours from them, but a lot of them have families they want to be home for, and being a dockworker doesn't pay very much in the first place." He smiles humourlessly at that.
"The Bay is still in an economic downslump, though. Tourism is finally picking back up, but with the two Empire factions in town and the foreign gangs forming a coalition against them, a few businesses have decided it would be better if they moved their businesses elsewhere. The Mayor is struggling to balance the budget, and the Docks are a low priority so long as the Graveyard isn't cleared out."
You consider that for a moment. You're vagely aware, of course, that the presence of so many gangs in town has been hurting the town's economy. That's just inevitable— gang violence, drug problems and increased crime rates always result in the local economy getting worse. The Protectorate, and especially the PRT, do their best to combat that, but there's only so much even superheroes can do. Problems like these are systemic. New Wave tries to offer what help they can, you know; Brandish, also a high-profile lawyer, offers her services free to anyone trying to get out of the gangs, and Panacea dedicates Sundays to helping victims of gang violence get back on their feet. But it's not enough to fix the problems in Brockton Bay, not alone.
Idly, you wonder what else is being done around town. Something else to research when you get to investigating the cape scene, you suppose.
It's fascinating to watch Dad at work. You never really understood what a role like his was for, before. You'd always thought of managers and the like as spending most of their time bossing people around and the like. In reality, Dad's more like a middleman. The bosses, the higher-ups of the Union, tell Dad what's going on, and he relays it to his workers. His workers tell him what it's like on the ground, and he relays it to the bosses. He figures out what each group needs from the other, and how they can deliver on that, then he sets the process in motion.
Businesses are way more complicated than you'd thought. It's lucky you figured that out before you tried setting up your own cape team.
You're going to have to look more into that.
Eventually, lunchtime rolls around. Dad finished responding to his emails about an hour ago, and has spent the remaining hour writing memos and going over resumes his bosses sent him to look over.
There's a larger room— repurposed from a warehouse, probably— that acts as a general meeting room and break room for the employees. Dad leads you there, chatting animatedly with you about the trade agreements between America and Russia.
You're not sure how the chat got there. Your head is spinning with too much information.
Inside, you can see everyone sitting down around the room. Most of them are sitting on plastic stools in front of cheap, foldable aluminium tables. Some of them have chosen instead to sit on a long wooden bench, where they're wrapped in an animated conversation about one of Uber and Leet's latest videos.
When the two of you step forward into the building, everyone shoots your father respectful nods and waves. It's obvious that they appreciate the work he's done for them, even if he isn't having much luck with this pay rise thing.
At the back of the warehouse is a large fridge. Dad swings it open, revealing— not very much, really. A few cartons of milk, a half-empty loaf of bread and three full ones, some cheese and tomatoes, a thick packet of sliced beef from a local butcher's, and a bunch of tins of tuna.
"I know it's not very much," he says with an apologetic look towards you, "but everyone pools their money together to buy this stuff, and we don't get paid until Monday." He lowers his voice and leans towards you, murmuring, "And some of the guys can barely afford to pay their rent with the Empire's tax. They're too prideful to accept charity, so Lacey and I came up with this idea. This way everyone is at least able to eat one little meal at work."
You shrug and accept that. You don't mind sandwiches in the least. "That's okay, Dad," you reply.
He smiles at you and proceeds to make you a sandwich, then leads you over to a large table, with several people already sitting around it, including a lady dressed in a shimmering suit and wearing a full-face mask. He gestures around, introducing you to everyone as the two of you take a seat.
"Taylor, you already know Kurt and Lacey." You greet the two of them with a shy nod. "This is Rob, one of the foremen. Henry— don't worry, he's shy too," he confides to you in a loud whisper, causing the man to blush and stammer out a denial. Dad guffaws and claps him on the shoulder, before pointing you at the lady you'd noticed earlier. "And this is Igneous, the cape who's been clearing up the Bay for us."
You give them all a small wave, then take a bite out of your sandwich. You can't help your nose wrinkling for a second. Dad cut those tomatoes awfully thick.
There's a jovial atmosphere around the table. Dad carries the conversation, his booming voice filling the silence when everybody else falls silent. None of the topics are very interesting to you, so you just stay silent at the table, nibbling slowly at your sandwich.
The conversation doesn't interest you, but you're glad to see that Dad is enjoying himself. It took a long time for him to get to this point. After Mom's death, he'd slid into a depression for over a year. You'd taken care of him as much as you could, but you were barely nine at the time, and didn't even understand how to work the percolator, let alone care for a grown man.
Eventually, Kurt and Lacey had stepped in and booked him an appointment with a therapist. It still wasn't a quick process, but a combination of fortnightly sessions with the therapist and antidepressants had slowly helped him to recover. He still had his bad times, but you can't blame him for that— you have your bad times, too. It helped that the two of you had had nearly a year to prepare yourselves after Mom was diagnosed, but grieving was only natural.
You don't really know what's happened at work to make him seem so much livelier here than he is at home, but looking around, you can see that nobody's uncomfortable with his presence any more, nobody is shooting him sour looks. Everyone looks genuinely happy with
him around.
Looking at him now— his face almost splitting in a wide grin as he joked around with his employees— you feel a small piece of your heart settle.
After the lunch break, Dad leads you back to his office.
"They're good people," he comments idly as he opens his mail program again, beginning to sort through the replies he'd received from earlier. You give him a quizzical look, and he jerks his chin in the direction of the door. "The workers here, they're good people. A lot of people look down on them for being unskilled labourers, but all they're doing is the best they can to provide for their families and make a living."
You nod. "Yeah," you reply quietly.
You'd never really paid much attention to the city itself. You knew it wasn't in a good state— obviously, since if it was, the Empire wouldn't still be around. But you'd never really looked at what the city is like for the people who lived in it.
For the rest of the afternoon, you content yourself by stealing one of his pens and a pad of paper and trying to write out a simple lesson plan for your tutoring sessions with Madison. Chemistry is simple enough, since you're still going over the basics, but she mentioned she was having trouble with her grades in general. Maths and English will be harder.
Dad doesn't clock out until five, a solid four hours after the rest of the morning shift. Most of the workers you pass give him a nod and a "Hello" as he walks past, but he just acknowledges them with a smile and a wave before moving on.
The car drive home is silent. You fiddle with the radio some, but most of the radio channels in the Bay are filled with Empire propaganda, and you can't stand the music the Protectorate's channel blares through the day.
When you get home, Dad takes a deep breath. "Okay, I guess it's time," he breathes almost inaudibly to himself. You don't think you were meant to hear that. "Taylor," he says louder, "could we talk for a minute?"
You shoot back with a flippant "Sure", tucking the stolen notepad back into your pocket.
Dad leads you into the house, then through the hall into the dining room, where you both sit at the dining table. He looks seriously over at you.
"Taylor," he begins, then cuts himself off. "I'm-" He comes up short again, exhaling a frustrated sigh. He visibly gathers himself before saying anything. "I'm sorry if I'm away a lot," he says quietly. "I know I'm missing a lot with you, and I really am sorry about that. I'll try to do better in future."
You shake your head. "No, it's fine. I-"
He interrupts you, shaking his head angrily. "It's not fine, Taylor," he says. For the first time all day, you can feel his emotions leaking out heavily enough that your power picks up on them. Frustration, and disappointment. "I've... I'm not a perfect man, Taylor. I try my best, but I've made a lot of mistakes in the past, with you, with me, with my whole life. But I'm your father, and I should be doing a better job of that."
Anger flares to life within you, deep in your gut. "Hey, I said it's fine," you state firmly. "Dad, I'm fifteen years old. I can handle you not getting home until eight some days."
He closes his eyes, the frustration growing stronger. It's tempting to use your power on him, but— you did it once before, when you manipulated him into feeling like you could handle staying alone at home overnight in preparation for your plan, and you didn't feel good about it. He's your Dad, someone you actually care about, not just another one of your victims.
"That's not what I'm saying, Taylor." He sounds defeated. "I should have been there for you more. Not even physically," he says hastily when you open your mouth, "I mean emotionally. Annette's death was hard on me, but it was hard on you too, and I should have been there for you."
You clench your teeth angrily, grinding them together.
