A Young Trans Woman - Worm

You seriously can't believe this shit keeps happening to you.

It was a snowless day in the early Winter of Brockton Bay, and while the cold stung, you'd been grateful for the lack of snow on your walk home from your shitty retail job.

Not so grateful that you didn't try to take a shortcut route through some less shady (for as much as that counted for anything in the Bay) back alleys to avoid the worst of the biting wind.

And, yet again, what a *great* idea that had turned out to be. The list of shitty things that could happen to a trans woman in the dark alleyways of the Bay was... long. Between the omniphobic Empire 88, the ultra-macho Azn Bad Boys, and the indiscriminately destructive Merchant druglords, any minority would have their work cut out for them.

That all said, even the unseasonably warm winters of Brockton Bay still usually managed to chase away the worst of the detritus of society into their cosy, burning trashcan warmed nooks.

As any good Brockton urbanite should have expected though, what could go wrong, did.

"We're all loaded up then?"

"Damn straight, let's rock and roll."

Skinheads. A clear area between several disused warehouses, a former truck loading dock or something. You'd barely stumbled backwards in time to avoid being spotted when you first blundered into the nascent Empire 88 operation. Skinheads loading weapons into armoured trucks, a small army gathering, and in the shadows of one of the warehouse bays, a fucking military surplus armoured car with a bigass gun turret on the top.

How the fuck did the E88 get a hold of something like that?

You've always been one to keep your ear to the ground. Even leaving aside... the gender thing, keeping up with the movements and pulls and eddies of the gangs and supervillainous groups in Brockton Bay was just good sense. You took it a bit further than most, but never in a way that endangered you.

Now though? You were just trying not to hyperventilate, peaking through a gap in the two steel drums hiding you from the Nazi's sight, desperately wishing you weren't in one of the Bay's inexplicable cellular deadzones.

It wasn't as if it was especially likely you'd be seen if you tried to, you dunno, crawl away a few feet, then run. No, the issue was that they almost certainly had patrols around the area, ones that you'd avoid by sheer blind luck. Or bad luck, maybe, you hesitate to assume which scenario would be worse.

So, trapped behind two steel barrels, surrounded by nazi patrols, a small army about to go probably kill a lot of innocent people, loaded up with nonsensically high quality military grade equipment, and no cell service.

Oh, and- you squint through the crack between the barrels, putting your forehead right up against the grimey steel. Yeah, looks like Fenja, Menja, and Hookwolf just swaggered out of a warehouse, they're taking in the troops. Just swell, not even lucky enough for this to be 'just' a mundane paramilitary attack on Brockton Bay.

Well, seeing as they're all about to leave, right here is... probably the safest spot to wait out whatever the fuck is about to happen. You nod to yourself in surety as you lean back away from the barrels and slump against the wall they're pressed up against. Yes, you're gonna sit right here until allll these fuckers fuck right off, wait for the fireworks to start, then very carefully sprint like a madwoman for your apartment on the other side of town.

Sounds like a plan!

And then....

And then you feel a small, sharp blade pressed against your throat.

"Well, well, well..." A darkly amused, husky, but feminine voice murmurs in your ear as you instantly break into a cold sweat. "What do we have here?"