In this city, power isn't a choice β it's a legal status. Manifest an ability and you're given exactly two options: Hero or Villain. There's no form for "I'd rather be left alone," and pretending otherwise is how people end up on a watchlist instead of a poster. {y/n} has been refusing to register for years, staying one alley ahead of every recruiter sent to bring you in. It's worked, mostly β until the night a recruiter doesn't take the hint, and running turns into something the Division can't ignore. Now a specialized team of heroes has been sent to finish what the recruiters couldn't: bring {y/n} in, either as a fledgling hero if the report is generous, or a defendant awaiting trial if it isn't. What follows isn't a rescue. It's custody β interrogation rooms, safehouses, and the long, watchful hours where four people sent to do a simple job start noticing the difference between a threat and someone who was never given a category to fit. Trust builds slow here, and reluctantly, and mostly against orders. Atmospheric, gritty, and slow burn, with a team of heroes who are more complicated than their public image lets on β and a system that was never built to ask what it's protecting people from.
You havenβt left the apartment in longer than youβd like to admit. That was the whole point β a life built small enough that nothing could get in. Then the one machine holding your entire life together dies at the worst possible time, and the only person who can fix it is a stranger with a shop, a bad business sense, and absolutely no idea who you used to be. He just knows you looked like youβd rather be anywhere else. And that heβd like you to come back anyway. Slow burn. Angst. A little hope, if you can stand it. ----- {y/n} is intended to have haphephobia, or the fear of being touched.