(SHATTERPOINT) ANAKIN SKYWALKER

Dorothy had learned long ago not to ask too many questions in Brockton Bay.

Not when half your employees had fake names, ‘sealed’ records, or tattoos they swore meant nothing. Not when a third of your neighborhood was unemployed and the other two-thirds were just trying to stay off the wrong gang’s radar. Not when you ran a barely-profitable auto shop that doubled as a halfway house and the neighborhood unofficial gossip hub.

So when the new guy showed up, she didn’t ask much. But he still gave her pause.

No resume. No ID. Just a name, written in blocky, oddly mechanical handwriting on the application form:

Anakin Skywalker.

She’d thought it was a joke. Some nerd reference she didn't get, maybe. She’d laughed, but he hadn’t smiled. Not once.

He wasn’t just tall, he loomed. Broad-shouldered and square-jawed, that kind of carved-out-of-granite look you didn’t get from only protein shakes and gym time. His voice was deep, and carried authority without ever raising above a murmur. And he had that cold, quiet intensity you’d expect from an ex-merc or someone who’d seen a war zone up close. 

Which, honestly, was far from unusual in this town. 

He followed orders stiffly but without backtalk or complaints, unless she assigned him something he found beneath him.

“Clean the oil trap,” she’d told him once, holding out gloves.

He’d looked at her like she’d asked him to lick the floor.

“This is not how my skills are best used,” he’d said, voice low but heavy with warning.

She hadn’t pushed it. Not because she was scared—though, yeah, he was scary—but because the next day he’d rebuilt a transmission with such fluid grace and skill it looked choreographed. 

The man knew engines. Hell, he understood machines in a way that made her question if he was a Tinker. But that line of thought was easily dismissed. He wasn’t building anything that defied physics from junk. No, he was too consistent, too grounded, and too normal, just in a terrifying, hyper-competent kind of way.

It was more like… he was used to machines that were better. Faster. More advanced.

But they all had their secrets, so Dorothy let him be. 

He showed up early. Left late. Never stole. Ate like a starving man, as if unused to regular foods for years, but never asked for seconds. Never looked at anyone sideways. Didn't drink either, or flirt, and only talked when spoken to. The discipline was eerie. Military, but old military, pre-parahumans and Endbringers. 

The kind that was beaten into you with rules and tradition, not adrenaline and ego. The kind that made it so when the other workers laughed and swapped stories over greasy lunches, he stood apart, arms folded, gaze distant, but aware. Always aware. 

And then there was the eye candy factor.

She wasn’t blind. The man looked like a movie star and carried himself like he knew it. And those eyes, icy blue, as hard as any metal she had seen. If she were younger, she might’ve called them dreamy. The kind you lose yourself in. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. She didn’t see the charm, she saw exhaustion. An exhaustion etched so deep it looked permanent.

Yet, his hands remained steady and his mind razor-sharp.

No, she had no reason to complain.

Not even when the gangs started getting bold again. Not even when capes like Lung or Skidmark stirred things up and the kids down the block started talking about weapons and drugs being handed out behind closed doors.

In a city held together by rust, sweat, and spite, a man who kept his head down and his boots clean was worth more than a glowing resume, proof of identity, or clean record.

But still... Dorothy watched him sometimes, from behind the grimy window of her office.

He’d stop in the middle of a task—mid-weld or mid-turn of a wrench—and stare for just a moment. Not at anything. Not anyone. Just… space. Like he expected something to be there. Something important. Something just out of reach.

He never prayed, but he looked like a man who had once believed in something with his entire being. And now? Now he couldn't remember what that felt like.

That was what made her uneasy. Not the scar tissue she glimpsed when he stripped down to his undershirt. Not the way he seemed to instinctively size people up when they got too close. Not even the way he moved like he was always preparing for a fight that might never come.

No, it was the fact that he seemed like a man who’d lost everything. And didn’t quite know what to do with the second chance he’d been given.

Still, he was diligent and hardworking.

And in Brockton Bay, that was enough.

At least for now.