‘his quirk used to be the source of his confidence, his power...his mastery over electricity made him feel invincible. none of them were invincible, that lesson had been learned. gabriel had let his powers overwhelm him when reality had come crashing through. he more than anyone knew that lightning did strike twice, and it became his drive to stop that from happening.’
athena would always claim he was already a pain in the ass before he was born. at least one false labor had nearly led to a power outage, but the night he was born she definitely led to a blackout that she would continue to credit him with for years to come. not a year before that event she had been known as livewire, one of the five women who made up the thunderbirds. they had been heroes in what her wife would later calle their 'glory days'. with everything that happened to lee tanaka, she began to fear losing grace and feared the world that they were going to bring their unborn child into.
not because she thought that what they were doing wasn't worth it, or that it wasn't necessary. she would raise gabriel to believe that there was a level of responsibility to do what was right that had nothing to do with their quirks. it was simply because they were human. had she known the path she would set him on in saying that, she might have thought to try and sway him in the other direction. instead, athena would be left holding her breath as her youngest child told her that he intended to use the quirk he had inherited from her to follow in her footsteps.
she would not be his only motivation though. there was always a crackling of static following gabriel. from the very first time he called up a current between his young hands to the times he caused blackouts that he would proudly take credit for. he believed in every little encouragement that those who raised and instructed him would give him about how he could do anything. the academy didn't feel like an obligation so much as an opportunity and he was more than a little bright-eyed to be starting out in service of the public.
it wasn't long after he'd finished his time in the sidekick gig... kira, also known as ultraviolet, had taught him everything that she knew. gabriel knew her beyond that though. they had been friends on the edge of a maybe something more someday situation. it was a standoff at the site of an armed robbery. what they didn't expect were the quirks there who were assisting. even with the police unit that they were working in conjunction with and the numbers being in their favor it still went to hell.
he was used to coming back from a situation with the day having been won. it was rare that they let the bad guy get away with something. he had never lost anyone. despite even her experience and ability to use her quirk in snap decisions, what was manipulating solar energy when it came to getting in between a bullet and it's mark?
maybe he got a little bit reckless after that, a little more prickly. the jade colored glasses fell over his eyes and knocked those rose-tinted ones right off. it was all too easy at times to discharge electricity in an attempt to get people to keep their distance, to maybe not keep the static buildup in check. until it became a problem until his powers got him in trouble with the public and forced him to own up to the reputation he had built up.
he'd lost kira, but he nearly lost everything thereafter. punishing others for what he felt like was on him would not get him anywhere. his quirk used to be the source of his confidence, his power...his mastery over electricity made him feel invincible. none of them were invincible, that lesson had been learned. gabriel had let his powers overwhelm him when reality had come crashing through. he more than anyone knew that lightning did strike twice, and it became his drive to stop that from happening.
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