"Like I said, you don't have to worry about heat from the heroes on account of me, but sure."

"Mm. Right. And I am very much looking forward to some sweet, sweet titanium. It can even be whatever form you find it in, I have machine tools and I'm working on a smelting rig."

"Cool. When should I give you the stuff?"

"Uh... There's a hole in the wall, literally, at..." She gives an address for an abandoned workshop - not near hers. "Leave it there, I'll get the stuff and tell you I got it."

"Gotcha. Over and out."

Back to tinkering, then.

It's... Plausibly helpful that 'gone most of the day' has become the status quo for her, with her parents.

But she gets a phone call.

A Ward is at her house. Shiiiit. She thinks about running for it- But, Dauntless was friendly. They're not attacking her on sight.

"...I'm on my way back."

About five minutes later, she walks in the front door of her house, wearing an unseasonably heavy coat. Probably concealing something. "...Hi, everyone."

That costume is... The tinker Ward? Possibly a good sign. 

"Come in, Walta," Her dad gruffly demands, "And explain."

She goes in. "...Yeah, let's get over this, uh, awkward silence thing, I think everyone here knows I'm a tinker."

The awkward silence persists.

"...hi," says the tinker Ward—a boy named Magnet Master, with an unassuming tinker suit of gray on gray with a side of metallic. "I—uh—just wanted to talk."

"And you came to my house? That's creepy, you know! How do I know a police squad won't just show up in the middle of the-"

Her mother snaps, "Waltana Hampson! Be polite! Wait, a police squad? What have you been up to, young lady?"

"Nothing! ...Something! I didn't mean any harm!"

"—police squad? No, no, that wouldn't—they wouldn't do that—yeah I'm sorry I just, I thought if I could talk to you and explain it'd be fine but—"

"Carla, Walta, calm down." There is a surprising amount of steel in that man's voice. "We will deal with this like adults and not embarrass ourselves in front of Magnet Master, am I clear?"

"Y-Yeah," answers Walta. Takes a deep breath. "...So, yeah. I'm a tinker. I'll- Talk to you and mom about it all you want later. But I'd better talk to, uh, Magnet Master while he's here. And I'd rather do it in another room. If that's alright. Sir."

"That's alright. But we will be talking about it when he's gone, make no mistake. And you're almost certainly grounded."

Walta grimaces. "...Okay. So. Please follow me?" She makes for the kitchen in the small house, the most plausibly separate room.

"What do you want?"

"...I kinda wanted to, uh, sell the position. You know. Explain how cool it is to work with the Protectorate and all that."

"Well, apparently I'm a wanted woman now, for an accident when I was three feet away from Kaiser and Hookwolf."

"—wanted woman?"

"Uh, Armsmaster tried to arrest me? You can see why I would be nervous about a hero showing up right?"

"He tried to what?! Is he crazy? You don't go around arresting tinkers!"

"...Well, he did. I ran away - good at that."

"No I'm sure you misheard him, you don't just arrest tinkers—I mean sure you fucked up, but that happens, people fuck up, you wouldn't have fucked it if you'd had proper funding..."

"No, I fucked up because I tried to do a field modification to cause an explosion, and was way too successful. Not that lack of funding helped. I decided, no more field modifications. Not unless it's really truly my only hope. And why don't you arrest tinkers?"

"Well, 'don't do field modifications' is also, like, tinker one-oh-one which someone would've told you." Shrug. "Anyway, because, like. Tinkers are super powerful? And if you arrest them someone else is gonna come break them out and then you have a tinker villain and where are you? Or even if not a tinker villain, suppose someone kidnaps you, prevents you from tinkering for a month, then gives you a project and some materials only barely enough to do it—do you even question it?"

"...No. I don't. I probably literally go crazy if someone stops me from tinkering for a month- I get antsy if I have to go more than eight hours awake without tinkering."

"Exactly. So it's, like, super in our interest to just—have you with us and like us—but, uh, just between us, Armsmaster's kind of an asshole."

"Well..." Sigh. "That actually explains a lot. And that thing with Dauntless and Velocity and Glam the other day was good. There's stuff - I don't really want to talk about, that makes me hesitant to join up. But my parents knowing will shake that up, so thanks for that."

He doesn't look sheepish but that's because he's wearing a metal suit. "Sorry," he says, sounding sheepish at least.

The unaligned tinker sighs at him. "Not deliberate. Still sucks for me. How does getting parts work? What kind of workspace is there? I have lots of tinkering tools, tools I've tinkered up. Stuff has to get approved?"

"Kinda. Like, everything you make while working for the Protectorate is technically the Protectorate's while you're a Ward, but you have a lot of leeway to make things for yourself and after you graduate you can apply for permission to get the patent for stuff and they mostly give it. You have an allowance but also some extra money specifically for parts, plus unlimited parts for stuff you make specifically for them. And you have access to the works of every other tinker that works with the Protectorate and I cannot explain just how awesome that is—I've seen some of Dragon's stuff, it's amazing. And every tinker gets their own lab but you can collab and all that. But: Dragon's stuff."