Chapter Text
September 1999
Success wasn’t guaranteed, but if there was anything the climb to the top of Vought International taught Stan Edgar, it was how to make opportunity from even the worst fuck ups. After all, what was Payback but a series of fuck ups, seasoned with blood or quaaludes or lube or, where the TNT twins were considered, all of the above? Whatever Homelander was, he couldn’t be worse than the generation before him.
Yet their project was a resounding success. Homelander and Black Noir had done a commendable job with Cruz Chemical. Stan carefully reviewed the bits covered on late night news, reviewed the cover of the Times, the Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Homelander’s rescue beat out news from the US Open and a bombing overseas or the front page, the 18 year old the picture of American exceptionalism.
Sometimes Stan wondered if he had pulled the trigger too soon with Ben. Ben was a headache, but Ben was cut from a different cloth from the superheroes they churned out since then. Raised on the American Dream, Ben believed his own mythology. Whatever else he was, whatever justifications he had in his head for the litany of atrocities he committed, Ben was publicly a superhero first.
Unlike all these drug addicts and celebrities in capes that required Vought to buy off a young girl with a hazy memory of the night before, or the traumatized families who saw their loved one sawed in half.
Stan was pleasantly surprised: Homelander was everything Vogelbaum promised. Another young man who would buy into his own myth enough not to embarrass Vought too profoundly. If Madelyn could keep the kid on his script, they might be able to keep the company afloat until it was time for the next incarnation.
Black Noir had sent Edgar footage of his time in Cruz Chemical, and once Stan was sure the public face was pristine, he could study what happened behind the scenes. There was little for him to do once he’d entered, welcomed by people restrained. Not even an accidental broken bone to have to explain. They’d screamed for help, but Noir had gone directly to Homelander, who looked dazed as he stared at the criminals.
Noir had taken out his pad and written a question mark on it. Homelander seemed to snap out of it, mouth forming an easy grin.
“You’re a little late.”
Arrogant little shit.
There was something… off, though. Noir noticed it too. He’d turned to show Edgar that Homelander was looking around as they walked the terrorists out. Looking for what, Edgar wondered. One three second clip showed Homelander breathing deeply, eyes immediately snapping to a door, but doing nothing else.
How could he not know how obvious he was? How could he not know that Noir and Edgar both knew what he was doing?
Noir had asked for instructions when Homelander went back in, and Stan had suggested giving Homelander a wide berth. Cruz Chemical had cameras, and those were more worth Noir’s time than tipping off Homelander to Stan’s intentions. They could talk to the prisoners, understand what exactly they saw before Noir came through.
There were many avenues to explore this scenario from, but it was getting late, and Stan was ready to shut off his Vought email. He was ready to remove his CEO mantle and allow trusted individuals to create those reports for his perusal when he returned.
Stan was ready to go home to Victoria.
Away from his computer, from the stories they would craft around Homelander’s ascension and Noir’s mentorship, Edgar was able to go through the department store bags he’d accumulated. He’d sprung to have the gifts wrapped, and he imagined handing Victoria each package, watching her unwrap the gifts. She was the weapon Edgar hoped he’d never have to fire, tucked safely away in his private home. Until the day she was needed, she was just a little girl.
A bottle of Ralph Lauren Romance. A cream cashmere sweater. A blush colored dress. A matching pajama set with a robe. All things Edgar hoped would please Victoria, would make her understand that she had not only been acquired. Even without the legal paperwork, she’d been adopted.
Things were still so delicate with Victoria. She was a teenager, already a precarious enough age without considering her immense power. She was so afraid of herself and what she could do, and part of her was still wary about Stan. He’d caught her in his cupboards once and the girl froze until Stan laughed and assured her that she was welcome to anything her heart desired. Victoria had pulled out a sleeve of cookies, and Stan sat with her, hoping each bite convinced her that she was with a man she could trust. Even if she’d never had someone she trusted before.
Stan thought about the reports about Homelander at that age, locked away in B6, when he wondered if he was making the right choices with Victoria’s upbringing. If he was too permissive with her, too soft.
He always seems on the verge of snapping at us. Sometimes I feel him just watching me, even when I’m just eating lunch or tossing paper away.
The more he slips away from us, the more he’ll know there’s nothing we can do to stop him.
He is not without an undercurrent of entitlement and cruelty.
Maybe Vogelbaum was right. Maybe Homelander did need a parent figure, even if it was a ghost of a man.
Stan couldn’t change how they’d raised Homelander—wouldn’t change it, that dog was best kept on a leash—but he could test that hypothesis on his own daughter. He wished he could have brought her to New York. After the press conference, he could’ve brought Victoria to Gramercy Tavern, and the two could’ve walked the twenty blocks to Times Square. He wouldn’t have had the patience for a musical, but he could bet Victoria would’ve loved Death of a Salesman like he did. It would’ve been a wonderful night, if there weren’t certain to be at least a dozen agencies investigating his daughter the moment they were spotted together.
A made for TV adaptation wasn’t quite Broadway, but at least they’d be able to eat whatever they wanted during it.
The idea of this movie night with Victoria played through Stan’s mind. Of what she would want to eat, what he could cook or what he could order. His plane back home wasn’t due until the morning—always a little wiggle room, in case the talent embarrassed Vought in such a fashion that a clean up was required.
The thought of her surprised smile pleased Stan. He’d never pegged himself for a man with Daddy Warbucks fantasies, but something about Victoria made him want to dote on her when she wasn’t popping heads for him. Victoria was certainly no orphan Annie, but with a few precision bouts of affection, a little girl began to shine through.
Stan was ripped from thoughts of what that dinner might be by a sudden, insistent knocking. He scowled; there really was no good help nowadays, if his security had just allowed someone to barge up to his door. He got up from his armchair, easing his way to the door. Whoever it was could use a little patience, and Stan wasn’t going to reward this intrusion.
Whoever Stan was expecting, it was certainly not Homelander. The young man was barefoot on the other end of the door, wearing nothing but a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Stan couldn’t hear him, but it looked as if Homelander was talking to himself.
Wasn’t this what Stan paid Madelyn for?
Stan allowed his face to go blank as he opened the door. “Homelander. To what do I owe this visit?”
Homelander twisted around, almost in shock, and just entered his apartment. Stan could hear his breathing– strange, Homelander shouldn’t be winded.
“He’s dying. You’ve got to do something.”
“Excuse me?”
Homelander turned again, this time to look at Stan. His eyes were incredibly wide, and Stan considered that maybe Homelander wasn’t winded at all. “He’s dying. I need… I need to talk to Vogelbaum, to somebody, he’s dying…”
“Who’s dying?”
Homelander punched Stan’s wall, leaving a hole in its wake. Stan couldn’t allow himself to react. Being untouchable when there wasn’t V coursing through his veins was a matter of performance, and that performance was a stronger shield than all the super strength in the wall. “The Interloper. That’s what they called him, no? When they electrocuted him and forced him to abandon me?”
The Interloper.
Their ghost.
If there wasn’t a video of a tall noodle of a man vibrating with electricity on B6’s floor, Stan would almost wonder if he was a ghost. They’d been looking for him since Doppleganger got a bunch of Japanese kids to describe their savior, a teleporting man who couldn’t speak a lick of Japanese but somehow convinced them that they were safe with him, but there was no trace of him. They’d looked for every possible Compound V leak between 1950 and 1980, unable to determine just how old the Interloper was. None of the holes Stan found led to this man.
It sounded like a bad children’s story. The man had to sleep, had to have someone who knew who he was.
“What do you mean, he’s dying? Was he hurt?” Stan asked softly, although he knew. Homelander’s strange behavior in Cruz Chemical was explained once the Interloper’s codename came out of his mouth.
“I don’t know! I don’t know… He was there. He was there. Tonight. He helped me.”
Stan looked down at Homelander’s bare feet. The Interloper wasn’t just at Cruz Chemical; he was here, in Vought Tower, under their noses again. In Homelander’s penthouse.
Madelyn was slipping.
“Listen to me. Homelander, I want to give you whatever you need, but first I need you to tell me everything. As calmly as you can.”
“You think I’m not calm?” Homelander snapped.
“I think you’re scared for your friend. He was your friend, no? What is his name?”
Homelander paused.
He’d kept the Interloper’s name to himself. No matter what they did to Homelander, Homelander never uttered a name. Stan had taken a step back, allowing James Klimke in Incident Management to take all the heat for the questioning and Vogelbaum for the trap set up in Homelander’s cell, hoping that in time, Homelander would trust him or Madelyn enough to finally admit who their Interloper was. Sacrificing Vogelbaum was a small price to pay; the scientist was getting older and had managed to allow some gangly supe to interfere with their bottle-grown face of Vought International.
Maybe he didn’t need trust.
Fear was far more of a motivator.
“Hughie.” Homelander said softly. “His name’s Hughie.”
“Are you sure that’s his real name?”
Homelander’s eyes flared red, but he gnashed his teeth, closing his eyes tight. Without a word, he flashed through Stan’s apartment, too quickly to follow. But Stan knew where he was heading. Stan knew him, knew everything down to his pathetic coping mechanisms.
And sure enough, Homelander was in his refrigerator, crushing his eggs one by one. Yolks covered his palm, dripping down Homelander’s wrist to Stan’s tiles. He didn’t seem to care about the mess he was making as he grabbed another egg. Stan allowed himself to let this play out.
“He didn’t lie.” Homelander insisted. He wasn’t speaking to Stan; he seemed to be talking to the inside of his fridge, in a trance. “I would’ve known, he couldn’t have lied, he wouldn’t… he wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Where is he now?”
“He ran away. I told him… I told him to go down to 53.” Homelander cradled another egg in his hand, this one not popping, but still crunching slightly. Homelander sucked in a breath and threw the egg onto the yellow viscous liquid on the ground, breaking it as the others were. “I told him we could save him. I told him, and he said there was nothing we could do. He just… gave up on me.”
“I did not mean to suggest anything. If I’m going to help you both, though, I need to know as much about this man as I can. As you know, he’s got quite the talent for making an escape.”
After a long pause, Homelander’s head nodded slightly.
They both knew what that meant. Stan knew the moment Homelander didn’t object to the word escape that Homelander must have already tried to force the Interloper to their physicians. If their slippery friend was to be saved, they would have to pin him down and clip his wings entirely.
“Why did you come to me? Why not Madelyn?”
“He didn’t trust her.” Homelander’s voice was barely above a whisper. “He… tensed up, every time I brought her up. She would try to turn me against him...”
Interesting. Perhaps the Interloper—Hughie, who would’ve guessed they’d be so undone by someone named Hughie—had poisoned the well where Madelyn was concerned. If she couldn’t bring Homelander to heel anymore, Stan wasn’t sure he had much use for her.
“Why don’t we get you cleaned up? I think we have a lot to discuss.”
Stan supposed he wasn’t going to see Victoria tomorrow anymore, but at least he was one step closer to solving the mystery that had been plaguing Vought for the better part of a decade. He would find a way to make it up to her.
December 2011
Becca Butcher’s knees were still shaking.
She didn’t remember sitting down. Mitch, the SEO lead on her team, was picking up the papers that flew across the room when Homelander zoomed out of the office. She couldn’t imagine giving a fuck about the hard copy of the slides right now. The others seemed frozen in place, unsure what to make of what transpired.
“I’m so sorry,” Queen Maeve broke the silence. Not even her soft tone could keep the flinch out of Becca’s shoulders. She was a superhero, Becca tried to remind herself, but she wasn’t sure that was a comfort anymore, not after Homelander had just screamed at her about the young man downstairs. “Homelander is under a lot of stress. That’s no excuse for what just happened, of course, but I promise you that Homelander would never have hurt any of you.”
“Of course not.” That was Doria. “But is there someone in the building he’s going to fight? Should we be evacuating?”
Becca thought about the young man, covered in dirt and blood, crying in the hallway by her office. Pale and skinny and trying to comfort her despite his circumstances. There was no way that he was a threat.
Maeve smiled. “No, nothing like that. I think we should just reschedule this chat. Use the rest of the hour to do whatever you like, I’ll personally work it out with upper management if there’s an issue.”
He tried to leave, Becca remembered, but she had brought him to her office. She’d convinced him to stay. She’d left him vulnerable and alone.
But it was Homelander. Why would he have been afraid of Homelander?
“Who was he talking about?”
Becca looked up at Doria. Of course Doria wanted to gossip, but to do it in front of Queen Maeve spoke volumes. “I don’t know.” Becca swallowed, and then forced herself to stand. She had no interest in answering questions. “Thank you all for your time. I’ll be in touch about the reschedule.”
“I was thinking we could get lunch…”
“Becca, maybe you should sit…”
Not even bothering to grab her laptop, Becca fixed her blazer and began to walk to the door.
“Mrs. Butcher?”
Had it been anyone other than Maeve, Becca would’ve kept going. Instead, she stopped, not even turning to look at her. Becca felt her hand on her shoulder, and the supe leaned in, speaking low. “It goes without saying that you shouldn’t go to your office right now. Maybe head home? I’ll make it right with Mr. Edgar. I really am sorry that Homelander scared you.”
Becca didn’t want to leave the young man alone. Becca knew there was nothing she could do.
“Thanks.”
She nodded at Maeve, who had her laptop in her other hand. Maeve held it out for her and Becca took it, hands shaking. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t just ask Maeve to intervene. She could tell her about the young man in her office, how pitiful he looked slumped in the hallway. The bags under his eyes and how he limped through the hall. Surely, she would do something about it. Surely, she would understand that whatever crime Homelander thought he committed, he was just…
The entire elevator ride down, all Becca could do was gulp in air. Every time the doors opened, she expected to see Homelander, Homelander’s eyes manic and wide… she’d never seen him like that.
Her legs couldn’t carry her fast enough out the door. There were other people in that lobby, and Becca did her best not to look at any one. She didn’t want to be stopped. She wanted… fuck, she knew exactly what she wanted. She was going to duck into the first bodega she found and walk out with a lighter and a box. A pack of reds.
She walked to Central Park, hoping that it was far enough from Vought Tower to allow her some semblance of privacy. If she allowed herself to sit, she might just collapse–instead, she found a tree to stand under. She rested one cigarette between her lips and closed her eyes. All that work to kick the habit, all the nicotine patches… all for nothing. Maybe she was silly to think she could change her habits. God, who cared if she changed her habits if gods could change their mind, go from superheroes to looming bullies at the flip of a switch? Her hands shook as she clicked the lighter to life, barely able to keep the flame.
The burn on her tongue was relief. Her shoulders sagged; her mouth quivered. Everything flicked in her mind–Homelander smelling her hand, Homelander yelling at her, the boy with the dirt and blood on his face–
“Becca. Thank you. This is more than enough.”
She inhaled, letting the smoke sit in her mouth before breathing out. Fuck. Fuck, that boy needed her, and she left. For some stupid meeting.
Becca reached into her pocket for her phone, hand nearly getting stuck pulling it out. She groaned in frustration. The ring made her squirm; she had no idea how he would react, but she couldn’t handle this alone. She didn’t know what to do. But he would.
“Taking a breather to chat me up, hey, Gorgeous? That’s not the lady I know.”
Becca took another pull of the cigarette, and she was certain Billy knew. “I need you to come to the Tower. Now, Billy.”
Billy paused. “What’s that in your voice?”
“I just, I need somebody here with me. I can explain it all later but for now, I need you to trust me and just get here as soon as possible.”
“What happened?”
“Billy, please. Just come.” Her eyes flicked around the park, to see if anyone had eyes on her.
“Fucking hell, Becca. Thirty minutes.”
Becca thought about her husband. All the effort he’d put into getting her to quit cigarettes. What would he say when he saw her so resolute in her weakness? Sometimes it seemed like Billy thought her so much more capable than she actually was. “My better half,” he would say, fully meaning the words, and Becca wondered how he would react if she were to be the angry one… or the fuck up.
It was cold on the pedestal, and Becca sometimes stood apart while they walked together, kept their distance while Billy scooped up Terror’s shit. Who would it be this time? Would it be the guy who took up too much of the sidewalk, or the guy who yanked his dog a little too hard on the walk, or a random poor schmuck who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Why did Billy love her so much for stepping in, for apologizing for his jokes, but didn’t see it in himself to not cross a line in the first place?
Two Reds and forty nine minutes later, Billy was in front of the Tower, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans with a bookbag on his back. He wasn’t the type to carry one, so Becca imagined he prepared himself for the worst. He caught sight of Becca and made his way directly towards her, grabbing her hand.
“Keep it straight with me, love. We breakin’ any laws here?” She shook her head. “Then what’s going on?”
“I’ll explain upstairs.”
Billy nodded, and Becca couldn’t help but smile. She knew she wasn’t making any sense, but still, Billy had shown up for her. It was a side of Billy she knew existed—he’d been part of British special forces, had done things that Becca didn’t even want to know about—and it was the side she needed.
There was a sign on her office door, a brutal DO NOT ENTER. Becca wondered what they would find in there. Was there a corpse? Did they already clean the body up? Did Homelander take him alive?
Billy opened the door, and Becca’s office was in shambles. There was no blood; no sign of another person. But her furniture was destroyed. Her desk had a laser line through the top; her chair was in shambles. The screen that the boy stared at, admiring Billy and Terror, had a hole in it, barely hanging on the desk. There were papers strewn all around.
“I think it’s right time you explain to me what exactly I’m doing here, Gorgeous.”
Becca took a breath, and she attempted to explain everything that happened that afternoon. The supe that she met, Homelander’s reaction to smelling him on her, Maeve suggesting they leave.
“Becca. Have you considered this has nothing to do with you? If I look into this, if I do something to help this boy, they’ll know you were involved. You’ll put a target right on your pretty head.”
“Becca. Thank you. This is more than enough.”
“He knew my name.”
“What was that?”
Becca took a breath. “He was a stranger, Billy. My name isn’t on my door. And if it was written somewhere he saw, he knew not to call me Mrs. Butcher or Rebecca or Becky or anything else… he called me Becca. Like he… like he knew me. It felt like he knew me, and I left him here…”
“Hey.” Billy opened his arms, and Becca collapsed against his chest. His rough hands held her close. “This is not on you.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have left him, I knew…”
“Whatever’s brewing between him and Homelander, that’s on them. He shouldn’t have dragged you into this.” She felt his lips against the top of her head. “Got a few favors waiting to be cashed in the CIA. I can get them to help your supe, all right? They’ll sort this right. But the best thing for you and I is to remove ourselves from this fuck up and go home.”
“The security tape. Can you… get the security tape?” Becca pushed away, looking into his eyes. “Please. I just… I need to know. I wouldn’t… I can’t forgive myself if I left him to die.”
Billy grimaced, and he shook his head. “There a camera trained on us right this moment?”
“No, but there’s one in the hall. If a body bag left this office, it would’ve caught that. Please, Billy.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll get you the tape, but then we have to drop this.”
Becca nodded, and she knew that she was just giving her husband what he wanted. She didn’t think she could keep that promise.
“Is there some sort of code I can give the twats in security?”
“They’re personalized. If I give you mine, they’ll know I’m the one who accessed it.”
Billy nodded, his hand touching her cheek. “I’ll see what I can do. Let’s just go now, and I’ll get it to you, swear.” She nodded. “Rifle through your desk. We have to make it look like you just came back in here for something or another. Sentimental womanly things. Better they think you off it than a traitor.”
The cold diagnosis of their situation made Becca shake, but it was exactly why she called Billy. “Okay.”
September 1999
“Oh, Earving. Just because Stan has his own motives, doesn’t mean you aren’t sincere. Go talk to that poor boy.”
Noir didn’t physically acknowledge Buster Beaver, but that was okay. Buster was better at reading him than he was, and Buster was already smiling softly at him, nodding his head towards the door of this remote, New York cabin. Noir wanted to start his relationship with the kid on the right foot, but was there a right foot under Vought’s jurisdiction? Just because they were all tools in Vought’s arsenal at the end, that didn’t mean the friendship he could show him was fake.
When Noir looked at Homelander, he searched his features for signs of Ben. He couldn’t help himself. He knew Ben was far away, and that much smarter men than him were working on ways to kill the piece of shit. Yet there was a piece of Ben here, being groomed for Ben’s position, Noir once again at his side. Noir had once visualized himself as the leader of the foremost superhero team, a household name. He saw the endorsements, the bridges he could build, the good he could do for little black boys like Earving.
Noir touched his head with his free hand.
It didn’t matter that he was the number one superhero in the world. It was temporary, a stopgap between Ben and Ben’s own DNA, coming back to haunt Noir. Leave it to Ben to somehow make Noir getting what he’d always wanted into a living nightmare.
After all, nobody felt truly safe around a man who couldn’t speak.
Everything he could see, Mr. Edgar could see. It was the thing nagging in the back of his mind as he knocked on Homelander’s door, a box of pizza in his other arm. This was secretly a meeting of three. Edgar had a way of putting his words into other people’s mouths and making it seem like he was not orchestrating the whole thing. A pincer that left him free to play the distant father figure, allowing others to take the brunt of any backlash.
Mr. Edgar hadn’t been there when Ben cooked half of Noir’s face off.
“How’d you know I was here?” Homelander looked smaller in plain clothes. In time, Noir was sure he’d never seen them again, but he was a teenager. He was still holding onto his real name, his secret identity, the things that made him regrettably human. He wasn’t quite yet the super being he’d grow into.
Noir tapped on the pizza box and then held it out to Homelander.
“You can tell Madelyn I prefer to be alone out here.”
Noir pushed the pizza box towards Homelander, and the boy just took it. Noir was never invited in, but he followed Homelander inside anyway. The crackling fire was a far cry from the penthouse they’d built for him in Vought, and Noir could tell that Madelyn Stillwell thought Homelander ungrateful every time he ran to this shack.
A child. He was still a child, alone at the top of the tower. At least here, it was warm.
“He just needed to get away from the spotlight, Earving. You know what that’s like,” Buster Beaver said gently, running his paws over the rug. “You should tell him to lay on this. I think it’ll help.”
What Noir wouldn’t give to lie down on the rug, stare up at the ceiling. But Black Noir’s character didn’t allow for a burst of whimsy, and he couldn’t allow himself to be anyone else when someone was watching. Even Earving.
“If you’re going to be here, you might as well have a slice. I’m not going to eat that shit.” Homelander put the pizza box on the large dining room table, opening it up. It was just the way Noir liked it, covered in cheese with a buttery crust. Just like the one they serve at Buster Beaver’s.
Noir put up a hand and shook his head. Liquids could slide through the mesh in the bottom half of his mask, but eating required him to take off his mask entirely. He normally waited to be back home, which was now apparently the tower, because every hour of his day belonged to Vought.
Because the boy in front of him yearned for a family, and having his teammates in the tower with him added to the illusion that he finally had one.
“If it’s because of your face, I see it.” The plates hit the table with a fine thunk. “Jig is up, I’m afraid. Eat.”
Was that Ben? Was Homelander the kind of person who would punch around his girlfriend or kids like Gunpowder? Anyone in his vicinity because they spoke too loud, or his drinks were too late, or because their face just pissed him off that day?
If he was anything like Ben, Noir could imagine Homelander ripping his mask off on camera, showing all the children who loved him how monstrous he truly was.
“So is this some kind of bit? You really don’t talk?”
Noir gave a short nod.
“You know, Madelyn told me not to trust you.” Homelander mused. “But someone else told me not to trust her. It seems like you all have your little secrets from me, and funny thing, I thought this was supposed to be about me. The superhero I’m destined to be.”
Of course Madelyn tried to breed enmity between Noir and Homelander. Rivalries sold toys. Perhaps she thought they’d jockey for that number one slot before this boy left Noir behind. But Noir wondered if Mr. Edgar had known about that, known about Madelyn breeding resentment between them. Is that why Homelander went to Cruz Chemical alone? Maybe if Madelyn hadn’t been so short sighted, Noir could’ve brought the Interloper in.
“Got anything to say about that?”
Noir pulled out a notepad and pen, scribbling down his answer. Trust me.
“Think we’re going to have to work on that one. Tell me something. Are you here to watch me? Make sure I don’t embarrass Vought?”
Under the trust me, Noir added his answer.
Take care of you
“Take care of me?” Homelander laughed. “Well that’s a PR spin of a fucking answer, isn’t it? What makes you, or Madelyn, or whoever else has their hand up your ass think that I need to be taken care of?”
Behind him, Noir could hear his friend whispering. “He’s not being nice because he’s angry, Earving. He doesn’t mean that. He just doesn’t know your heart like I do.”
Noir just stared at him. Maybe there was no good answer.
“You and I are going to get nowhere real quick, huh?” Homelander looked up, punching down on the table. The table caved in, the pizza Noir bought for Homelander dropping onto the floor. The plates hit the floor, one of them chipping on the corner. “Oops.” Homelander took a breath. His eyes moved towards the fridge, but then back to Noir, as if he thought he couldn’t take his eyes off him. “You know, there is one thing you can do for me. Maybe it’ll help us build some trust here.” Noir tilted his head, waiting for Homelander to continue. “You can tell me about my dad.”
Soldier Boy. Ben. Ben, insisting they spar one on one, so there was a level of plausible deniability when he broke a rib or a jaw. Ben, who called up studios and made sure they knew how unprofessional and sloppy his teammates were, lest they get even a crumb of his attention. Ben, who bragged about what he’d done to people who looked like Noir, even decades after public opinion decided segregation was wrong. Ben, hitting him with his shield, making him fly back into a jeep that was on fire, before he…
When Noir hadn’t responded, Homelander added, “No need to play dumb. I know Soldier Boy is my father.”
That one got a one word answer.
How
“Does it matter how I know?” Homelander snapped. That left one answer, even if Homelander didn’t know he’d answered it. But also questions could ask more than one thing, Noir had learned, and could bear multiple answers.
Did Homelander trust Noir enough to tell him about the Interloper? No. Not yet. But he’d given some answers to Mr. Edgar the morning after Cruz Chemical, so there was a route to Homelander’s good side. Noir just worried that finding it required more finesse than he now possessed.
“Just be good to him, Earving.” That small voice again, urging him forward. “It’s not just about what Mr. Edgar wants. You two are meant to be a team.”
Noir hesitated, and then picked up his pen. If Edgar was mad at anyone, it should be the Interloper. Noir had a choice, tell an obvious lie or finally tell the truth about Ben, and he’d been waiting for this for a long, long time. In his crooked print, he wrote exactly what he thought of Ben.
Bad man
Homelander laughed nervously, taken aback. “What?”
“Tell him, Earving. Don’t let him live a lie. He already knows.” Buster urged, scurrying over the table to stand next to Homelander. “You know what would’ve happened if Soldier Boy raised him. Soldier Boy would’ve rang his head like a bell his whole life. Soldier Boy would’ve killed him before he let him take his spotlight.”
Noir reached up, keeping his eyes on Buster. Those kind beaver eyes under the rim of his blue cap, the small nod of approval. Letting him know it was okay for once to pull off his mask, even if only for a moment. Homelander said he’d seen it, but the way his skin still bore the burn marks on the left side of his face, his unmoving left eye, were different to the naked eye. And the implication was unmistakable.
There were heroes and villains in this world, but not in the storybook way. They were designated as such by Vought, had their fictions turned into history with a video package and an appearance at a mall. But this boy had gone in front of the world and went off Vought’s script, claiming that he wouldn’t accept those who made people feel powerless. Maybe Homelander would set the record straight.
Countess. Mindstorm. Tommy. Tessa. Gunpowder. Man or woman or child, powerless.
Noir reached for the pen, circling the two words again. And again and again.
Bad man