“So…”“So…”The smell of floor cleaner was not enough to win the war it was fighting, the air in the dive bar putting up a battle for the ages with years of spilled Yuengling and far too much vomit on its side. All those bad decisions couldn’t be easily wiped away, no matter how much Pine-Sol you threw its way.Reggie shifted against the booth, vinyl cracking under and behind him, well aware of bad decisions and the effort it took to clean them. Even if they weren’t his alone, he was still surrounded by them right now.Early Tuesday afternoon was not the hour or day to be in a bar, especially not this bar of all places. The hour was dead and so was the crowd; a couple of day-drinkers hunched by the bartender like gargoyles, one dude in the corner booth halfway to tears already for some odd reason, and then there was…
Well, him.He was just as much of a sad-sack as the rest of them, off the clock with his hood up and sunglasses on indoors like he was cool enough to pull that off.
Granted, he might’ve been, but that was beside the point.
He was just another person in a bar full of losers today or, technically… one of two people in a bar full of losers today, another off-the-clock superhero hiding from a multi-billion dollar corporate surveillance state along with him.“So…” Nubia stirred that tiny red straw like it owed her money, big Knicks cap dragged low over her face just above those sunglasses the size of a windshield. As much as the supe was trying to stay undercover, she wasn’t exactly pulling off regular person; more Cardi B with a hangover than anything else. Still, he wasn’t gonna judge her for her lack of incognito skill (much), considering she was quick to show up when he texted her with this address. “We can’t meet up at Vought because…”Reggie let out a breath long enough to count the seconds in it, eyes on his cup sweating onto the table. “Because I beat up Black Noir.”
And almost ended up a Reginald-Franklin-shaped stain in the process. That last part didn’t need to be mentioned, especially when he could still feel the aftermath.
Six days ago.Six whole days ago and the skin was still stretched taut over his ribs, everything itching like a bad sunburn as new flesh pushed out the scabbing older stuff. He knew as well as anyone that healing fast didn’t exactly mean healing comfortable and, even right now, he was far from feeling comfortable.“Noir…” The straw stopped. “You fought Noir.”“Hell, I beat that nigga’s ass.” Reggie tilted his head forward, tongue half out his mouth as he angled it toward his drink. “He is a nigga, by the way. Just so you know. I confirmed it.” “Reg…” Those big glasses tilted down her nose, aiming all the judgedment and doubt in the world in those eyes right onto his head. “You’re a fucking liar.”“Liar?” Reggie Franklin was thankful for his sunglasses as he rolled his eyes before straightening in the sticky booth to stare Nubia down again. “Bia, look at me.” One finger hooked right around the collar of his gray hoodie, Reggie tugging it down just enough to flash the still-healing mess under it. “Look at this.”He didn’t need a mirror to see what was reflected in those lenses — skin more pink-grey than brown and shiny in the wrong places too; most of his chest still looking like it had lost an argument with a grill and got in a second one just to make sure. And this was after six days of bed rest, burn cream and beneficial care from the not-so-gentle hands of Kimiko Miyashiro.
Least it’s almost done. Sure, it was almost fully healed, the wounds far from fresh by now, but melted chocolate was only pretty when it was actual chocolate.
“I…” Those stormy gray eyes across from him flicked down to his scars, brows furrowing up in actual thought, before she slammed down a wall of skepticism in real-time. “Nigga, what’s that supposed to prove to me?”“That I beat up Black Noir.”“I don’t know that.” She hummed his way. “I don't know where that's from."
"I'm telling you exactly where it's from, Bia.” His hand let go of his hoodie, collar snapping back up to hide his melted meat. “My fight.”
"Nigga, you did not beat up Black Noir." The disbelief in those words were pure Nubia, no chaser — sharp enough to shave with. “Try another lie, Reggie.”“Why don’t you believe me?”“‘Cause I couldn’t beat Black Noir.” Nubia scoffed, drink raised for a sip. “And you couldn’t beat me, so…”Reggie blinked back at her. “I think your math is off there.” He tilted his head to the side as he eyed her up and down. “Like… real off.” Not trying to be the pizza here, but like I could hit you ten times before you could blink. “I don’t care what you think you did.” Domestic violence aside, Nubia didn’t seem to feel like checking her math as she hummed again, glass still in her hands. “You ain’t do it.”
"I did though." Reggie pushed back, forearms leaned up against the sticky table. "I knocked his armor-plated ass around an entire backstreet and dragged him by the ankle for the good measure over a mile or two. Left him looking like a busted piñata."
Nubia clicked her tongue, the woman taking a slow pull off her drink before she even bothered to open her mouth again "Okay. Say I believe you."
"You should."
"Let's live in your fantasy for a second." The glass came down with a sharp clack against the table. "Why in the name of anything good were you fighting Black Noir?"
Reggie’s jaw clicked shut on its own
Yeah. Let's… His teeth ground shut, Reggie staring back at an expectant Nubia. Let’s not.
There was absolutely no way in hell he was dragging her into that mess. Nubia may have been fine, but the woman could get pissed about anything on principle. Slapping her in the face with the fact he was horboring federally-wanted fugitivies that Vought wanted in a shallow grave seemed like a one-way ticket to catching a lightning bolt to the teeth.
"...that's… that’s not important."
"See? Lies." Nubia threw a hand up, the bartender looking over their way from across the room for a second. "If you weren't gonna call me for a whole damn week, you could have made up a much better excuse than 'I was off fighting the boogeyman.'"
"I was recovering!" Reggie hissed back, a hand aiming back at what was hidden under the hood. "I just showed you my chest, Bia!"
"So you didn't beat his ass, then?" “...what are you talking about?”“You been licking your wounds a whole week, right?” A smirk crept up the side of her mouth, the woman halfway to laughing at him already. "So, let’s say you fought Noir, that means he definitely got his licks in. Sounds like a tie to me."
"I did beat his ass," Reggie pulled his sunglasses off with a sigh, tossing the dark blue lenses onto the table between. "But it's still Black Noir, Bia. You don't walk away from that without catching some friction."
"You really sticking with this." She leaned back into the vinyl, arms crossed as those stormy eyes went across his face. “This Noir shit the best you could come up with?”
"When’s the last time you even seen him, huh? Noir?" Reggie leaned in closer, dropping his volume, forcing the issue. "Tell me. Seen him in the tower lately? Cafeteria? Patrol? Anywhere at all?”
"We're talking Black Noir here." Nubia didn’t miss a beat, the woman smacking her lips at Reggie like he was talking nonsense. "Nobody sees that nigga unless he wants to be seen. He's probably in the vents right now, listening to this bullshit."
"Woman, if you don't s—"
He caught himself mid-word, teeth snapping shut on the rest of it as he breathed out through his nose. You know what?
"What?" Her eyes narrowed to slits as she pounced on the question Reggie didn’t even bother to voice, tone sliding into a purr Reggie was at least partially familiar with; the same one she used when she smelled blood in the water. "What you gonna do, big man? Shush me again?"
Oh, Lord. Reggie let out a groan, one hand rubbing the bridge of his nose. "You still on that bullshit?” Leave it to Nubia to remember something from a whole-ass week ago and bring it up now.
"Yeah." Nubia shifted her weight, the woman leaning across the table. "I am."
A long breath rolled free from Reggie’s lips as he let his head loll back against the booth, only to find a hand directly under his chin. Fingers cool off a glass of highball gripped firm and tugged his whole head forehead before he could even get a word out.
"Wh—"Her mouth found his first and the word vanished against the taste of whatever top-shelf liquor she’d bullied out of the bartender; warm and sharp at the same time, it did something to his brain that had nothing to do with V and everything to do with every nerve in his body sparking a whole new way for a split-second.
She pulled back smug, sitting there looking like she'd just won something. "Don't you ever shush me again."
Reggie blinked, the ambient noise of the bar slowly coming back to him as his brain found itself in a reboot. The aftertaste of her mouth on his was still a ghost, phantom pressure tingling like he’d just stuck his tongue in an outlet. Okay then.
"That what I get for shushing you?" A slow grin slid across his face, Reggie inching across the other end of the booth into her space like the whole argument before that hadn’t even happened. “What if I do it again?”
"You do it again," Nubia whispered into his ear, "Imma kiss your jaw. With my fist."
"You're gonna have to catch me for tha—"
"—live from Capitol Hill, where the highly anticipated Senate Judiciary Committee hearing regarding Vought International is about to commence."
The TV bolted to the wall behind the bar cut through everything, some CNN anchor's voice blaring loud enough to get even the day-drinker’s attention.
Reggie's whole head snapped toward it, jaw tight as he realized what was going on. It’s happening. He actually did it.
All sixty inches showed the wood-paneled sprawl of the Senate chamber, flashing cameras strobing across the room with dozens of suits already standing and waiting for everything to begin.
And right there, at a table in the front, sat a man in a tailored gray suit hanging a little too loose on his frame.
Ashton Aarons.
Lamplighter.
The broken, suicidal janitor had actually dragged himself out of the basement, out of the dark, and put on a fucking suit.
Reggie felt a spike of actual pride at the sight of the suicidal janitor, the man finally dragging his way out of the dark of the basement to do something good. Burn the whole house down, Ash.
"Key witnesses are taking their places.” The anchor kept going, the chyron at the bottom of the screen flashing a brilliant red. "Including former Seven member Lamplighter, and... yes, it appears Vought's former chief scientist, Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum, is arriving now."
The camera swung across the floor of the chambers, heavy double doors opening as an old stout man in a motorized wheelchair moved down the aisle. Reggie blinked at the actual sight of him, honestly surprised the old man was…
Well alive, honestly.From what little he remembered of the show, when Homelander had said he ‘squeezed the truth out of him’, Reggie had been expecting a lot more… more. Even still, the old man apparently couldn’t walk anymore, so it wasn’t like the psychopathic patriot had let him off easy in the slightest.
This is it. Edgar's exposed. Reggie watched the screen, leaning forward on his elbows as he almost forgot Nubia was even sitting where she was. The V, the terrorists, the whole—
Pop.
It was barely a sound from the TV speakers, the sound almost like a knuckle cracking if anything but Reggie flinched anyway, body reacting before his brain could process the fact that the structural integrity of the old man's skull simply ceased to exist.
One second, the frail old man was sitting quietly in his wheelchair, mouth halfway to his first word.
The next, a geyser of dark red gore erupted upward from where his head used to be like a busted fire hydrant; bone, brain and blood sprayed all across senators, across aisles, and across camera lens that kept on rolling.
The headless torso slumped forward in the wheelchair as the bar went silent, still pumping blood for a second.
Lamplighter sat there, the man silent for a single second as his mouth moved in a sigh.
Then his head went too.