“Talk to me.”Eight days.
It only took about eight days.
That was the magic number, the exact stretch of time it took for the stretching itch across his ribs to finally quit clawing at him from the inside out. Only a week and some change for his body to stop feeling like a peeling sunburn, and all that melted puckered skin to settle back into something that felt like it was him again.Unfortunately, that meant he wouldn’t be able to receive any more care at the hands of the ‘gentle’ Nurse Miyashiro — a silver lining if there ever was one. More than anything else in the world though, it meant the lingering ache of strained bones was finally banished to the hell it belonged to, replaced by a familiar feeling, a stronger feeling, the thrumming hum of a body that wanted to move.
That needed to move.
Except moving right now meant standing dead still in a service alley, back pressed up against a cold concrete wall as he was forced to take in the pleasant aroma of wet cardboard and somebody’s cheap smoke break they left behind. His hand went up to adjust the cheap blue surgical mask over his mouth, blue sunglasses doing absolutely nothing against a sky that hadn’t seen the sun since the day before the Slaughter at the Senate.
His Mets hoodie was a thrift store special, the ghost of mothballs and somebody else’s fabric softener still there under all the surgical mask smell. It was an ugly look and completely uninspired; purposeful in both directions.
Which was exactly the point.Nobody double-checks a guy who looks like he’s about to unclog a toilet or deliver some shitty pizza that’s probably half-cold already.
“I said…” Reggie sucked his teeth, fingers tapping at the little flesh-colored bud wedged deep in his ear as he repeated himself. “Talk to me, White Urkel.”
“You…” Static cracked in his ear, the sharp burst enough to make him wince as Hughie’s voice came through — pulled tight through the tinny cheap speaker. “You and MM gotta stop calling me that.”The smirk Reggie wore was for him and him only, but it still spread across his face in the empty alleyway. “Not a chance, Urk. Now hit me with the directions.”
A sigh sparked more static in his ear but Campbell knew his part. “I’m — okay, I’m looking at the blueprints right now. The camera’s down where you’re at so you’ve gotta be just across the south loading dock, right?"
“Yeah.” Reggie looked up, a grunt leaving him. "Staring down a big-ass door with a big-ass lock on it.” The door was a couple dozen feet away, reinforced solid steel directly in front of a bulky security camera pivoting slowly on its mount. "Tell me Frenchie actually did his part and cloned the badge data. Not trynna get embarrassed setting off every alarm in here."Honestly, embarrassment would be the least of his worries, considering the amount of supes in the building on top of Mr. America and Ms. Reich.
"He did, he did, just — hold on, hold on a sec…" Furious clacking bled through the mic, fingers flying across keys so fast it was almost a constant stream of sound. "Alright, alright, look, next shift change is in exactly forty-five seconds. The camera pans left for exactly a twelve-second blind spot at the end of that. You gotta go then."
"Twelve seconds…” Reggie shook his head slow. “That’s a lifetime, bro.”“Yeah, for you, maybe…”
“Yeah, yeah…” A snort left the speedster as he began counting down in his head. “Y’know, it’s kinda convenient how y'all finally decide to share the playbook when you need somebody to play high-speed FedEx." Being real, it was actually hilarious more than anything else. Ten months of running food up to a house full of grown men (and one gremlin) hiding like raccoons in his walls and now — now — they suddenly wanted to play team sports.
"That’s not… c’mon, Reggie, that’s not fair, man!" Hughie’s voice cracked right on cue, exactly when Reggie knew it would. "You’re literally the only one who can get past the perimeter without tripping every alarm in the place!"“So, I was right.” Eyebrows went up behind the sunglasses and the smirk stayed in place. “Y’all only using me when it’s convenient.”“...no?”
"Uh-huh. Sure.” Reggie let the smirk work its way up into a grin even though nobody could see it behind the mask. "Just say you needed the magic man, Hughie. It's fine. I know my worth."
"Reggie, please. Please.” Something close to actual begging crept into the last word and it didn’t take much imagination to picture Hughie with both hands together. “Just focus. The town hall goes live in four minutes."
The town hall. Just the thought of it made Reggie’s jaw tighten up on his own, molars grinding like it was their job.
Barely two days since the entire viewing public had watched Jonah Vogelbaum’s head pull a Scanners in front of the entire hearing committee, painting the entire standing audience in O-Negative.
Two days since half the heads in that room went off with him with the three current members of the Seven present in the room unable to do anything to stop it.
Two days of absolute public terror with that image looping online like these things always did.
And Vought…Well, Vought did what they did, what they were good at.Instead of panicking like everyone else, they just put their own little spin on the slasher reel.
Say what you would about Stan Edgar but the man knew how to run a propaganda machine and that machine cranked up overnight, every network flooded with “leaked intelligence”, all of it pointing a nice clean finger at street supes. Reggie didn’t know who pulled that off — apart from some obvious suspicions — but he was damn sure some Rojo banger in Baltimore hadn’t figured out how remote-detonate skulls in a federal building with security thicker than tank armor.
It was the kind of thing that only made sense if you didn’t think about it longer than three seconds or so. Unfortunately, the average American attention span was only half that long these days. Perfect scapegoat, honestly; blame the junkies on the red stuff and rally the country around the capes. In almost any other situation, Reggie figured it would have gone off without a hitch.
But not after today, though.
"Camera’s moving.” The murmur left his lips as he dropped his weight low, breath shallow as he readied himself to move. There was no need to pull deep from the well inside him, no sparks to push him faster, nothing that would rattle the alley.
He needed a scalpel, quiet and clean.
One. Two.
A micro-burst of fluid motion — barely cracking highway speeds — had the world dragging for a half-breath as Reggie slid clean under the camera’s blind angle. The cloned keycard slipped out and against the scanner, his gloved hands catching the steel door before the latch could even finish clicking.
In the same breath, Reggie ghosted inside, the door sealed silently behind him, as he found himself staring at gray walls and polished hallways stretching in every direction — the place a sprawling maze of corporate broadcasting.
“Okay, I’m in.” He spoke barely above a breath, back pressed against the chill of drywall to avoid any camera that could be looking his direction. "Give me the route."
"Second left is where you’re gonna go." Hughie managed to keep the tremor out of his voice as he dropped directions, the techhead focused on the task. "You need Server Room 4-B. That’s what gets you a direct feed to the main broadcast trunk. Doublechecked with Frenchie and he says once you plug the drive in, the worm handles the rest no problem bu—”“Hughie?” Reggie hissed into the comm, one finger in his ear. “What?”“Two — two guards coming up on your left, you gotta—”
Reggie shut his eyes as he breathed in, filtering out the ambient hum of the heavy HVAC system and Hughie’s ramble as it all slowed down enough for him to catch the elephant-like thud of two separate footsteps.
Heavy rubber soles made louder as they came his way.
He didn’t run.Running kicked up wind; it sent papers flying, ruffled hair, and made every lanyard around swing like a door-knocker. No, Reggie practically glided — just enough force to blur in a lazy stroll past the intersecting hallway a bare breath before the guards even turned the corner. His own wake washed back over them as soon as they rounded, but by the time they turned to look, the hall was the same way they’d walked down it — empty.A ghost story for the next break room convo was all they had.
"Ghost in the machine, Urkel." Reggie almost whistled out, gliding through another right sharp enough to pop a tire. "Just two doors down from 4-B."No response, but he didn’t need it by the time he eased off the gas.
His soles squeaked soft against linoleum as Reggie dropped himself back to something more human in pace. Like he was used to it, he pressed himself flat against drywall again, the server room door right in front of him.A hand slid into his hoodie pocket, gloved fingers closed tight around the little USB drive that was his whole purpose for being here. For something so small, it was oddly heavy.Far heavier than it had any right to be, honestly.But that was just his own mind making it that way, what with that little piece of plastic holding every scrap of history Mallory had bled favors — and probably people — to collect; everything from Nuremberg, to Liberty, to Tempest — all the proof that Vought’s shiny new storm queen had a Nazi party membership card older than Granny Franklin.
His part with it was simple; not as simple as the Boys waiting in the van, but simple enough that he couldn’t complain more than he needed to for fun. Just plug it in and bounce.
In and out with nobody the wiser until the bomb went off.
With a breath, Reggie stepped forward — hand already around the knob — only for the door to clik open. His eyes went wide, the door swinging inward, as he found himself face to face with some Vought AV tech; clipboard under one arm and iced coffee sweating in his free hand.
The guy’s eyes landed dead on him, tired enough that Reggie felt sympathy on instinct. He knew what it looked like to be six or seven cups deep into a shift you clearly hated.
Still, tired or not, it didn’t stop those eyes from going wide. The tech’s mouth dropped as soon as he spotted him, lungs pulling a breath that was a split-second away from a shout.
Reggie didn’t bother with anything close to thoughts, body moving forward as he took a hyper-accelerated half-step in. Palm up, he caught the guy clean on the side of the jaw — just enough force to send those eyes rolling back in an instant.
Knees folded like wet cardboard as Reggie caught him under one arm before he hit tile, his other snapping out to snag the ice coffee before it splattered all over the place and drew just as much attention.
“My bad, bro.” It took all of two fingers to drag the guy backward by his collar, Reggie dumping him in the corner of the server room. Body propped up gently against a humming rack of cooling fans, he looked like any other dude who’d just had a long day. "Take a nap. They pay you hourly anyway, right?"
"Reggie!” Hughie's voice spiked sharp through the comm. “What happened?"
"Had a minor complication.” The iced coffee went into a nearby trashcan, Reggie not even looking back as he moved for the terminal. “Handled it.”
The main monitor was locked down tight, the Vought International logo spinning across it like a screensaver. Not even bothering with anything else, he jammed the USB drive into the open port on the tower.
"Drive’s in. You’re up with the hacker hoodo, Hughie."
"Alright, okay — okay payload is transferring... overriding the broadcast firewall... establishing the backdoor." Keys clattered somewhere behind his voice, Hughie only sounding more frantic the more he spoke. "Go, Reggie! Get out of there! You have 30 seconds before the feed goes live!"
His exit wasn’t graceful.Because he wasn’t gonna bother with grace this time. There was no hunting for camera blind spots when he got the green light to let the disguise drop. Never liked Metal Gear anyway. Blue static rippled up and across his shoulders and — in the blink of an eye — he was already back out in the loading dock, shutters rattling in his wake like Homelander had slapped them.
Four blocks out, a flower truck sat idling in another uglier alley — the insides smelling like four grown men and two Japanese supes; all of them in bad need of a shower.
The whole thing rocked on its suspension the second Reggie blurred inside it, breathing only slightly harder before he dropped his ass onto a milk crate right next to the oversized bulk of one Marvin Milk. "Fucking…” He sucked in a quick breath as his head hit the metal wall behind him. “Nailed it.”
"Nailed it?" Hughie hissed as Butcher grunted beside him, both their eyes glued to the bank of stolen monitors glowing a dim blue in the dark of the van. “You tripped two cameras on the way out!”
"I was moving at, what, a good point-four Mach, Hughie. All they caught was a pretty-asss smudge. Unclench for me, okay?" Reggie leaned forward, elbows on his knees as his eyes slid to the screens. "Is it working?"
Frenchie was right next to the lanky New Yorker, grin splitting his face as he went to work on the greasy keys of a shitty sticker-covered laptop that likely wouldn’t last the night after all they’d put it through. "Magnifique. We 'ave control of ze teleprompters, ze main screens, everything. And zey are already starting."
As soon as Frenchie said it, the main monitor lit up with the live Vought Town Hall.
The whole thing was dressed up like the most patriotic funeral Reggie had ever seen, the lightning warm and reassuring in a wash of gold; entire audience ready, waiting, and packed with Vought employees and paid extras dressed up as deeply concerned citizens.
And there she was.
Stormfront strode out to the center of the rounded glass stage, lit up from beneath with blue as she kept on a somber face that she had probably rehearsed for days.
Homelander stood right behind her, jaw locked into that perfect stoic-hero angle — looking just like a Ken doll somebody left out in the sun too long.
"The tragedy at the Senate… " Stormfront’s voice echoed through the tinny speakers inside the van, completely drowned in focus-grouped sincerity. “This… this was a wake-up call for all of us. A clear message that we… all of us are under attack. Not by foreign nations, but by the rot in our own streets. These super-terrorists, undocumented and unregulated, are tearing at the fabric o—"
"Blast it, Serge." Reggie’s voice dropped low. "Burn the bitch down."
Frenchie slammed the enter key like he’d been waiting his whole life to do it and, right in front of them, the glowing digital backdrop behind Stormfront flickered.
The Vought logo vanished to nothing and a black-and-white photo replaced it; thirty feet tall in the highest resolution you could manage for a picture from the 1940s.
A much younger Stormfront stared back at America, super-suit nowhere to be seen as she stood proudly next to a group of men in crisp dark uniforms. A bright red armband with a familiar insignia clearly visible on her, she was shaking the hand of a very familiar looking man, both of them smiling like they were at a company picnic.
A loud gasp rolled through the studio audience, sound washing over the broadcast mics enough to get Stormfront to pause mid-sentence with a frown on her face. "As I was saying, the threat of these…”
More gasps interrupted her, forcing a blink from the woman. “What is…"
The massive screens behind her shifted again with more photos; Goebbels, Himmler, yellowed documents and gritty images showing her hate crimes, her actions in Southeast Asian countries. "Oh, shit." MM’s low whisper slid its way into Reggie’s ear, both of them sitting up to watch the fireworks. "There it is."“And there ‘e fuckin’ goes.” Even Butcher couldn’t hide his excitement as Homelander’s head snapped around to look at the massive screen behind them.
Even through the grainy monitor, Reggie could see the exact moment the man's whole manufactured little universe short-circuited — that focus-grouped face running headfirst into seventy years of Third Reich bullshit.
Vought’s Golden Boy looked down at Stormfront, no rage or confusion on his face. That was enough to make Reggie blink for a second — wait, he knew? — but even that question slid away at the sight of sheer horror that filled Homelander as he realized he hitched himself up to the newest and oldest face of genocide on live television.
Stormfront froze, the camera watching her as her eyes darted wildly around the room. “Turn i-it off! Cut the feed! Cut the feed!”It was too late with the audience already up on their feet; people pointing, shouting, booing…
And the photos kept cycling with more and more evidence piling up on her head. A near century of hidden acts blasted on national television, no PR spin the world able to explain away seventy-foot fall pictures of her doing the Sieg Heil.
A hand reached out toward Homelander. “John…”
Homelander actually stepped back, a half-step, but impossible for anyone to miss.
Stormfront's face twisted and then the lightning came — purple-white, wild, and with no aim to it as the blue stage beneath her exploded in shards of glass and metal. The audience screamed out loud, fear loud enough to drown out Stormfront’s rage for a moment.
The woman didn’t even bother to look at anyone else as she bent her knees, thunder cracking loud enough to distort the van’s cheap speakers. In a flash of light, she blasted straight through the ceiling — rebar, cables and plaster raining down on the crowd as Stormfront punched a hole clean out into the New York sky.
Silence hung for a long moment in the back of a van, broken only by the sound of the panicked broadcast still playing on the monitors.
"Well…" Reggie leaned back on his milk crate, arms crossed. “Guess the master race don't do too good under a live mic."