And So It Goes
.
5: The Age of Spin
"It's…look, it's not that I'm ungrateful," Ashley said. She fidgeted while looking unsure, but hopeful. "I just…I thought—"
"We hated each other," Helena finished for her. She leaned back in the plush chair of her newly renovated office, which had once belonged to Madelyn Stillwell. "We don't have to like each other to remain professional and do our jobs. I need you because you're good at our PR. You know how to juggle the Seven and the demands of their schedules."
And God knows I don't want to do that shit, Helena thought. Those two weeks had been pure torture. "You'll report to me the same way you used to report to Madelyn, all right?"
"Of course." Ashley stood while Helena made herself busy with answering her emails. She lingered at the door, prompting Helena to lift her gaze.
"Thanks, Helena," said Ashley, before she ducked her head and exited the office. Helena let out a deep breath. She didn't want this job. It hadn't been her goal to become the next Madelyn Stillwell, but the position needed to be filled, and Mr. Edgar had summoned her personally to his office to appoint her. The raise and slew of benefits upgrades were enticing, but none of that mattered to her anymore. There was only one prospect keeping her at Vought, yet it was simultaneously the one thing that made her want to quit more than anything.
Not two hours later, the very reason for her troubles arrived in the form of Homelander, stalking into her office without knocking. She steeled herself, then donned her neutral mask of politeness as she folded her hands on the desk.
"Good morning, Homelander," she offered.
"Cut the shit," he deadpanned, and looked down at her from his great height as he sauntered right up to the edge of her desk. He affected a more charming, if mocking smile. "You know, Helena, I don't appreciate decisions being made about my team without my sign-off."
"Ashley?" she said. "I thought you worked well with her before."
"No, not that fucking corporate idiot," he said testily, "the candidate she found to try and replace Translucent. That blind fucking cripple she brought into my gym."
Oh fuck, Helena blanched. She'd told Ashley to wait on that pending Mr. Edgar's approval.
"Let me be clear," said Homelander. He braced his hands on the desk and leaned down, until his deranged blue gaze was level with her stoic one. "From now on, I will set my own agenda, approve my own marketing, and write my own talking points. You are not a replacement for Stillwell."
Helena remained stock still. Her heart was pounding, but she was outwardly relaxed as she let him continue.
"Think of yourself as…a figurehead, if you will," he said. "A go-between the 99th floor, and me."
She took a calming breath through her nose, and eventually managed a courteous smile. "I understand your concerns," she began. "Know that I don't take this position lightly. Miss Stillwell meant a great deal to you, and to me too. She was a mentor, someone I admired a lot."
A bald-faced lie.
"I worked with her for almost ten years," she said. "But I didn't ask to be promoted. I was appointed Senior VP by Mr. Edgar, and he has personally instructed me to make sure our heroes succeed here at Vought, the way we've always done. As Mr. Edgar is the one who signs all of our checks, maybe you would be more comfortable speaking with him on how we can better manage your brand. Give you more autonomy over your public presence."
Even Homelander had some kind of respect for the CEO of Vought. After a tense moment where Helena refused to back down from his stare, Homelander straightened. His deep frown remained as he seized her up. Clearly he hadn't expected any pushback from someone like her: the mousy ex-assistant.
"You're a frigid bitch, you know that?" he said. He turned on his heel and strode out of the room, but before the door shut, he muttered just loud enough for her to hear. "Fucking diversity-hire."
Helena seethed. Her jaw twitched as she ground her teeth, though she was careful not to show too much of her rage in case he was spying on her from outside the office. When counting backwards from ten didn't work, she grabbed a stress ball from inside her desk and squeezed until her wrist and fingers ached, then released every curse word she learned from her uncle at six years old.
I'm going to get an ulcer at this rate, she thought dryly. It didn't even help to imagine chopping off Wonder Boy's micro-dick into smaller micro-dick pieces, though it brought a slight smile to her face.
She sighed and returned to her computer, staring at a database of information she now had access to, but no clue where to start. Becca is alive.
Becca was alive, but she had no idea where to look.
All she had been able to discover from Vogelbaum's last report was this: Becca had been pregnant. He and Stillwell had arranged for her to be moved to an undisclosed safe house, where she gave birth to Homelander's bastard child in peace. But what about afterwards? Where had they taken her?
Now that Stillwell was dead and Homelander knew about his son and Becca, Helena didn't think she could be blackmailed into staying at Vought any longer. She could potentially quit, if she could reason an NDA with Mr. Edgar. He seemed to be a reasonable man. But until she figured out where Becca was, and where Butcher had disappeared to, for that matter, Helena would have to learn to be the new Stillwell.
Friday evening couldn't have come soon enough. Helena entered her apartment, shoulders hunched, and let out a long sigh. She flipped on the kitchen lights first as usual. It half-illuminated a long, prone figure on her couch.
She sucked in a breath in fright—yet another intruder in her fucking place. But on closer inspection, it was just Butcher. She smiled in abject relief.
Gordo was curled up on his chest. The large fur ball purred while his claws kneaded the fabric of yet another Hawaiian shirt. Blue pineapples this time.
"I thought you didn't like cats," Helena said, her smile still in place. She turned on the living room light and winced at the state of the man. He looked like he'd taken a beating or two, and he blinked narrowly at the bright flood of light probably burning his retinas.
"Yeah well, when fifty pounds of fuckin' fluff sits on your chest, not much you can do," Butcher dryly replied. Helena picked up said fluff and lowered him to the ground so Butcher could sit up. She sat down next to him on the couch and laid a hand on his shoulder.
"You all right? What happened to you?" Her hand neared a painful looking knot above his brow, but he waved her off.
"I'm good," he said.
She shook her head with a wry smile of her own. "Bullshit…what happened with Stillwell? They're saying you killed her."
Butcher eyed her a bit more warily as she got up to the kitchen. She rummaged around for some ice and a hand towel. "Yeah, I'm wanted like a fuckin' Bon Jovi record."
"Dead or alive. Sounds about right," she surmised. She filled a plastic bag with ice and wrapped it in the towel, then returned to his side. She handed him the ice pack and slid into her favorite chair, kicking off her heels. All the while he watched her like he expected her to bolt from her own apartment. She raised a brow at him.
"Do you believe it?" he asked, "What they're sayin' about me."
It felt like some kind of test. She answered truthfully. "I know exactly how Vought spins the media. No, I wanted to hear it from you…though even if you did kill her, with what she's done, I'm not sure I could blame you. At least her baby survived the blast somehow."
After a long moment, he shook his head. "I didn't do it. Doesn't mean I'm not a killer."
He was worried, Helena realized. Worried of what she thought of him. Perhaps that she'd be afraid of him and turn him in, or even just turn him away. He seemed to underestimate just how much shit she had seen after ten years at Vought.
"I'm well aware," she said. Somewhere along the way, he had become her friend. And nothing more than that, she reminded herself, when the memory of his body close and his hand curving along her back made her cheeks and neck warm. She fidgeted in her chair and straightened her business casual skirt farther down her knees.
Butcher raised the ice pack to his forehead and grimaced, but his eyes held more vulnerability than usual. She waited patiently for him to tell her what was on his mind, if he wanted to.
"Becca's alive," he said eventually. He looked up at her with a burning hope, and Helena smiled.
"I know," she replied. His brows crunched, confused, then accusatory.
"You know?"
Her annoyance returned to her then when she remembered. She sat up and smacked him in the arm, ignoring his offended, "Oi!"
"It's what I was trying to tell you," she snapped, "before you locked me in a fucking closet!"
He didn't even have the decency to look apologetic. Instead, he just looked rueful.
"What's that look for?" she asked.
He didn't answer her. Just once, she would like to crack open that gourd of his and find out exactly what was rolling around inside. Just what was he thinking when he looked at her like that?
But Hellena just stared at him, her lips pursing into a grim line. While she could've tried to reproach him for his suicidal actions, he had a story to tell. He told her everything he remembered: Homelander having saved him from the explosion at Stillwell's house, the yellow ranch house, Becca standing there, beautiful as ever…and the son who looked exactly like Homelander.
"Why do you think Homelander let you go?" Helena asked eventually.
"No fuckin' clue," he said. But it probably had something to do with Becca. Helena's eyes burned with tears. She'd known for a few days now, but just the thought of her friend being alive for all this time, probably kept against her will, was as heartbreaking as it was frightening.
"So what's next?" she asked, sniffling and wiping at her face. "My new position at Vought gives me more access to sensitive data."
"You kiddin' me? You're more of a liability, now more than ever," Butcher said with a scoff. "They're gunna be watchin' you, Helena. I shouldn't have even fuckin' come here."
Her face slackened in disbelief. "What the fuck do you expect me to do?"
"Keep your head down," he said. "I'm gunna grab the boys and figure this out."
She shook her head. "Billy, you got me into this. You can't expect me to just…just quit. Not now!"
"I know I ain't got no right, but I am, and I'm not asking either." He had more bite to his voice now, warning her with a gaze that boded no argument. "Stay out of it, Helena. She wouldn't want you to get hurt."
Her temper sparked. He wasn't her boss, nor her father. He didn't get to tell her what to do, with what they both knew what was on the line. And he especially didn't get to manipulate her with what Becca would think or want. It was like he hadn't cared about Helena's wellbeing at all, until his dead wife suddenly wasn't dead, and what she would've wanted now dictated every one of Butcher's decisions. Including treating Helena like a responsibility.
Sorry, it didn't work like that. Especially because Butcher had not done a single thing that Becca would've wanted in the past eight years.
"Not a fucking chance," said Helena. Before he could get more riled up, she scooched closer up on the edge of her chair and touched his arm.
"Listen, I've got it," she said. "We need to find Dr. Vogelbaum. He's a geneticist who helped perfect Compound V, and he was the man who raised Homelander. Alone in a lab."
Butcher considered that with interest. "Jesus."
"He's retired now, but he was brought in when Becca went to Stillwell with her pregnancy…maybe he'll know where Becca is," Helena finished, and smiled hopefully. She watched the gears of Butcher's mind turn as he stared at the ice pack in his hand. Finally, he set it down on the coffee table and raised his head.
"Well bloody hell." Butcher took her face with cool, slightly rough hands, and kissed her on the top of her head. "You're a fuckin' angel, after all. I'll handle the rest."
Flushing madly, she could only blink as he got up from the couch and went for the door in his long strides. After letting out the breath she'd unconsciously been holding, she scrambled to follow him.
"Just sit tight until I reach out," he told her, while grabbing his coat from the rack beside the door. He'd been gracious enough to hang it up when he broke into her apartment again.
"Right," she said, clearing her throat. He tossed her a wink and that devilishly charming grin of his.
Rolling her eyes, she couldn't help the smile that curved her lips. After he slipped out and shut the door behind him, it left her apartment feeling empty again. Sighing, she tried to forget the tender gesture he left behind, the sensation of his lips on her skin. Now platonic, and sisterly at best.
But Billy Butcher didn't belong to her, she told herself, and she didn't want him. Becca still had, and would always have his heart.
Even though Helena's own search for Vogelbaum hadn't yet turned up fruit, she knew Butcher was working on it from his end. Overall, things had been looking up.
Until Susan Raynor's death, that is.
Vought's latest addition to the Seven arrived, courtesy of Stan Edgar, but Stormfront's edgy "realness" with the media and among the other supes wasn't particularly pressing on Helena's mind. She understood that Stormfront was a flashy distraction for the damage control that was keeping Compound V out of public knowledge.
Though when a supe terrorist set foot in New Jersey, of all places, she knew it was just a matter of time. She was tempted to contact Butcher, but his warning that Vought was probably watching her more closely was ever-present on her mind. She had already bought a new 007 phone, inputting all the numbers he'd given her on it before destroying the old one.
It was another few days of scraping herself through meeting after meeting, hashing supe schedules out with Ashley, and juggling Mr. Edgar's demands, when the actual shit finally hit the fan.
The existence of Compound V had released to the presses. The world was introduced to the truth: that superheroes were not born, they were made. And Vought had the secret recipe.
I can't believe it. They fucking did it, Helena grinned. She knew it had to be the boys at work. But she didn't have time to jump for joy, or do much of anything but stare dumbly at her office phone once it started ringing insistently.
She braced herself by taking a long sip of her lemon water before she answered. She listened to Mr. Edgar speak, nodding even though she knew he couldn't see her.
"Understood, sir," she responded evenly. "What's our course of action?"
"Get the Seven together. Focus them on stopping the super terrorist," he replied. "I will call a press conference to address the elephant in the room, as it were. Under no circumstance do we acknowledge Compound V as a product of Vought."
"Then how do we explain it coming from our labs…sir?" Helena asked. She tried not to sound too incredulous.
"We will shift culpability onto Madelyn Stillwell," he said. "Maintain that we had no knowledge of her undertaking in the creation of Compound V."
Right.
Helena had never been so glued to the news, or so horrified when she watched that evening from the safety of her apartment. Her fingers carded through Gordo's fur for comfort as she witnessed Stormfront brutally murdering the supe terrorist from New Jersey. He couldn't have been more than mid-twenties, dirty and threadbare clothing in shreds.
Now his neck was broken and they were calling it a triumph, a heroic effort from Stormfront and the Seven. This is what Vought wanted—a spectacle, a show of justice. They'd created these supes, and now they were all too happy to rip them apart.
Wiping a tear from her cheek, Helena gave in and texted Butcher from the 007 phone: Are you watching the news right now?
Don't have to, came his reply. We were there.
Her mouth fell open in shock. With her brows furrowing in worry, she quickly texted back.
That girl fighting Stormfront on the roof?
Kimiko, he said. He was her brother.
Fuck. I'm so fucking sorry.
How are things on your end? he asked.
Shaken, now that Compound V is out of the bag. Good job, by the way.
She could almost hear his scoff. We got a long way to go.
Yes, she agreed. Evidently, they did.