A Trip to the Woods
Five minutes after Starlight left, Ashley came up with the speech she should have given the blonde supe when she said, Be a human being.
Fuck you, Annie January, I'm more of a human being than you'll ever be. Like you have the faintest idea of what being human is. You haven't been human since your mother had you shot up with Compound V when you were a baby for fame and fortune. You've had your ass kissed every day of your life because of your cute name, cute face, cute body, and cute powers. Men do nothing but jerk you off about how wonderful you are because of said face and body, and somehow you got the idea that you were smart.
But I'm here to tell you that you're dumb.
You think it's easy to get away from Homelander? The only reason he's letting you go is because of your fame, those 190 million followers you bragged on who jerk off to your cuteness, and your powers. You think a human being can tell him to fuck himself and expect to sashay away like you are? If so, you're even dumber than I think.
You know who you remind me of? You should watch The Sopranos. I'm sure you didn't since your God-bothering mother would have clutched her pearls at the language and the nudity, although I bet the violence would have been A-OK. There was this FBI agent on the show that kept trying to get people in Tony Soprano's circle to act as informers, gather evidence against him, and testify in court. His first target was Big Pussy—there's a name that would give your mother vapors—who cooperated and wound up murdered and dumped in the ocean.
But that didn't teach him any lessons. He picked out another target, Adriana—she was Tony's nephew's girlfriend. They blackmail her to spy, but she doesn't have the temperament for it. Big Pussy kind of did—he got off on the covert aspect of it. But she's not good at betrayal and goes on a trip to the woods with a guy named Silvio Dante. It was one of those trips you don't come back from.
I can't remember his name, but you are that FBI agent, Starlight. Isn't it enough that you got your old boyfriend killed with your kindergarten political maneuvering? Now you want me dead? How can you just dust off your hands and say, "If at first you don't succeed, try try again" when you know you are personally safe? None of the blood will splash on your pretty white-and-gold costume.
Supersonic may be Big Pussy, but I am not Adriana.
Do you know the first thing about Homelander? You make your pitch to me in Vought Tower, his fucking home. You know he can hear for miles and yet you try to recruit me to spy on him, to betray him, to keep secrets from him? And if I said yes, sooner or later I'd take a trip with Homelander to that cabin he has out in the woods, but not for sex, just for an unmarked grave out behind his barn. And you'd be a little bothered for a few minutes, maybe, because we've never liked each other. Then you'd move on to your next target because human beings you don't like personally aren't shit to you.
But that's not why I think you're stupid. It's because you think you're one of the good supes that Billy Butcher won't kill. To him, the only good supe is a dead supe. He'll use you as long as he can and then you and your boyfriend will die. He and Homelander might as well be brothers. They're all about death.
"Damn," said Ashley. "None of that was out loud."