A/N: Not much to say here either, aside from Rawlins comes back. And there are a few added scenes with Allyson, since again, I put in the scenes with Mesmer two chapters ago.
A-Train ran into the safehouse in Cuba, startling Popclaw.
"Jesus!" she exclaimed. "It's been days! I was worried-"
"I know you told someone about the Compound V." A-Train revealed, holding up a photo of the baby faced man with the blonde hair. "I saw the video where you killed your landlord."
"Baby, please-"
"Who were they?!" A-Train yelled, making Popclaw shrink back onto the bed.
"It was four guys. They weren't altogether at first." she quietly told the speedster. "The first guy was this tall guy with a buzzcut, and he was with a tall black man. They claimed they were checking my router."
"And the other two?" A-Train asked, pointing to the photo.
"One of them was that guy with the blonde hair in the picture, and the other had a dark beard, messy black hair, and was wearing a black trenchcoat."
"Why would you tell them about the V?" A-Train demanded.
"I'm sorry!" Popclaw cried. "They threatened to show Aleksi's death all over the Internet!"
A-Train looked down, shaking his head.
"I love you." the speedster murmured. "And I'm sorry."
He sped out of the room, and Popclaw felt four needles pierce her skin. When A-Train appeared in front of her again, his head was hanging low.
"I'm sorry." A-Train repeated, as Popclaw slowly died of a drug overdose. Once her eyes finally closed, he sped off back to Vought, meeting with Homelander in the Seven's office.
"Well?" the leader of the Seven asked, barely looking at him.
"Heroin overdose." A-Train muttered.
"Hey, you did the right thing, coming to me about all this." Homelander assured him. "The Seven is more than just a team. We're family."
A-Train weakly smiled, and the two hugged.
"At least now we know who to look for." Homelander added, when the embrace ended. A-Train nodded, and he slowly walked out of the office, still shaken from having to kill his girlfriend.
Music: "I Fought The Law" by the Clash
Frank and Annie sat down at a bar called Josie's, located in Hell's Kitchen, as a television played in the background about Starlight's speech at the Believe Expo last night. Or more specifically, about the part where she was sexually assaulted.
"Seriously, out of everything I said, that's what they focus on." Annie grumbled, staring at the nachos at the table.
"Hey, we came here to take your mind off of this, remember?" Frank told her. "Besides, I'm buying."
"Holy shit!"
Frank turned his head, seeing someone with one leg walking towards them. Frank smirked; it's been awhile since he'd seen him after the Marines.
"Frank Castle!" the man laughed. "I thought I smelled your shit from a mile away!"
"Hey Curtis." Frank smiled. "This is Annie. Annie, Curtis."
"Nice to meet you." Annie grinned.
"Hey, you look familiar." Curtis said. "Did you go to Middletown High?"
"Uh, no. She's from out of town." Frank quickly said, earning a small smile from Annie for keeping her secret.
"Well, 'out of town Annie', what're we drinking?" Curtis grinned. Annie smiled, as Curtis ordered them all beers.
"So, there was this one girl in our school, named Jessica Jones." Curtis began telling a story.
"Oh c'mon Curt." Frank groaned.
"She could bench press some of the strongest guys there." Curtis continued. "And one day, Frank decided to ask her out, not knowing she actually had a girlfriend at the time. He ended up with a black eye for his trouble."
Annie laughed, nearly spitting out her drink.
"Hey, I gotta say, Frankie here has balls of steel." Curtis smirked. "He kinda has to, since he's a shit magnet of the highest order. But really man, where've you been? Ever since we heard your family died, and someone trashing Lieberman's, we all thought you died."
"Not dead, Curt. Just been around." Frank replied gruffly. "I just needed a fresh start."
"Hmm." Curtis looked back to Annie. "She's a bit out of your league."
"It's not like that, Curt." Frank insisted.
"What, you adopting now?" Curtis asked.
"No- just drop it, Curtis." Frank told him.
"We're just friends." Annie added. Curtis looked between the two, and shrugged, and they all continued drinking.
Black Noir sat in his chair at the Seven table, pondering the events of last night. The girl removed his mask, she saw his face. But then she called him Michael, as if she knew him. Noir tried as hard as he could, but he had no memory of this woman. Why? All he ever remembered was waking up in a lab, with doctors explaining they had pumped him full of Compound V, and Vought approaching him with an all black suit. However, one doctor's name in particular cut through his memory.
Wynn.
Black Noir stood up, and left the Seven's office. If he wanted answers, he'd start with this Doctor Wynn. If only he knew where to find him...
Butcher, Dax, and Allyson stood in an underground safehouse, with Diggle marking dozens of locations on a map of America.
"Ezekiel's soup kitchen, called Samaritan's Embrace, is bankrolled by Vought." Dig explained. "They're taking Compound V, and gift wrapping them as polio vaccines to over fifty hospitals across the country."
"So none of them were chosen by God." Butcher smiled. "They're all just little kids that got shot up."
"Including Starlight." Frank hung his head. "Do you think they know?"
"Not sure." Butcher shrugged. "What about Homelander?"
"A black hole." Diggle told them. "No public records, and he never will."
"Well, that's just what we need against Vought." Butcher grinned even wider. "Child endangerment, smuggling of drugs…"
Through the Boys' conversation, Allyson was pacing around the room. She knew that she was injected with Compound V against her will, but that wasn't what she was thinking of. No, the thing that was on her mind was the fact that her old friend and savior, Michael Myers, was actually Black Noir. But how? All she could remember was finding his mask- sorry, his face- at the foot of the gravestone of Judith Myers, the sister he killed. She had taken it to her grandmother's home with her, burying it beneath the floorboards of her bedroom, and walked back downstairs, only to find her parents murdered by a man wearing a blue suit with a white A on the front. Before she could defend herself, the man snatched her up and ran at a speed not normal for any human, and the next thing she knew, she was in a cage underground.
"Hey, female."
Allyson turned her head, seeing Frank look at her.
"You alright?"
Allyson still held her blank expression, and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, writing something down. When she was finished, she held it up to Castle's face.
Haddonfield.
Dax approached the two of them, staring at the paper.
"Her name is Allyson." Dax scolded Frank, and looked at the paper. "You want to go back home?"
Allyson slowly nodded.
"Okay. I'll take you." Dax offered.
"Fuck no, Dax. You're burned." Butcher told him. Allyson looked at the Boys, anger beginning to well up inside her.
"Hey, hey, someone will take you." Dax promised, looking back at his companions. "Right?"
"Nope, I need to chat with Rawlins, and I want Frank to stick around." Butcher quickly said. Diggle stared at them all, before throwing up his hands in frustration.
"Fine, I'll go." John grumbled, pulling his keys out of his pocket. He began walking out of the safehouse, when he turned back. "You coming?"
Allyson nodded, and the two exited the safehouse.
"Alright, you're with me, Frankie." Butcher announced.
"Back to Rawlins?" Frank asked.
"Nah, we're taking a detour first." Butcher told him. "You'll love it."
Annie entered Stillwell's office, still wearing the clothes from Josie's Bar, and sat down at her desk.
"Thank you for coming." Madelyn wore a tight smile. "I want you to take this as constructive criticism, when I call you a selfish, arrogant child."
Annie jolted back in her chair, as if Stillwell punched her.
"How is that constructive?" she asked.
"I told you not to go public with what happened, because no one would believe you." Madelyn continued, ignoring the question. "But you told the entire expo that you were forced to give oral."
"Because I was!" Annie shouted, preparing to stand up.
"Sit your ass down." Madelyn glared. "I should have fired you on the spot, but as it stands, you've been going up in the polls with both men and women. So, my hands are tied."
"So you'll bring the ones I named to justice?" Starlight asked.
"Not entirely." Madelyn explained. "We're willing to let one of them go, but not all of them. Think of it as a compromise."
"What?" Annie nearly shouted. "How is that a compromise?"
"You wanted to be a superhero, you have to learn to play ball." Stillwell said coldly. "So why don't you cut the diva shit, show some fucking gratitude, and do what we tell you?"
"No."
Stillwell was taken aback, and she stood up.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not ungrateful." Annie said. "But I don't want red carpets, or reality shows, or commercials. I want my old uniform back."
"Then maybe we'll just re-evaluate your position in the Seven."
"Yeah, because firing an employee after they report sexual assault will work out great." Annie said sarcastically, letting some of Frank's attitude pour into her.
"Well, I hope we can count on your discretion." Madelyn said weakly.
"I don't do discretion. Anyone asks, I'll tell the truth." Starlight promised. "That it was Homelander, the Deep, and Translucent."
"They'll never believe you, especially not on Homelander." Stillwell reminded her.
"Do you want to find out?" Annie challenged. Madelyn glared daggers at her.
"Thank you for your time, Starlight. You've given me a lot to think about." Madelyn muttered. Annie respectfully nodded, and left the office.
Frank and Butcher walked through the streets of New York, arriving at Clinton Church.
"We're at a church?" Frank raised an eyebrow.
"Seek and you shall find." Butcher said mockingly, before they two went inside, and down to the basement. Right in front of the door was a sign labeled Association of Collateral Damage Survivors, where people gave their stories of being saved by a supe, but at the cost of a limb… or worse.
"It's about acceptance. About letting go." the main speaker, a woman with black hair and white jacket, announced, after one woman walked about how Tek Knight broke her back.
"Seth. Do you want to go?" the woman asked, handing a three foot wooden stick to a bald African American man. Seth nodded, and told his story, about falling in love with a supe with ice powers, but when they were intimate, she turned into ice, with his dick still in her, and it was cold enough to snap off.
"If a supe can do that during sex, imagine what one would do if she found out you were lying." Butcher whispered to Frank.
"Excuse me." the woman spoke up. "Do you have something to say?"
"Oh, no. Please, continue with the ice-capades." Butcher joked, clearly offending Seth.
"We don't make jokes, or insults here." the woman said. "This is a safe space. Why don't you take the stick and tell us your story?"
"Nah, I'm good." Butcher formed his mouth in a tight line.
"Seth, give him the stick." the woman ordered. Seth got up, but before he could do anything, Billy snapped out of his chair, yanking the stick away from him.
"You best back off, mate, or I'll shove this where your dick used to be." Butcher snarled, before turning to the rest of the group. "You're all a bunch of supe worshipping cunts. You'd probably thank a supe for shitting on your mum's best China. Where's your fucking rage? Where's your self respect? Fuck letting go! You should be out there, taking a damned chainsaw to the lot of them, instead of pissing and moaning in your little 'share circle'!"
The entire room fell silent. You could hear a pin drop. In hindsight, Frank wasn't surprised, he had more or less a similar reaction when Rawlins wanted him to take out a target, after he saved his entire platoon from the ambush in Kandahar.
"You're all just some scared fucking rabbits." Butcher muttered, dropping the stick to the floor. "Supes are all the same, every fucking one of them."
Butcher left the basement, with Frank following soon after. Neither of them said another word, and simply left the share circle, leaving everyone speechless.
The Deep entered the Seven's office, where Homelander and Madelyn were waiting for him.
"You guys wanted to see me?" the Deep asked.
"Yes, thanks for joining us." Madelyn smiled. "Take a seat."
The Deep did so, and looked up at Homelander and his boss.
"You're out of the Seven."
The Deep jolted in his chair.
"What?"
"After Starlight's speech last night, people want to know who forced her to blow him." Homelander explained. "And, well, they won't believe that I did it, because come on. And it won't do well to reveal Translucent was in on it just days after his death… so we have a sacrificial lamb to appease the masses."
"But-but-" the Deep stammered. "I'm one of the greatest superheroes."
"No, you're just the fish guy." Madelyn told him with indifference. "You'll be taking a sabbatical to Sandusky Ohio. Pack your bags. Your flight is in an hour. Oh, and you'll have to issue a public apology."
"Oh, so that's it?" the Deep asked. "Three of us got our dicks sucked, but the black guy takes the fall and gets kicked out?"
"Don't play the race card, Deep." Homelander chastised. "A-Train is still in the Seven. Besides, news coming out after Translucent's death that he sexually assaulted Starlight would not go well. People will think it's trying to tarnish someone's name. As for me... I'm the Homelander. No one would believe her if she said I did that."
The Deep hung his head, but reluctantly nodded, and left the office, not bringing himself to look back.
"Why are we sitting on a park bench?" Frank asked, as he and Butcher sat on opposite ends of a bench outside of the city.
"I once had a wife. Becca." Butcher told, beginning to tell his story. "She was the light of my life. Changed me for the better."
"But why-"
"Homelander raped her."
Frank looked down at his shoes.
"I'm sorry."
"She sat on this very bench for three hours, for months, until she vanished." Butcher continued. "She either died, or killed herself. So I know what it's like to lose someone. We're the same Frank. We're in this together. For Maria, and for Becca. So you can't be distracted by another woman. Especially a supe."
Frank looked back at Butcher, as he stared straight ahead.
"Just remember… who your friends are… and who your enemies are."
Castle and Butcher sat in the CIA Director's office, with Rawlins across from them.
"You have the Compound V?" Rawlins asked.
"Damn right." Butcher nodded, showing an envelope and pulling out a piece of paper. "But first…"
"Your demands." Rawlins rolled his eyes, snatching the paper up. "A big fat salary, legal protection for you and your team, a base of operations in a flat iron building, and Homelander prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Butcher smirked.
"I can give you everything here, except…" Rawlins hesitated.
"Except what?" Butcher asked.
"Except for Homelander."
"You know what he's done." Butcher told him.
"Bill, just hold on-" Frank was about to say, but was interrupted.
"No, you know what Homelander did to Becca!" Butcher shouted.
"I sympathize with you. I do." Rawlins told Billy. "But it's suicide."
"Small price to pay-"
"For you, not for thousands if you push him too hard." Rawlins countered.
"You're just scared."
"I'm terrified. And you should be too." Rawlins told him. Butcher stood up, grabbed the envelope of the Compound V, and left.
"I know we haven't seen eye to eye on everything…" Rawlins said to Frank. "But please stop him before he does something stupid."
Frank nodded, and quickly left the CIA office as well. Once he finally caught up to Butcher, he asked, "Hey, what the Hell was that?"
"Just a spineless cunt, he was." Butcher muttered. "No matter. We can take down Vought ourselves."
"Dammit, Butcher, you better know what you're doing." Frank warned, as they began their trek back to the black van.
Music: "Karen's Flashback" from Halloween 2018
After fourteen hours of driving, Diggle and Allyson finally made it to Haddonfield, and due to her knowledge of their destination, she took the wheel once they got into the town's borders. Within ten minutes, they arrived on the outskirts of town, and drove up to a large house in the middle of the woods.
"This is it?" Diggle asked, seeing the private property sign. Allyson nodded, and the two of them exited Butcher's small car, quickly walking up the drive and entering the old house. The place was just as she remembered it; a couch to the left of the door, staircase to the right. The two climbed the stairs and took a left, entering Allyson's bedroom.
"What now?" Diggle asked, confused. Allyson didn't listen, and pounded her fist into the floorboards, shattering the wood and creating a sizable hole. She reached in, pulling out an old and cracked mask that was painted white, and had black hair.
"Michael's mask." Diggle realized.
Allyson looked at him and shook her head. No, not his mask. His face. She wanted desperately to hold it close to her, or even put it on, as some way to feel safe, but they needed to leave. But first…
Allyson pushed past Diggle and walked down stairs, going to the kitchen and pressing a button on the counter. Within seconds, the counter top moved on its own, revealing a panic room of sorts, and she and Diggle walked down there. Allyson flipped on a light, showing the walls littered with firearms.
"Whoa…" Diggle exhaled in surprise. Behind her expressionless mask, Allyson smiled, as she grabbed the duffle bag John was carrying and placed as many guns as she could in there, including the pump action shotgun her grandmother used to use.
Five minutes later, Allyson and Diggle exited the Strode house, and got back into the car. Allyson tossed the duffle into the back seat, and John drove them off, back to New York. It was going to be a long trip home...
Mesmer finally reached the top of the building he was climbing, and walked outside, meeting Homelander in the cool night air.
"Homelander." Mesmer weakly smiled. "I just want to say, it is an honor-"
"Cut the bullshit." Homelander snapped harshly. "A-Train said you had some information."
"Yeah, we still go back from Teenage Kix-"
"What makes you think I give two flying fucks?" Homelander asked. "I don't know you, and I really don't give a shit. What do you have?"
"Right, sorry." Mesmer apologized, before taking out his phone and showing pictures of four individuals. "You said you were looking for a tall black guy, a blonde haired guy, a dude with a black beard, and a bald guy with a black hoodie, right?"
Homelander took the phone, and stared at the photos. He recognized these people. One of them was Frank, Starlight's friend. Another was that guy eyeballing him at the race. Suddenly, everything was becoming clear.
"Shit."
Homelander looked up, and flew off, leaving Mesmer on the roof.
"Fuck, man! That's my phone!"
Music: "Piano Man" by Billy Joel
Frank and Annie sat down at the park bench in Central Park, where he instantly began to ask her about when she was born.
"Annie, I gotta know…" Frank asked. "Did you just get your powers one day, or have you had them forever?"
"Well, my mom told me I blinded the doctor when I was little, so I guess… forever?" Annie said, shrugging. "Is it okay if we don't talk about superheroes, or powers?"
"Yeah, sorry." Frank mumbled. "Bad day at work?"
"Sort of." Annie told him. "I took your advice, went public, reported to Stillwell again… but she claimed she'll do a compromise."
"What do you mean?" Frank asked.
"Only the Deep is getting punished." Annie groaned. "Homelander is getting off scot free. I don't even know where Translucent is."
"Asshole's invisible." Frank told her. "He could be sitting at this bar right next to us- sorry."
"No, you're fine." Annie quickly said, while looking down at her drink.
"Hey, Frankie! There you are!"
Frank groaned, as Butcher approached them.
"Oh, sorry, am I interrupting?" Billy asked.
"No, it's alright." Annie reassured Butcher, who held out his hand.
"Name's Billy."
"Annie."
"Hey, aren't you that new girl in the Seven?" Butcher grinned, while they shook hands.
"Guilty." Annie grumbled. "How do you know Frank?"
"He and I are old mates."
"You have a lot of friends coming by here." Annie mused.
"Seems like it." Frank said gruffly.
"You know, I heard about your speech at Believe, and I loved it." Butcher grinned wider. "Personally, I think God is just a cunt who likes giving kids cancer and has a hard on for murder. We should launch a fucking nuke at him-"
"Drop it Bill." Frank ordered. Butcher shot Frank a glare, and changed topics.
"Hey, out of everyone in the Seven, my favorite is actually Translucent. What's he up to?"
"He's on a mission, I guess." Annie mumbled.
"Well, I hope he's alright, since it's been a while." Butcher continued, winking at Frank.
"I'm going to get us a pitcher." Annie decided, getting up and leaving the two men alone.
"Get out of here, Bill." Frank growled.
"How about you quit playing around with the opposition then." Butcher told him.
"She is not our enemy." Frank insisted. "She can help us-"
"Help us?" Butcher mocked. "She's a fucking supe. What do you think she's gonna do when she figures out you murdered Translucent?"
"What do you mean, 'when'?" Frank narrowed his eyes.
"Give it time." Billy smirked. "Give her my best, son."
Butcher got up and walked away, leaving Frank alone. Annie eventually came back, with a large pitcher of beer.
"Where'd your friend go?" Annie asked, setting the pitcher onto the table.
"Had to run an errand." Frank told her, and looked at his mug.
A/N: Yeah, this chapter was also a bit short, and didn't have a lot of action. Sorry about that. The next one should be longer, and should have a bit more fights.