Ahhhh! Sry guys for the sudden disappearance! Well, I'm back now!
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"Now isn't this the perfect fucking chance? It helps you and it helps me."
"But.. I.. I can't do that. Madeline will throw me out of The Seven." Starlight shook her head. She'd rather keep her cushy spot than rip the mask off The Deep.
"You really don't get her," Ivan said. "She can fire any other asshole in the building, but she won't touch a member of The Seven. Vought doesn't belong to her. It belongs to the shareholders. Boot you out and the stock price tanks. She can't swallow that kind of loss."
Starlight stayed silent for a few seconds. She hated that he was right.
Still, it wasn't enough. "I don't want to deal with Madeline losing her shit. And what about The Deep? You'll piss off both of them."
"Napkin, please. Merci."
The waiter passed it over without a word and backed off to a respectful distance. Good staff never listened in on conversations.
Ivan tucked the napkin into his collar and smiled. "First, as long as you don't open your mouth, nobody will know I'm the one behind it. And even if they guess, who cares."
"Second, I already talked to The Deep. It's the exact opposite of what you think. He's not mad. He's on his fucking knees thanking me."
"Why?" Starlight asked before she could stop herself.
"Even you're pissed his numbers are exploding. Imagine how the rest of them feel." Ivan sliced off another piece of steak and shoved it into his mouth.
Starlight wasn't dumb. She clicked immediately.
"Homelander!"
"Exactly. At the speed The Deep's popularity is climbing, he might actually pass that guy. You think Homelander will let that happen? So when The Deep realizes he's about to overtake him, ask yourself. Is he scared? Or is he fucking terrified?" Ivan swallowed the juicy bite and grinned.
"You planned every bit of this?" Starlight stared at him like he was a goddamn monster.
"Pretty much," Ivan said casually.
Starlight still couldn't wrap her head around it. He lifts The Deep up with one hand, then slams him back down with the other.
Why? Just for fun? Because he was bored?
Or is it.. for m—No! Clearly not.
One steak wasn't enough to fill his stomach anyway.
"I get it now," she said, eyes narrowing. "Ashley. You're trying to get her fired so you can take over as head of Talent and Public Relations."
Ivan wiped the grease from the corner of his mouth with a napkin. "Madeline listens to certain people. We made a simple deal. He wants The Deep's numbers to crash and burn. I just want the department chair. Everybody wins."
"Terrifying," Starlight muttered.
"Thanks for the compliment." From the plane crash to getting Edgar involved, every single move had been part of his plan. Sure, maybe a bit of main-character luck helped, but for Ivan it was just a gamble.
Worst case? No real loss. Why the hell not try?
And once The Deep scandal blew up, it would land a solid punch to Madeline's authority.
Because Ivan wasn't stopping at department head.
Vought was a very special company. Only directors and above got to mess with supes directly.
If he wanted to properly study and fuse their powers later, he needed to climb. All the way to the top floor of Vought Tower, looking down on the whole damn city.
"So, what do you think?" Ivan asked after swallowing the last bite of steak.
"You don't have to overthink it. What you'll lose is nothing compared to what you'll gain. The Women's Protection League has tens of millions of members. Out The Deep and you get all that support for free. Feminism makes for one hell of a useful tool sometimes."
Starlight felt like she was staring at Asmodeus from those old tales. A devil specially designed to drag women into sin.
"I'll… think about it."
Starlight bolted out of the restaurant like wolves were snapping at her heels.
Ivan watched her back disappear down the street, then lifted his glass and drained the last sip of juice.
He knew she'd come around. People like her didn't change their stripes overnight.
...
At the same time, Butcher's crew had scored a major break in their Compound V investigation.
Mother's Milk dug up solid dirt through one of his old contacts. Since 1971, a Vought-funded outfit called Samaritan's Embrace had secretly shipped Compound V to over fifty hospitals worldwide.
Bottom line: no supe was born special. Every last one of them started as a regular human who got jabbed.
"Starlight too?" Hughie asked, unable to hide the unease in his voice.
He'd been getting closer to her like Butcher wanted. They weren't exactly fucking yet, but things were going pretty well.
"Yeah. She got the shot just like the rest," MM said, dropping a fat stack of documents on the table. "Everyone except Homelander. I've got files on all of them except him. Nothing on how that cunt became a supe."
"Good enough. This is already more than we expected," Butcher said, clearly pleased with MM's haul.
Frenchie, however, wasn't convinced. "Then how the fuck do you explain Kimiko? When we pulled her out, she wasn't in any hospital. She was chained up in a fucking dungeon getting pumped full of V."
His words punched a hole in MM's findings.
Butcher frowned, trying to connect the dots. One thing was crystal clear though: Vought was neck-deep in all of it.
"MM, keep digging. See if you can find anything on Kimiko's trail." Butcher turned to Hughie. "Oi. You're coming with me. We're checking out a spot that might have some answers."
Hughie followed Butcher to a support group. The members were all indirect victims of supes.
Most of them had been saved by a superhero at some point, only to walk away with permanent scars or disabilities that ruined the rest of their lives.
So they banded together and made this group.
Butcher had known about it for years. Back when Homelander raped his wife Becca and she vanished, everyone assumed she was dead. Crushed by grief, Butcher had wandered into this very meeting one night.
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Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69