Chapter 158: Matthew: Honestly, I Preferred You When You Were Acting Tough
Down on the street.
The smell reached Homelander before anything else did. Blood, sharp and metallic, going straight to the back of the skull.
He turned. The bystanders had formed the usual crowd. Phones up, filming, the way people always filmed things now. Every face pointed at him.
He pushed the anger down and replaced it with something appropriately somber. Heavy expression, few words. The kind of statement you make when you're the public face of something and you have to say something, so you say as little as possible.
When the police arrived, he didn't wait around. He left the street the way he'd arrived, straight up, the blood on him catching the light as he went.
He took a long arc through the clouds, burning off some of what he was feeling, then came down on the roof of the Umbrella building.
The roof.
Matthew was already there. Had been for a while, by the look of it.
He was standing at the edge of the building, looking down at the street below, where the evidence had already been cleaned away by the time Homelander landed behind him.
Matthew turned at the sound of the landing.
Across the rooftop.
Homelander stood on the landing pad. His face had the quality of something that had been carved into that expression. He was looking at Matthew the way you look at something you're deciding what to do with.
Matthew looked back with no particular urgency. He took his time.
He had to admit: the resemblance was exactly right. Whoever had put this together had gotten it down to the bone. If Homelander looked any different from how he was supposed to look, Matthew would have assumed something had gone wrong on Homelander's end.
The silence held for a moment.
Then Homelander spoke. "...That thing a minute ago. That was you."
Flat delivery. Not a question.
Matthew spread his hands with an expression of mild innocence. "Oh, I think there's been a misunderstanding."
"I just thought the elevator was a slow way to get down. So I gave him a faster option."
"Unfortunately your colleague seemed to be in a real hurry. Didn't want to slow down at all. That's how you end up with a situation like this."
He let a small smile surface. "An accident caused by excessive speed. Technically, I think that falls under traffic incidents."
Homelander's expression went colder. Something came on behind his eyes, a faint red edge building at the iris.
"Matthew Lawrence. I know what you are. A second-generation heir who coasted up on his father's name, got his hands on some sudden new abilities, used them to clear out Spencer and his people a few months ago, and climbed to where you are now."
"So. Here's a question for you." The red in his eyes deepened. "If I decided to take you out. Would your so-called abilities actually stop me?"
Matthew adjusted his cuffs without any sign of concern. "Is that what they're saying about me out there."
"Coasted up on his father's name."
A short, dry sound that might have been a laugh. "Complete nonsense."
"Everything I've built, I built through my own effort. That man had nothing to do with it."
"As for what you just said." He looked up. "I'll send it straight back."
"If I decided to take you out. Would your abilities stop me?"
As he said it, his eyes lit up. The same deep red, sharper than Homelander's, the heat vision building behind it. He rose off the roof. The gravity field expanded outward from him, the air around him beginning to distort under the weight of it, the sunlight bending slightly where it passed through the affected space.
In the red light, the smile on his face had a quality to it that didn't make the situation feel smaller.
Homelander felt it. The pressure landing on him from the field. He'd seen Matthew's eyes light up and expected parity. What he got instead was something reading a level above what he was producing, and the weight coming down on him from the field was climbing steadily with every second it ran.
He kept his expression still, but underneath it something had moved.
The silence went on.
Then Homelander shifted.
The posture that had been carrying all that downward authority changed. He raised one hand, a measured gesture. "Mr. Lawrence. I'll acknowledge that my language just now was a little heated. I apologize."
"And honestly. There's no reason either of us needs to make anything out of what happened to that waste of space."
"Wouldn't you agree."
The full-face reversal happened in the space of about two seconds. Matthew blinked.
He'd heard the phrase "reading the room." Homelander had apparently spent years studying the text.
"Personally, I preferred the version of you from about thirty seconds ago."
"Mr. Lawrence, you misunderstand me."
"I let my teammate's death get to my head for a moment. I'm sorry for that."
"Looking at it clearly now: he entered your building without any authorization from the company, apparently intending to do something illegal and to work against your interests. Honestly, he had it coming. If you hadn't handled it, I would have cleaned house myself the moment I found out, to make sure the Seven aren't associated with that kind of conduct."
"If there's nothing else, Mr. Lawrence, you can drop the telekinesis and I'll be on my way."
He moved to take off.
Matthew stopped him.
"Sorry. The airspace above this building is restricted. You'll need to take the elevator down."
The phrasing was pleasant. What it was saying was something else entirely. Homelander's hand tightened into a fist behind his back.
Then the memory of what had been coming off Matthew a minute ago reached him again, and the fist opened.
He produced a smile with no warmth behind it. "Of course."
He swallowed everything that was happening in his chest and got into the elevator with Matthew.
The enclosed space had a specific quality to it. Homelander had never been in a room with many things that actually made him uncomfortable. He was adding this one to the list.
When the doors opened at ground level and he stepped out, his pulse was doing something it usually didn't.
He had about two seconds to let it settle before the reporters materialized.
"Homelander, can you give us a statement about Translucent's death?"
"We've received reports that Translucent had been operating for hire as a corporate spy, accessing confidential documents from competing companies. Were you aware of this?"
"We're hearing that Translucent slipped and fell while attempting to leave the building after stealing files. Can you confirm that account?"
"And can you explain why you're appearing here with Mr. Lawrence at this particular time? Are you here to get the full picture of what happened?"
The questions came in fast enough that Homelander had nowhere to go between them. He wanted to put every bit of this on Matthew. He understood immediately why he couldn't.
He was trying to work out which sentence to start with when Matthew got there first.
"Thank you for your questions. Homelander and I have already had a conversation about this."
"Translucent's corporate espionage activities were real. That part is confirmed."
"Which is exactly why, when Homelander found out, he came here personally to apologize and to let me know he'd only just learned about it himself."
"After something like this, I'm sure he'll be implementing much stronger oversight of the Seven going forward, to make sure nothing like this happens again."
He turned his head toward Homelander with the attentive expression of someone waiting for a supporting comment. "Wouldn't you say so, Homelander?"
A brief silence.
Homelander's signature smile came back out.
"That's exactly right. We'll be conducting a full review of the Seven's conduct and accountability standards. Anyone inside the team who operates this way will be removed immediately."
"Please continue to trust the Seven. We will do everything in our power to keep the public safe."
He delivered the statement, made a round of eye contact with the reporters, and launched himself into the sky before anyone could follow up.
The operation had cost them considerably more than it had produced.
The original plan had been to dig up damaging material on Umbrella and the Avengers. Instead, the situation had reversed on them cleanly, and the net result was a story where the Seven looked like they had a spy problem and Homelander was personally apologizing to the target.
Homelander was furious.
He decided that when he got back to the building, he was going to find something to take it out on.
He had a specific idea. The digital marketing director, the one named Becca Butcher.
That would do.
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