Riley🪽

you shift a little, testing, and his arm tightens instinctively.

“stay,” he mumbles against your shoulder, voice gravel-rough with sleep. 

you smile into the pillow, half-asleep still. “you’re barely conscious.”

his hand slides under the hem of your shirt, palm broad and warm against your bare stomach. just skin on skin. 

his thumb strokes lazy circles just under your ribs. he presses a slow kiss to the back of your shoulder, then another, open-mouthed and lingering. you feel him harden against your ass, thick and insistent, but he doesn’t push. he just rocks forward once, slow, grinding against you with a low hum that vibrates through your back.

“morning,” he says, the word muffled.

you reach back, threading your fingers into his hair, “hi.”

his hand drifts lower, slipping beneath the waistband of your sleep shorts. he cups you gently, fingers gliding through slick heat without urgency. 

a quiet groan escapes him when he feels how ready you already are. “always so fucking good for me.”

you push back against him, needy in that soft, half-dreaming way. he tugs your shorts down just enough, then his own. the blunt head of his cock nudges against your entrance. he doesn’t thrust in. he rocks again, sliding along your folds, teasing the both of you until you’re breathing heavier.

“ben,” you whisper.

“yeah. i know.”

he pushes inside you slowly, inch by inch, stretching you open with that familiar burn. you both exhale at the same time when he bottoms out, his hips flush against your ass. for a moment he just stays there, buried deep, arm wrapped around your middle.

then he starts to move. lazy rolls of his hips. every thrust drags against that perfect spot inside you, slow enough that you feel every inch of him. his mouth stays on your shoulder, kissing, sucking lightly, murmuring low praises against your skin.

“fuck, you feel good,” he breathes. “tight and warm and mine. could stay like this all day.”

you moan softly, pushing back to meet him. one of your hands covers his where it rests low on your stomach, fingers threading together. 

the rhythm stays gentle—sleepy grinding, bodies fitted together. his free hand slides up under your shirt again, palming your breast, thumb brushing your nipple in slow circles that match the pace of his hips.

it builds slow. no frantic chase. just steady pleasure winding tighter and tighter between you. his breathing grows ragged against your neck. you turn your head just enough for him to kiss you, messy and soft, tongues sliding lazy while he keeps fucking you.

the orgasm rolls through you quiet and devastating, clenching around him as warmth spreads through your limbs. he groans your name, hips stuttering, and follows right after, burying himself deep as he comes inside you. the warmth of it, the way he holds you tighter through it, makes your chest ache in the best way. for a long minute you stay like that. 

eventually, he pulls out carefully and tugs your shorts back up, then rolls you gently so you’re facing him. his arm wraps around your waist, pulling you into his chest. you tuck your face against his neck, one leg thrown over his hip. his hand strokes slow circles on your back under your shirt.

the safehouse is still quiet. no voices in the hall yet. no emergencies waiting. just the two of you in bed, tangled and warm and pretending for a little while longer that the world outside doesn’t exist.

neither of you moves. moving would make the morning real. moving would let the cold air in, and then the safehouse would remember itself around you: maeve bruised on the couch, butcher pacing holes into the floor, frenchie building something terrible with careful hands, homelander waiting somewhere with ryan and a family-shaped knife held out in front of him. moving would mean the tower; the plan; the dose.

so you stay tucked against soldier boy’s chest with his arm heavy around your waist and let the lie breathe a little longer. 

his fingers trace the slope of your spine beneath your shirt, slow and absent in a way that doesn’t feel absent at all. his body’s warm around yours. solid. human enough in the dark-soft morning that you almost forget what he can do when his chest starts to glow.

you stare at the hollow of his throat. there’s a scar near his collarbone you haevn’t noticed before, pale and thin, disappearing beneath the edge of his shirt. you trace it with one finger. 

“his hand stills on your back. “that your new hobby?”

“what?”

“counting marks.” 

you drag your fingertip along the scar once more, softer now. “you have a lot.” 

“came with the job.” 

“shit job,” you fire back, voice still soft. 

“had perks.” 

you lift just enough that your eyes meet his. “such as?”

his mouth twitches. he’s about to be an asshole. “got laid more than all presidents combined.” asshole indeed. 

you make a face. “classy.” 

“you asked.” 

“not exactly.” 

“you were thinking it.” 

you roll your eyes, but your face betrays you before you can stop. a small smile. tired. stupid. there and gone. 

he catches it anyway. 

his gaze lingers on your mouth, then drops lower, to the place where his shirt has ridden up over your thigh. his hand slides back down your back, settles at your hip, and for one second, you think he might pull you under him again. the thought warms you so quickly it should embarrass you. 

instead, he says, “you got that face.” 

your stomach tightens and it’s like he can sense the deflection on the tip of your tongue. 

“the one right before you say some dumb shit. spit it.” 

the quiet shrinks. you consider not doing it. you consider giving yourself another minute with his hand on your hip and his chest under your palm and his body still close enough to pretend that the rest of the world can’t reach you here. but the thing has been sitting behind your teeth since last night, since homelander’s voice filled the living room, since ryan’s name turned butcher’s face into something haunted, since you saw the containment plans begin to take shape in frenchie’s careful silence. 

you sit up. 

his arm falls away from your waist. all sleep is burned out of him in a second. 

you pull the blanket higher over your lap even though there’s no modesty left to rescue. “i’m taking temp v.” 

soldier boy’s face closes. not gradually. not with confusion. a door slamming. “no.”

“i’m going to the tower.”

“no.”

“and i’m taking temp v.”

he sits up too, the mattress dipping hard under the shift of his weight. his hair’s still wrecked from sleep and your hands. his mouth is still soft from kissing you. the rest of him is already sharp.

“you hard of hearing now?”

your jaw tightens. “it’s our fight.”

“it’s homelander.”

“it’s vought. it’s butcher. it’s ryan. it’s maeve. it’s my face on every screen in the country. it’s the files, it’s the temp v, it’s everything they’ve done and everything they’re going to do if we don’t end this!” your voice stays quieter than the anger deserves. “so, yeah. our fight.”

his eyes stay locked on yours. “you’re not taking that shit again.”

“i am.”

he breathes out once, hard through his nose, and looks away like he has to put his anger somewhere else before he puts it through the wall. “you really don’t learn.”

“i learned that if i’m human in that room, i’m a liability.”

his head turns back.

you don’t soften it. “if i stay here, you’ll wonder if i’m safe. if i go without it, you’ll look over every time someone gets close to me. if homelander clocks that i matter to you, he’ll use it. he’ll use me.” the words taste bad because they’re true. “and if you change target again, we lose.”

his jaw flexes. because your words carry everything—noir; the hallway; the mission snapping in half because you were cornered and soldier boy chose you.

“i’m not trying to hurt you.”

“bullshit.”

“i’m trying to keep you focused.”

“by putting a death sentence in your arm?”

“it’ll be my second dose.”

“that supposed to make me feel better?”

“it makes me the safest one to take it.”

he laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “you hear yourself? you sound like butcher.”

that lands hard enough that your mouth shuts. you pull the blanket tighter around your thighs. “don’t do that.”

“don’t make it easy.”

“i’m not him.”

“then stop talking like the thing killing you is just math.”

your throat tightens. you look down at your hands in your lap, at the faint mark his fingers left on your wrist last night, at your nails, at the place where your body still feels warm from him. “i’m not trying to die.”

“could’ve fooled me.”

“i’m trying not to be the reason you do.”

that shuts him up. not for long. but long enough. he stares at you with something ugly moving behind his eyes, something that wants to become cruelty because cruelty is easier than fear. you can almost see him reaching for it. a sharper sentence. a dirtier hit. something about your body or your mouth or how you keep making trouble and expecting people to survive it. instead, he says, “you think that makes it better?”

he gets out of bed. the movement is too sudden, too controlled. he grabs his sweats from the floor and yanks them on, then runs a hand through his hair in a way that makes it worse. you stay on the mattress because following him would make the room feel smaller than it already does.

“you use it,” he says, back to you, “and what? you tell homelander to hold still?”

“if i can hold him back long enough for you to hit him, yes.”

“that’s not a plan. that’s a suicide note with tits.”

you stare at him. he looks back, unrepentant. “incredible,” you say. “you almost made concern sound misogynistic.”

“you’re being reckless.”

“you’re going to vought tower to meet your lab-grown son and kill him in front of his child.”

his face goes cold. the words hang there, brutal and accurate. too accurate. your anger stumbles under the weight of them.

you look away first. “so maybe don’t lecture me on reckless.”

for a second, there is only the radiator ticking near the wall and both of you breathing like you have climbed out of the same wreck.

when he speaks again, his voice is lower. flatter. “you won’t use it on me.”

you look at him. he’s not asking. or maybe he is, in the only way he knows how.

“no.”

his eyes narrow. “say it.”

you push the blanket aside and stand, shirt falling crooked around your thighs. “i won’t use it on you.”

“not if i get in the way.”

“not if you get in the way.”

“not if you think you’re saving me.”

your throat tightens. that one is harder.

he notices. “say it.”

you hate him a little for making you. you love him a little for needing it said. both feelings sit too close together to tell apart. “not if i think i’m saving you. not to stop you. not to move you. not to make you listen. never again.”

his face does something you can’t read. not forgiveness. not relief. it might be the shape trust makes when it has to crawl through broken glass to reach the room.

“you take it behind my back,” he says, “we’re done.”

the words hit through your chest before you can pretend they don’t. you lift your chin anyway. “that’s why i’m telling you.”

his mouth tightens.

you step closer, not touching him yet. “and you know i’m right.”

he looks at you like he wants you to be wrong so badly it almost becomes hatred. then he looks toward the door. the safehouse creaks beyond it. a low murmur from the living room. frenchie’s voice, fast and worried. butcher’s answering, rougher. the day has started without you.

then he says, “fine.”

you blink. the word is too quick. too blunt. too easy. “fine?”

he looks back at you. “you deaf again?”

“no, i just didn’t expect you to give in that easily.”

“don’t get used to it.”

you should feel relieved. something in you doesn’t.

but then he steps closer, and his hand comes to your jaw, rough thumb brushing once near your cheek, almost too brief to count. his eyes stay on yours. 

“you stay close,” he says.

your chest tightens. “okay.”

“you don’t get cute.”

“i’m always cute.” his stare flattens. “fine, i won’t get cute.” you mutter. 

“you fight how i trained you.”

“dirty?”

“smart.” his hand drops from your face. “and i’m the one giving it to you.”

the words settle strangely in the room. not permission. not approval. something worse and better at the same time. you nod once. “okay.”

he holds your gaze another second, then turns toward his clothes. you stand there in the gray morning light, bare-legged and aching, and try not to wonder why winning feels so much like walking into a trap. by the time you reach the living room, the safehouse has become a war room with bad lighting.

frenchie has taken over the table. wires snake between two laptops, a small open tool case, a cracked tower schematic printed across three mismatched sheets, and a row of supplies that make your skin crawl on sight. gauze. tape. stolen badges. two earpieces. 

maeve sits on the couch with her boots planted wide, one arm wrapped carefully around her ribs, jaw clenched against pain as annie hovers too close and pretends not to. kimiko sits on the arm of the couch beside her, watching frenchie’s hands. mm stands near the table with a marker, adding notes to the schematic. hughie has a cup of coffee he hasn’t touched. butcher looks awake in the way only a man with violence for breakfast can look awake.

everyone looks over when you and soldier boy enter. then everyone looks away a little too late. you resist the urge to fix your hair.

soldier boy doesn’t resist anything. he walks straight to the table and looks down at the maps. “talk.”

butcher’s mouth curls. “morning to you too, sunshine.”

maeve’s eyes flick between you and soldier boy. if she notices the bruise at your collarbone or the fact that soldier boy’s shirt is inside out, she keeps it to herself. dignity, apparently, still exists somewhere in the house.

frenchie clears his throat. “we have a possible entry through the west loading dock. after yesterday, vought’s moving security upward and inward. public floors are watched. executive floors are chaos. there’re blind spots, but only if we’re moving very quickly.”

“homelander’s going to expect that,” mm says.

“homelander expects people to be afraid of him,” maeve says. 

“helpful,” butcher says.

annie leans over the map, pointing to a marked floor. “if ryan’s there, where would homelander take him?”

maeve’s expression changes. not soft. not even close. but more careful. “somewhere symbolic. somewhere high. somewhere with windows, probably. he likes height. he likes people looking up at him.”

“conference room?” hughie asks.

“or the broadcast level,” maeve says. “he wants an audience nearby. even if he doesn’t turn the cameras on.”

mm taps the table with the marker. “we need a way to keep homelander still long enough for soldier boy to charge. without ryan in the middle of it.”

frenchie goes quiet. that kind of quiet has a shape. you look at him. “what did you make?”

frenchie sighs. “i have made something terrible.”

he opens the metal case. inside sits a mask. not a regular gas mask. heavier, reinforced around the seal, with a canister fitted at the side and a thick strap meant to lock around the back of someone’s head. the thing looks brutal in the cleanest possible way. built for a face. built to stay there.

soldier boy’s gaze drops to it. no reaction.

frenchie lifts it carefully. “it is a delivery system. close range. very close. if we can get it over homelander’s mouth and nose, the canister releases a concentrated agent. not enough to put him down completely… i do not think such a thing exists for him, but enough to confuse, impair, maybe slow his reactions for a small window.”

“how small?” annie asks.

“ninety seconds if god loves us.”

“does he?” butcher asks.

frenchie looks at him. “have you met us?”

maeve leans forward despite annie making a disapproving sound. “homelander won’t let anyone get that on him.”

“that’s what soldier boy’s for,” butcher says. soldier boy looks at him. butcher meets it. “and maeve. and kimiko. and anyone else who fancies keeping their limbs.”

“i can help,” hughie says.

annie turns immediately. “no.”

he looks at her. “i didn’t say temp v.”

“you were thinking it.”

“you don’t know that.”

“hughie.”

he rubs a hand over his mouth. “i can’t sit in the van again while everyone else—”

“yes, you can.”

“annie—”

“no.” her voice breaks sharp enough to cut the room. not loud. not glowing. worse than both. “you’re not taking another dose.”

hughie looks down.

“you heard frenchie,” she says, softer now but no less furious. “three to five. sometimes sooner. you’re already at two.”

“butcher’s at two.”

“and butcher is a suicidal asshole.”

butcher lifts a hand. “accurate, but rude.”

annie doesn’t look at him. “you don’t get to die because you’re embarrassed you’re human.”

the words land in you too. soldier boy notices. you feel his eyes before you see them.

hughie’s face twists. “that’s not what this is.”

“then prove it,” annie says. “help me without it.”

the room holds its breath. hughie looks at the vial case on the table. then at annie. then down at his own hands. “what do you need?” he asks finally.

annie’s face changes. the relief is there so quickly it almost hurts to see.

butcher claps his hands once. “lovely. relationship saved. back to killing the cunt.”

mm looks at you then. you know why before he says anything. “and you?”

the whole room shifts toward you. you lift your chin. “i’m taking temp v.”

mm’s expression hardens, but not with surprise. with disappointment that had been waiting for confirmation.

butcher grins. “least someone here understands arithmetic.”

soldier boy’s head turns slowly toward him. “keep smiling.”

butcher’s mouth stays exactly where it is. “or what?”

“you’ll find out.”

“boys,” mm says, tired and dangerous.

you step around soldier boy because if he blocks you from the room, you might actually bite him. “i’m going. with temp v, i can survive a hit. i can move fast enough to get ryan clear if i have to. and if homelander gets close enough, i can hold him for a second.”

maeve looks at you. really looks. “hold him how?”

“command compulsion,” frenchie says quietly before you have to.

maeve’s eyes sharpen. “you can make people obey you?”

annie shakes her head. “you can’t know what another dose will do.”

“i know what going in human will do.”

“you don’t know that.”

“i do.” your voice stays even. you’re proud of that, absurdly. “because homelander knows my face. firecracker handed him my name. if i’m there as myself, i’m bait with shoes.”

“then don’t be there,” annie argues.

soldier boy scoffs, “tried that.”

your head turns toward him. he doesn’t look at you. his eyes stay on the table, on the mask, on the vials, on every ugly thing the room’s decided might keep people alive.

mm’s jaw works once. “we said no secret doses.”

“not secret,” you say.

“doesn’t make it smart.”

“no,” you agree. “it doesn’t.”

that seems to bother him more than arguing would have.

kimiko signs, small and sharp. frenchie translates softly. “she says… no dying.”

you look at kimiko. her face’s stern enough to hide the fear badly. you nod. “that’s the plan.”

the plan keeps moving because plans always do once enough people agree to be stupid in the same direction.

maeve marks the likely routes. frenchie explains the mask again, then the canister, then the release trigger. mm forces everyone to repeat their roles because nobody in this house trusts anybody to remember sanity under pressure. butcher asks where he needs to stand to put a crowbar through homelander’s skull if soldier boy’s blast works. nobody laughs.

soldier boy stays quiet through most of it. he listens. watches. stores. every few minutes his eyes find the mask. sometimes the vial. sometimes you.

by the time frenchie lays one temp v vial on the table, the safehouse feels too small to hold the color of it. green. cold. impossible bright beneath the kitchen light.

you’ve seen it before. felt it before—the way it turned your blood into voltage, your voice into a locked door opening from the wrong side, your body into something strong enough to move soldier boy when your human hands never could. you remember the power. you remember his face.

soldier boy reaches for the vial before anyone else can. his fingers close around it. too careful for a man who can crush bone without trying.

your pulse jumps as you follow soldier boy when he nods toward the living room. beside the couch, near the radiator that clanks whenever the heat kicks in. the others are still at the table behind you, close enough to see, far enough that the air feels suddenly private anyway. 

frenchie’s voice lowers as he says something to mm. annie watches with her arms folded, unhappy all the way down to the bone. hughie looks at the floor. maeve watches soldier boy. you watch the vial.

soldier boy stands in front of you, blocking most of the room with his body. his shield is propped against the couch within reach. the temp v glows between his fingers.

“sleeve,” he says.

you pull your sleeve up. his eyes drop to your bare arm. the inside of your elbow. the vulnerable skin there. his jaw tightens. he steps closer. his free hand settles at your waist, fingers spreading against your side. not for the room. not for show. just there, holding you steady or holding himself back. you cannot tell.

“you fight how i trained you,” he murmurs.

“dirty and mean.”

“dirty and smart.”

“you keep adding smart.”

“because you keep forgetting it.”

you almost smile.

his thumb shifts once against your waist. “you use that voice on anyone you need to—guards. homelander. butcher if he gets stupid.”

from the table, butcher calls, “i can hear you.”

“good,” soldier boy says.

your throat tightens despite the joke. you know what comes next before he says it.

he looks down at the vial, then back at you. “not me.”

“not you.”

he holds your gaze.

for one second, the room around you fades. no butcher. no annie. no tower map. no gas mask waiting on the table. just his hand on your waist, the vial in his other hand, and the awful, fragile thing between you that keeps surviving every time one of you tries to kill it.

he takes your arm. his hand is warm beneath your elbow. his thumb presses lightly over your pulse.

you look at the needle. you brace for the burn.

soldier boy’s fingers tighten around the vial.

then glass cracks.

at first, your brain doesn’t understand the sound. it’s too small. too final.

the vial shatters in his fist. green liquid bursts between his fingers and spills down over his knuckles, bright and wasted, dripping onto the floor in thin, electric threads. you stare at soldier boy’s hand. the broken glass. the ruined dose.

then you look up at him. “ben—”

his face is unreadable. that’s when the cuff snaps around your wrist. cold metal. fast. brutal. final. you jerk back, but he already has the other end locked around the radiator pipe beside the couch. the metal bites when you pull. the radiator rattles hard against the wall.

“what the fuck—”

“sorry, doll,” he doesn’t sound sorry.

your heart slams once, hard enough to hurt. he lets go of your wrist. you yank against the cuff again. pain shoots up your arm. “ben.”

he steps back.

“don’t you fucking dare.”

his jaw flexes. you see the cost then. not enough to stop him. enough to make it ugly. “you’re not coming.”

all your blood has gone hot with rage. you pull against the cuff so hard the radiator screams. “you don’t get to do this to me!”

his eyes flicker.

“you do not get to stand there after everything and make this choice for me.”

he doesn’t answer.

“look at me, you coward!”

that gets his eyes back on yours, face hardened. for a second, the whole safehouse narrows to the two of you and the ruined blue stain drying between his fingers. 

you want to scream. you want to command him. you want temp v hot in your blood so badly you can almost feel the shape of the word in your throat. but there is nothing there. no power. no wrongness. only your human voice, breaking on anger. “you promised!”

something in his expression shifts by a fraction. then it’s gone. “no. you did.”

the words land like a slap. not because they’re fair. because he knows exactly where to cut. you lunge against the cuff again. “fuck you.”

“yeah,” he says, voice flat. “heard that one.”

annie steps toward the radiator. “i’m not leaving her cuffed to a fucking pipe.”

soldier boy turns his head slightly. “then don’t come.”

butcher watches from the table, eyes bright and awful, calculating faster than anyone else is feeling. you see the moment he decides not to stop it. you see him look at you, then the cuff, then soldier boy, then the door.

you hate him almost as much as you hate soldier boy in that second.

mm’s face is thunder. “this isn’t the plan.”

“plan’s better now,” soldier boy says.

you laugh once, sharp and furious. “better because i can’t ruin it?”

his eyes cut back to you.

you wish they hadn’t. you wish he’d leave without looking. you wish you didn’t see the thing buried under his cruelty, the fear dressed up as command, the care warped into something unforgivable because that’s the only shape he knows how to hold it in.

“better because you live,” he looks at you for one long second. then he turns away. just like that. shield in hand. broken vial bleeding green down his fingers. no goodbye. no final touch. nothing soft enough for you to keep.

“ben!”

he doesn’t stop.

“soldier boy, i swear to god—”

he walks into the entryway. butcher’s already moving. of everyone in the room, he’s the only one soldier boy looks at. not annie. not mm. not maeve. not you. butcher. the ugliest person in the room to understand an ugly choice.

soldier boy’s voice comes out steady. “we’re going.”

“got me under some kind of spell, don’t you?”

your stomach twists at the memory of his face changing after he said it. your body going cold while everything else stayed hot. the way you scrambled off his lap so fast your knee nearly made you slip. the way he caught your elbow and let go the second you told him not to touch you. 

that had made it worse. a part of you wished he hadn’t. that he’d kiss the shock out of both of you. that he’d handled you rough but cleanly. like he used to before. 

you lie on your back and stare at the ceiling until your eyes start to burn. stupid, stupid, stupid—

someone passes your door in the hall. your body reacts before you decide to—shoulders tense, breath held. for one pathetic second, you think it’s him. you’re still getting used to the new safehouse. to the way the pipes complain differently in the night. to the way the floor creaks differently depending on who’s crossing to the living room, but you haven’t had the chance to give it a pattern. 

the floor whines again, lighter this time, and then knuckles tap softly against your door. not him. 

“hey,” annie says from the other side, voice soft and quiet. “you awake?”

you close eyes. “yeah.” 

she pauses, head probably leaning against the chipped wood. considering if she should say the next thing or let you in the safety of those four walls. then, heavier, “you should come see this.” 

nothing good has ever followed that sentence. 

you sit up anyway. the shirt you slept in is twisted around your waist. your shorts sit crooked on your hips, and you fix them with more force than necessary before dragging a hoodie over your head. you don’t check your reflection. whatever’s happening out there doesn’t need a prettier version of you.

annie is waiting in the hallway when you open the door. she looks like she slept about as well as you did, hair tied back messily, face too pale beneath the early light. 

“what is it?” you ask.

she hesitates. that’s answer enough.

the television is on in the living room. everyone’s already there. mm stands near the arm of the couch with his arms crossed and his face set into something hard. hughie sits forward on the edge of a chair, one hand pressed to his mouth. kimiko’s beside frenchie at the table, where his laptop is open and connected to two drives by a mess of cords. he’s the only one not staring at the screen. butcher leans in the kitchen doorway, mug in hand, expression sharp in a way that means he’s enjoying himself and is furious at the same time.

soldier boy stands by the counter, half-turned toward the television. he doesn’t look at you when you enter. you don’t look at him either. your body notices him anyway.

firecracker’s face fills the screen, bright and smug under studio lights, hair arranged into the kind of patriotic waves that look flammable. a banner crawls beneath her in violent red letters: vought event attacked by starlight radicals. beneath that, smaller: suspected terrorist associate identified.

then your face appears beside hers. 

you stop walking.

it’s not a good photo. that’s your first thought, which is ridiculous enough that you almost laugh before the rest of it arrives. it’s a still from the civic center, grainy and overlit, your catering shirt bright beneath the fluorescent hallway glow. your head is turned halfway, mouth slightly open, eyes caught between focus and movement.

then the graphic changes. your full name. your age. the town where you grew up.

something cold slides beneath your ribs.

firecracker smiles. “now, folks, this is what they don’t want you to see. a seemingly ordinary young woman radicalized by starlight’s extremist network, infiltrating a patriotic vought event under false credentials and fleeing the scene with none other than soldier boy.”

your mouth parts as the graphic shifts again, a new still flashing onto the screen—grainy but unmistakable. soldier boy’s hand is wrapped tight around your wrist, pulling you down the hallway, your body half-turned toward him as he drags you toward the exit. your skin instantly heats up at the memory now eternalized thanks to firecracker’s hillbilly show. 

“holy shit,” hughie says softly.

firecracker leans toward the camera. “and i don’t know about you, but when a girl that pretty from a nice place like that ends up running around with america’s number one traitor and starlight’s little terrorist club, i start asking questions.”

a sound leaves you. not fully a laugh. not sane enough for that. startled, ugly, almost delighted despite the fact that your life has just been turned into a headline. you point at the screen. “did she just call me pretty?”

mm turns to you immediately. “don’t look so fuckin’ proud.”

the laugh dies in your throat.

he nods toward the tv. “that’s your name. your face. where you’re from. everybody who knew you before this is about to have reporters, vought freaks, or worse knocking on their doors.”

the room settles heavily around the truth.

firecracker keeps talking behind him, voice bright and poisonous. “citizens are urged not to approach. if you see this woman, contact vought security or local authorities immediately. do not engage. these people are dangerous, unstable, and working directly against the safety of the american people.”

you stare at the screen until your own face blurs. dangerous. unstable. you want to laugh again but you fear you might be sick first.

butcher takes a drink from his mug. “well. congratulations, love. you made telly.”

“shut up,” annie snaps.

“what? she did.”

you look away from the screen because looking at yourself like that feels too much like standing outside your own body. “i need coffee.”

the coffee machine is behind soldier boy. naturally, the universe has developed comic timing and decided to use it against you. you don’t let that stop you.

you walk into the kitchen and stop beside him. “move.”

he glances down at the very narrow space between his body and the counter. “there’s room.”

“you’re blocking the coffee.”

“reach.”

you stare at his profile. “i’m not reaching around you.”

his mouth shifts by almost nothing. “‘s that a new rule?”

heat snaps up your neck so fast you nearly forget there’re other people alive in the room. “you need to actually shut the fuck up,” you mutter, wishing your voice had actually been low enough to not carry through the room.

his eyes flick toward you then. not your face first. your mouth. quick enough to show he’s thinking about it too. “quiet morning voice. cute.”

you grab the empty mug nearest to him. “keep talking and i’ll pour it down your lap.”

“where would you sit then?”

the words tumble from his lips so smugly that your brain actually malfunctions. your eyes widen, cheeks flush, mouth left parted and empty where a pretty insult should stand. instead, you’re speechless. 

mm makes a sound from the living room. “both of you, not today.”

soldier boy actually shifts half a step. like that does anything.

you pour coffee with a hand that wouldn’t be steady enough to fire a gun. the mug fills too close to the brim. you lift it carefully and burn your fingers anyway, which feels appropriate.

from the table, frenchie mutters, “mon dieu...”

eyes flick toward him. he’s not gawking at the sbow you and soldier boy just put on. he’s not shocked from listening to the nonsense  in firecracker’s segment. frenchie’s eyes are glued to the screen of his laptop, face serious. the room changes.

butcher’s eyes sharpen. “what is it?”

frenchie turns the laptop so the rest of the room can see. “the civic center servers were connected to vought medical archives. not public files. internal research. trial reports.”

“for what?” annie asks.

frenchie hesitates, then says, “v24.”

temp v.

your coffee turns sour before you even have the chance to taste it. hughie looks down. annie sees. everyone sees.

frenchie scrolls with stiff fingers. “the damage is cumulative. repeated exposure causes neurological lesions, organ stress, tissue breakdown. vought recorded fatal collapse between three and five doses. sometimes sooner.”

silence presses into every corner of the safehouse. fatal collapse between three and five doses.

firecracker’s show continues on the tv, but someone must’ve muted it because her mouth keeps moving without sound. your face remains on the corner graphic, frozen mid-turn.

annie’s voice is small and furious. “hughie.”

he rubs both hands over his face. “i’m okay.”

“how many?”

“annie—”

“how many times did you fucking take it?”

he doesn’t answer quickly enough.

butcher sighs. “not the time for lovers’ arithmetic.”

mm’s stare cuts to him and he doesn’t raise his voice. he just looks at butcher like he’s trying to give him one last chance to do the right thing without being forced. “then we’ll do yours. how many?”

butcher looks bored. that means he’s hiding something. “enough.”

mm’s jaw tightens, a muscle ticking near his temple, and when he speaks again it’s slower, each word pressed out with effort, “say the number.”

“two,” hughie says quietly.

annie closes her eyes.

butcher lifts a shoulder. “same neighborhood.”

frenchie’s voice is strained. “this is not a cold, monsieur. this is brain damage. organ damage. death.”

“yeah, gathered that from fatal collapse, french,” butcher raises a brow.

kimiko signs sharply over frenchie’s shoulder. frenchie translates, eyes still on butcher. “she says you are an idiot.”

butcher points his mug toward her. “tell her ive been told.”

you hear them, but the room has gone strange around the edges. three to five doses. hughie has two. butcher has two, maybe more. you have one. one.

you look at the muted television. your own face stares back at you from under firecracker’s red headline. vought has your name, your town, your face, your connection to soldier boy. the deep knows you. homelander might know by now. noir is still alive because soldier boy chose the hallway where you were cornered instead of the mission he came here to finish.

your fingers tighten around the mug, as math works faster than fear and your mouth lets the thought escape without permission. “then i’m the safest one to take another dose.”

everyone turns. the words hang in the kitchen, awful and neat.

soldier boy’s head moves slowly toward you. “that’s off the table.”

your jaw tightens. “that wasn’t a question.”

“didn’t sound like a smart idea either.”

“if noir shows up again—”

“you’re not taking that shit again.”

“i’m not asking permission.”

his expression hardens so fast you know the hit is coming before he speaks.

“yeah,” he scoffs, dry and mean. “noticed you’re real good at that.”

it lands exactly where he aims and you go quiet. not because he wins. because he's right, and you hate that he’s earned the cruelty.

butcher watches with interest he doesn't bother hiding. “for what's worth, she’s not wrong.”

soldier boy turns on him. “it’s worth shit.”

“math checks out.”

“butcher,” mm warns.

“what? if somebody has to take another dose, better her than hughie’s brain leaking out his ears.”

hughie flinches. “jesus christ.”

“nobody is taking anything,” annie says. “not her. not you. not hughie. nobody.”

“sweet,” butcher says. “then we’ll all hold hands and ask homelander to please stop being such a cunt.”

mm steps forward. “we’re done with secret doses. frenchie keeps digging. nobody touches another vial unless the whole room knows exactly what choice is being made.”

choice. the word passes through the kitchen and finds every sore place. 

frenchie’s chair creaks. “there is more,” he says.

butcher closes his eyes. “naturally.”

frenchie looks back at the laptop. “the v24 files connect to older vought archives. payback. nicaragua. military research. genetic storage.”

frenchie scrolls once, then stops. kimiko leans closer to the screen. her face changes.

mm's the first to speak. “frenchie?”

frenchie doesn’t answer.

butcher moves behind him and reads over his shoulder. for once, the joke doesn’t come.

“what?” annie asks.

frenchie swallows. “this is not about temp v.”

soldier boy’s voice is flat. “spit it out.”

frenchie looks at him, then at the screen again, like the laptop has become something indecent. “homelander’s development file. early laboratory documentation. not the public asset record.”

the coffee mug feels heavy in your hand.

“paternal genetic source,” frenchie reads carefully. “sample origin…” his voice fails.

butcher finishes it for him. “homelander’s your boy.”

the world loses sound. you understand the words in pieces. homelander. soldier boy. genetic source. vought. son.

soldier boy doesn't move.

for one long second, he stands beside the coffee machine with his hands empty and his face locked so tightly that you almost miss the impact. there’s no softness there. no wonder. no sudden fatherly light. only something deeper than anger trying to find somewhere to go and failing because there’s nowhere big enough.

“bullshit,” he says.

frenchie turns the laptop slightly. “it’s in the file.”

“no.”

butcher’s voice is unusually low. “they used your material.”

the phrase makes your skin crawl.

soldier boy’s eyes flick to him. “when?”

frenchie scrolls. “samples were collected before your disappearance. stored under military research. transferred into the homelander program after—”

“after they got rid of me,” soldier boy concludes and nobody corrects him.

on the tv, firecracker’s muted face smiles beside yours. your name sits beneath hers like another file.

soldier boy steps toward the laptop.

everyone shifts without meaning to. giving him room. giving the bomb room. he looks at the screen for just long enough. then he asks, “who knew?”

butcher’s jaw tightens. “vought. vogelbaum. edgar. noir might’ve.”

you see the name land ugly. noir who walked away yesterday. noir who might’ve known what vought built from him. noir who might’ve carried this secret while soldier boy rotted in russia.

mm moves slightly. “take a breath.”

soldier boy looks at him. “move.”

“soldier boy—” you take one step before you decide to. you don’t know where you’re going. toward soldier boy, maybe. toward the thing in him that just got opened. toward the old, stupid instinct that thinks pain is a problem you can put your hands on and solve.

mm’s eyes cut to you. “not now.” you stop. he looks at you for another second. not unkindly. not soft either. “give him space.”

your throat tightens. you want to argue. you want to say you weren’t going to. you want to say something that makes you less obvious. but mm is right, and that makes your mouth close. this isn't about you.

soldier boy walks out of the kitchen without looking at anyone. the house seems to hold its breath after him. you move again, barely. not enough to follow. only enough to betray that you want to.

mm says your name once.

you stop at the edge of the kitchen and nod because anything else might come out wrong.

the room doesn’t recover. annie turns away from hughie like she needs space from one disaster before she can face another. hughie stares at the muted television, where your face is still pinned beneath the word terrorist. butcher sits down slowly, mug untouched now. frenchie keeps looking at the file as if the letters might rearrange into some other truth that doesn't completely ruin this team.

finally, the room settles enough to let you retreat. you slip into your room quietly. down the hall, a door doesn't quite close. you shouldn’t listen. still, you listen enough. a filtered female voice says, clipped and professional, “hold for connection.” there's static. then a click.

silence holds for a moment before a voice everyone in america knows, stripped of crowd noise and cameras and stage lights until it sounds smaller than it should.

“is this really you?” homelander. the question hangs there, almost young.

soldier boy doesn’t answer right away.

you stand frozen in the hallway, vought’s version of your face glowing silently from the tv behind you, frenchie’s files still open in the kitchen, and the whole world balanced on the space before soldier boy speaks.

then his voice comes through the half-closed door. low. rough. changed. “the situation’s changed.”