Chapter 4
The air over Maspeth tasted like scorched pennies and a busted car battery.
Reggie dipped his left shoulder, cleats scraping harsh against the pavement as he slipped a hissing wall of pressure-packed air from the barrel-chested woman's arm. The punch had enough force behind it to cave in the side of a car, displaced steam whistling past his ear and stinging his cheek.
He spun before she could vent another blast-boosted haymaker and rounded on her. There was no textbook form, nothing like that considering neither Reggie or A-Train ever trained for anything like that. Shoulders loose and chin tucked down, he dashed up.
Inside her guard, dark eyes widened as Reggie fired out a short, messy flurry; two quick jabs to stumble her, and then a heavy twisting hook that caught her clean on the jaw.
Bone ground against bone, a shockwave rippling up his forearm as his fist met bone hardened to handle the pressure of her powers. Fuelle flew backwards across the pavement, her heavy combat boots smoking the asphalt as her body came to a hard crash, a parking meter bent at forty-five behind her.
High above the intersection, the sky tore open.
Blinding yellow light washed out the muggy Queens afternoon, a deafening crack of thunder sounding off with it. Reggie didn't need to look up to know who was playing weather girl with the little light show.
"Third time this week, Bia!" Reggie tilted his head back, legs blurring as he dodged another chunk of street Pavement Pedro threw his way. The speedster yelled as loud as he could, voice carrying over the chaos of car alarms and another lightning strike. "Beginning to think you're a stalker, sparkplug!"
A woman in a pristine white-and-gold bodysuit hovered above the warzone, wind whipping around her as her hands crackled with the heavy arcs of her own power.
"In your sick little dreams, track star!" Nubia bit the words out with a yell loud enough that her own lightning couldn't drown it out. The woman was in her usual mood as expected, Nubia too used to treating every conversation as if it was a pop quiz on her patience. "I'm out here cleaning the street trash out of my tri-state area! Don't flatter yourself!"
The last word came with a grunt as she threw a hand down.
And with it, a fat bolt of lightning.
The yellow blast arced past Reggie's shoulder, slamming into the cracked pavement right as the steam-girl burst back to her feet and dodged back. It didn't hit her but it did blow a fresh pothole in the street, sending a shower of hot gravel against Reggie's shins.
Yeah, sure. He burst forward; still on Fuelle's tail as the girl vented for more speed, doing her best to keep her distance.
"Cause you just be around patrolling Queens like that!" Reggie smirked as he threw a quick jab to keep the steam-girl backing up, the speedster dancing on the balls of his feet. "Come on, Bia."
"Shut up!"
Reddie ducked under another swinging fist from the asphalt-giant charging his way, skidding across the ground as the surprisingly-fast brute crashed through the brick of an abandoned laundromat.
"You know you wanna back the Blu!" It was funny out loud as it was in his head, Reggie well aware the anchors on Supe-Scopp were already trying to manifest some hashtag-powercouple bullshit between them.
"Back the who?"
Sure, he'd never admit it anywhere there was a camer around, but having Nubia — an almost fifty-ton powerhouse — overhead as air-support wasn't the worst thing in the world.
His smirk pulled wider into a grin as Nubia left words behind for an infuriated growl, the electricity around her hands brightening with her rage. "Come on, Nubia! It's you and me against the world. Just admit you missed watching me do my thing!"
"Only thing I miss is my foot up your a—"
Nubia didn't get a chance to finish the sentence.
Not as a blunt-force geyser of red gunk launched upward like a firehose on half-pressure. The mass clipped her right in the hip, impact knocking her right out of her hover as the lightning around her flickered and died.
Reggie's eyes snapped back to the sight of a lanky redhead at the far end of the street, skin still smoking from the blast from before. The guy was on his knees, next to a hydrant, face blackened with soot as both his palms were held up high.
Fuck.
"Nubia!" Reggie pushed off the cracked curb as gravity took over, pulling one-sixty pounds of extremely irritated superheroine right out of the sky.
Controlling his speed took thought but Reggie was all adrenaline, blood pumping loud in his ears as it stripped the noise out of the afternoon. Blue lightning crackled under his sneakers as he ate up the torn-up street in a heartbeat.
He didn't need to do the math; his body kept the score on instinct.
Angle of descent.
Velocity.
Mass.
He slid directly under her falling shadow, cleats planted hard into the asphalt as he widened his stance.
She hit his arms and he caught her by the back and knees, her eyes wide as she stared right into his for all of a second. He didn't stop moving, though, and in the next; Reggie spun on his heel and sent her straight back into the air — throwing the woman like a cheerleader.
Time snapped back and the noise rushed its way in with a wave of sirens and helicopter blades.
"Back in the air, Big Bird!"
Nubia arrested her upward launch a good three stories up, a fresh burst of yellow holding her firm in the air. She whipped her head around, eyes wide, and crackling with electricity of their own.
"Excuse you?!" Her voice echoed over the street, both arms thrown out wide. "Big Bird?!"
"Well, yeah, Super-Mom." Reggie bounced on his toes, rolling out his shoulders to shake the ache free. "You're all in yellow. You're tall. I mean... you see it, right?"
"First of all, this is gold, Blu Bitch!" Nubia thrust one finger down at him, the air around her practically vibrating. "Second—"
Nubia didn't even bother looking at her target as the flying woman snapped her left arm toward the redhead trying to run away.
The street lit up like the Fourth of July, Sangre not even having time to scream as yellow lightning arced from Nubia's knuckles. Lightning slammed him off the pavement and through the wall of the busted-up warehouse, the smell of raw ozone flooding the street.
"—second, keep my name out your muthafuckin' mouth!"
The speedster just laughed. "You got it, Super Momma!"
"Reggie, I swear to g-!"
A heavy hiss pulled his attention back to street level as the woman made another charge. Her chest already swelling three times its size, hot steam poured from her whistling elbows as she prepped another triple-force haymaker.
Blushift didn't wait for her to close the distance.
He blurred forward, trusting in his own durability to take the heat, and was in her guard before her fist could even leave her hip. Fingers on both hands grabbed tight at the sweat-soaked collar of her jacket and Reggie got ready to have some more fun with momentum.
Physics was never his favorite class, but he knew enough to get the basics and it stuck with him even through another life. "Alley-oop!" Reggie spun as he heaved backward, ripping the screaming steam-girl off the pavement and tossing her straight up with a heavy grunt.
"Your turn!" Reggie called out.
Nubia didn't miss a beat, the woman diving from the sky like a gold-white anvil and dropping a two-handed hammer strike right in the center of Fuelle's unguarded chest.
The mid-air impact went off like a cannonball.
Fuelle cratered straight down into the roof of an already-wrecked minivan, steel folding around her like wet cardboard, axles blown out until the undercarriage scraped the asphalt and windows blew out in a shower of safety glass.
Reggie let out a sharp breath, wiping a smear of soot off his forehead. "That it?" Heavy, grinding footsteps vibrated through the soles of his sneakers, an answer to his question. Damn it.
The asphalt giant stepped out of the smoke.
El Asfalte… Reggie's eye twitched at the dumb fucking name.
The banger stood over eight feet tall now, an overbuilt nightmare of tar, asphalt and mineral mass; each footfall cracking the street under him as sheer mass and raw strength did what it did.
How heavy… Reggie clicked his tongue, a low whistle sliding out. "You been snacking, huh?"
El Asfalte clearly hadn't wasted any time while he was out of it, the guy having doubled up on whatever pavement was available to suck up. Formerly dark-flesh was black as night, every piece of skin pebbled as cracks of black tar slowly weeped at his joints.
"I'd give up, Rocky." Reggie shook his head, feet already bouncing as he got ready to move again. "This don't look like your fight, man."
The giant didn't seem to care as he lunged out for the speedster.
Hm. Reggie's mouth turned down in a frown, his earlier guess about the guy coming back to him. Not that fast on his feet — at least not for a supe — but his hands…
The hands were a different story altogether, something Reggie noticed as he slipped past a tar-coated fist the size of a microwave. He weaved past another blow that would have sent a normal person's head flying down the block, the wind of the swing whistling past a fresh shape-up.
Without wasting a moment, Reggie stepped in hard, shoulders loose as he dropped into a rhythm he never had the chance to practice outside of trees on his property. A flurry of messy hooks ripped free — left, right, left right, leftrightleftrightleftright — each one burying deep into the street-man's ribs.
Hitting the guy felt like punching through a mountain, each blow barely making the guy step back even as he grunted and swung at Reggie. Impacts rattled up Reggie's knuckles, each hit sounding off like a sledgehammer against actual rock; the bones in his hands already protesting this fight.
The A-Train static buzzed under his skin; that desperate need to run, to flee, to avoid doing shit like this, taking on fights for no reason. Shut! Reggie just pushed the noise down, gritting his teeth. Up!
Blue sparks ignited across his knuckles.
It started as a flicker shedding off every fifth hit, but as he kept swinging — burying lefts and rights into the thick torso — the lightning began to wrap his fists; each blow moving faster and hitting heavier the harder Reggie pushed.
A shadow fell over them as Nubia dropped in right behind the giant, spinning with a roundhouse that cracked like thunder against his back. The giant roared, already stumbling forward from the joint strike.
No words were exchanged and none were needed, the tag-team falling into place with a rhythm that was almost syncopated; brutal, balanced, and on-beat.
A heavy right cross came from Nubia as she spun around, yellow voltage exploding across Asfalte's and snapping the rocky head to the side.
The giant fully off-balance as he tipped back, Reggie used the opening. Blue lightning coiled up his legs and Blushift exploded upward with a grunt, a flash of blue sparking in the air as a devastating uppercut clashed square under a rocky chin.
Strength and speed came together in sheer force, the eight-foot supe flying entirely off his feet and into the air.
Nubia was already waiting. Gaining altitude in a split second, both hands clasped together and came down with a flash of her own yellow sparks as a brutal full-force spike drove itself right into the rock-man's chest.
Asfalte hit the parking lot.
Pavement caved in with a spider-web of fractures, driving him nearly a foot deep into the ground with a cloud of blinding dust. The giant lay in the center of it all, asphalt armor slowly flaking away and fading from his heavily bruised human body.
Silence rushed back into the street, dust settling as the sound of sirens got nearer.
Reggie stood near the edge of the crater, lungs burning and chest heaving as he was forced to breathe the air thick with powderized concret. Small arcs of blue lightning still flickered and danced across his knuckles and up his forearms, dying out in the air.
Something dropped beside him as he looked up.
Nubia stood six feet away, gold boots planted on the cracked asphalt as her chest rose and fell too. Yellow arcs crawled across her shoulders, jumping off her skin and grounding out on the pavement.
Reggie turned his head to stare at her.
"...what?" Nubia stared right back as she wiped a streak of dirt off her cheek with the back of her wrist, chin tilted up. "I got something on my face?"
Chapter 5
"So, so, so, Nubia, just a heads-up…"
Reggie held himself still against the edge of the craft services table as Ashley Barrett Ashley-ed her way through her job again, words just flying out like the redhead was getting paid by the syllable. The buzz of so much machinery and people milling around beat down against the back of his neck with a new kind of heat for a New York Fall. It wasn't too surprising, considering all the equipment and work was definitely doing something to the ozone layer all on its own, what with the clouds of hairspray and burning dust blown around by too many fans.
"I'm loving the energy, first of all. Did I tell you that, Nubia?" The woman in the navy blue pantsuit nodded her head so fast the rest of her almost vibrated. "I… I don't know if I told you that yet, but I just have to tell you that."
She had told her that, already.
Five times in the last five minutes, too, because he'd counted.
"Now, Nubia, like I was saying," Ashley tripledback to the actual point with another nod, the woman making far too much eye contact and almost refusing to blink as the words stacked on top of each other in a desperate little pile, "But Bourke is thinking — and I agree, totally, a little bit, obviously, right? — that we just need to push the, you know, the visibility of the unity a little harder."
"...what do you mean?" If Nubia could throw ice instead of lightning, Reggie didn't have a doubt in him that the whole craft table would be five layers deep in permafrost.
"I'm just saying… and nothing about your performance, of course, because that… that was amazing and honestly, I can see it being featured on the Blu-Ray, but uhh…" Ashley tilted her head a little, dry lips working silently for a moment. "Well, the whole Storm Sister moment was highly planned and it's meant to be a major feature in the film's third act, so we really want… we need it to pop, Nubia. So, just…" Ashley's smile widened as the woman finally allowed herself a blink. "A bit more warmth? Maybe a smile before the back-to-back moment?"
"Ashley." Nubia stood perfectly still, the woman breathing slow through her nose.
"...yes?"
Somebody kill me. Reggie forced himself to groan as Ashley's voice found a new pitch, his teeth working hard on the inside of his cheek. Please, kill me now. It was all he could do to keep the laugh from busting out of him and pulling all the attention his way.
"I smiled." The expression on Nubia's face now was not that at all. "I held her hand. I said the line. I gave you warmth on take five. I did Vought's little Ebony and Ivory routine, Ashley, so what more do you want from me?"
"Right!" Ashley's laugh was as Nubia's words were cold, the sound dying halfway out of her throat. Reggie could almost feel the panic attack edging closer. "Right, no, of course. And take five was great, Nubia! Incredible, even. But we just need a, like a teensy little redo for take seven where you don't look…"
"Look?" Nubia sent a single eyebrow high.
"...angry?" Ashley pursed her lips, silver Voughtpad raised high like a shield with her knuckles white.
Reggie's eyes slid shut again as he let out a breath through his nose. Oh, Ashley. We barely knew ye. The speedster in all blue-and-white bit down harder on his cheek, a bottle of cold water raised to his lips to hide the massive grin threatening to split his face.
"Reg…"
"Bia?" He opened his eyes again, bottle lowering back to the table as he swallowed his mouthful.
"Cover her ears."
"Uh-huh." Ignoring the small "Hey!" from a certain nine-year-old eyeing another cupcake to add to her half-filled plate, Reggie's hands cupped the little girl's ears as he tilted his head back at Nubia. "Go for it."
"Ashley."
"...uh-huh?"
Nubia leaned down to eye the shorter woman across the craft table. "You are going to get the fuuuck out of my face with this bullshit right now before I figure out exactly what voltage I need to stop your heart for an open-casket, we clear?"
"O-o-okay, great!" Ashley Barrett immediately spun on her expensive heels. "Love that passion, Nubia! We'll just… uh, we'll review the footage, do some rewrites maybe. Great job today!" By the time the last word left her, the woman was practically sprinting away, fingers tapping at her tablet.
As the redhead finally scurried around a trailer and out of sight, Reggie allowed that snort to finally punch its way out of his nose.
Nubia raised her head from where she'd been glaring into a plastic bowl of assorted fruits right next to an Edible Arrangement, the woman not even looking as she kept plopping green grapes onto a paper plate.
"Mr. A-Train!"
Reggie blinked down at the little girl who still had his hands as earmuffs — Maya Nubian swimming in her ridiculously big yellow hoodie with a plate piled with the worst nutritional choices available.
"Sorry 'bout that, princess bun-buns." Standing back up straight, hands free of her ears, he paid her back with a smile and turned his attention back to her mom. "So… Girls Get It Done, huh?"
"Stop."
Reggie had no intentions to, eyebrows wagging up and down. "Storm Sisters Together, I mean… y'all looked real cozy up there in front of the cameras."
Nubia's head whipped to face him, grapes forgotten along with the white chocolate as she aimed pure hostility his way. "Don't you start right now, Blu Boy. Don't even."
"Just sayin', Bia. The chemistry? Off the charts. I could feel the sparks from here." Reggie chuckled, well aware that had nothing to do with how much they liked each other. More the opposite, probably; considering Nubia charged up faster and harder the more of a mood she was in. "Y'all gonna get an Oscar for that. Least an MTV Movie Award. They got a Best Fake Friends category yet?"
"Boy, please." A pair of metal tongs slammed back into the overladen bowl of fruit as Nubia growled out the last word. "Like, I ain't see the scene Bourke had you do with Shockwave yesterday. What was the direction?" A gold-painted finger poked her bottom lip as Nubia jutted it out as innocently as she could. "Oh yeah, 'dap him up like he's one of the homies from round the way?' How'd that taste?"
Battery acid over motor oil, pretty much. Reggie didn't say that, though. Instead, he just tossed his head back, a sigh spilling out. "Least I could keep a straight face, Bee. You were out there chewing on glass and ready to spit blood, c'mon."
That same glass-munching expression came back at the reminder. "...don't remind me."
Reggie let the laugh spill free in full force, a bark of sound that spilled across the chaos of the soundstage. Shaking his head, he let his eyes drop back down; the whole movie set out in front of him. From the grips hauling thick cables and PAs shouting into headsets all the way to the green scr-
Reggie blinked, his attention pulled as he noticed someone else staring back. The fuck she want?
The ugliest undercut he'd ever seen stared back at him as Stormfront stood at a distance with her arms crossed, her fake-sweet smile tightening for all of a second before she looked away like she hadn't been watching.
…evil bitch.
"You are not eating all that."
He blinked back, attention pulled over to the table again as Nubia snapped with a finger pointed down.
Maya Nubian hummed a song under her breath — something too hyper and poppy to be anything but straight from TikTok — as she stacked a greasy slider next to two chicken tenders buried under a thick scoop of neon yellow mac & cheese. A handful of green grapes sat on top for balance, crowning the whole unstable mess as garnish for a cupcake; an oversized Homelander-blue frosted cupcake with a white V made out of nothing but the thickest fondant money could buy.
Well… Reggie tilted his head. Least she's not a picky eater, right?
"Maya Regina Nubian, if you don't put that cupcake back where you got it from…" Nubia was still pointing, eyes narrowed down at her daughter.
"But mooo~oom, I need the energy." Maya shot back, sounding almost like a sweeter, smaller Disney Channel-raised version of the recently-divorced Nubia King. "Seriously, growing bodies need calories!"
"Only thing you require is a vegetable."
"Mac and cheese is a vegetable."
"In…" Reggie snorted out loud again, grinning wide. "In what universe?"
"The universe where I'm hungry!" Maya spun around with a huff, sneakers lighting up as she marched away from the table. The nine-year-old made it all of four steps before her foot caught the thick housing of a power cable snaking across the floor.
Her ankle rolled, mouth falling open as the girl in the yellow hoodie pinwheeled, grapes scattering like green marbles and the Homelander cupcake rotating on a direct path aimed at the dirty floor.
Reggie winced as the world dropped into blue, the ambient roar of the set dying as he pushed off the craft table. His right hand snapped out, fingers closing around the buckling paper plate as it hung in the air; left hand blurring as he caught the slider separating from its bun, the chicken tenders, and the clump of mac. Grapes were plucked from dead air one by one, each of them dropped back onto the white plate before he caught the cupcake inches from disaster, blue frosting sugaring up his thumb.
He took a labored breath and time snapped back from its slowed state, noise rushing back all at once. Wind displaced from his movement rattled the tablecloth and the tent itself, a stack of napkins sent flying free into the air outside.
Standing perfectly still, residual blue sparks started to die out against his dark skin as he held the fully loaded plate back out. "Here you go, Nubian Princess."
"Wow!" Maya took the plate with wide-eyes and one careful hand, the other still clutching a juice box as she stared at the perfectly rescued food. "Like, seriously? Wow!"
Nubia's mouth hung half-open as Reggie smirked over at her, rolling his shoulder with a slick grin. "What, you never seen a runner do his thing, Bia?"
Her jaw snapped shut again, eyes darting away as her face pulled tight into a scowl. "No, I… I mean, yeah. Of course I have."
"Yeah, I know." Reggie grabbed a grape off Maya's plate — "Hey!" — and tossed it into his mouth with a laugh. "Nothing crazy."
Now, that was pretty much a lie.
And also the whole truth at the same time.
Nothing too impressive, now, and not even all that fast considering Reggie was pretty sure he'd seen Webweaver pull similar stunts. At least when he's not tooted up shooting heroin up his hole.
Seriously, nothing faster than ten times more than normal.
Even still, he was pretty damn sure he couldn't have pulled that off a year back. The old he… him… A-Train. Reggie grunted, an itch in his veins everytime he thought too much about the past that wasn't his. A-Train couldn't have done that, not without splattering the cupcake against the wall or snapping Maya's wrist by accident. Hell, Shockwave and Marathon couldn't do it either.
Reggie shook out his wrist, the last of the sparks fading. All about perception.
Control, too.
Using speed like that required you remembering that it came with weight and it took… practice.
Otherwise, you were just a runaway missile.
"...powers!"
Huh? Reggie shook his head, the last of the static in his thoughts fuzzing out as he realized the little Nubian had been talking to him the entire time. "Sorry 'bout that, princess. Hit me one more time."
"I saaaaaiiiiid," Maya huffed, cheeks puffed out, "how come you got new powers, Mr. A-Train?"
"What… Mfff?" The speedster raised an eyebrow, blue frosted thumb in his mouth. "What new powers?"
"Lightning!" Maya pointed her own sticky finger his way. "Blue sparky stuff! You never had that before. Now you got lightning like Mom, except yours is blue and hers is yellow!"
"Gold, Maya."
"Yellow!"
"Uhhh…" Reggie swallowed slowly as he looked over at Nubia, the woman with her arms crossed and clearly waiting for an answer he didn't have. "It just… popped up. After the accident last year, just started happening."
"Accident?" Maya's head titled to the side.
"Not important."
Reggie waved a hand as Nubia snorted his way. "Right. If you say so, Boy Blu."
He couldn't even bother with a comeback to that, the word accident heavy in his chest as the quiet clicks of EKGs sounded in his ears. The stench of cold alcohol was thick as everything else, dark red blood filling plastic vials as Vought doctors whispered to each other and refused to look him in the eyes.
It had just been three days ago since he'd been in for testing and Vought was still being hush-hush about the lab results and that silence was almost louder than a diagnosis. For all he knew now, his heart was ticking down to zero. Enough V in me to burst into flames, huh?Or maybe explode with lightning?
Reggie forced the grin back onto his face as he clapped his hands together. "Anyway, speaking of lightning, you should have seen me save your mom last week."
"Oooh! Oooh!" Maya's eyes lit up. "I saw that on TikTok!"
Course you did. Reggie bit back a snort. "Anyway, I was out there catching your mom's out the sky before she kissed the street. Basically doing all the heavy lifting while she was flying pretty like Big Bird."
"Big Bird can't fly!"
"Don't call me Big Bird!" Nubia yelled over her daughter. "And I never needed help from you!"
"Oh, you definitely needed help, Bumblebee." Reggie dragged the vowels out, winking at Maya as he gave her mom a new nickname. "I was basically your mom's knight in shining armor."
"Oh youuuu…"
"What you gonna say now, Big Bird?"
Maya looked between the two of them, brow furrowing as she drank from her juice box. "If you guys save each other, how come you aren't friends outside of work?"
Reggie and Nubia stopped mid-sentence, both looking at each other over the little girl's head.
"..."
Chapter 6
"I still can't believe people don't recognize us with a hat on and some regular clothes."
Gold-painted fingernails yanked down the brim of a brand-new Dodgers cap, the blue fabric doing almost nothing to hide a pair of stormy gray eyes that scanned a crowd of exhausted parents and screaming toddlers.
"What'd I tell you?"
Nubia grunted at Reggie's reply, the woman swimming in a plain white Hanes tee and gray sweatpants that would only really be her size if she started eating like he did. "How am I supposed to remember anything you say?" An eyebrow raised itself high as the woman folded her arms, somehow managing to look as imperious even when her gold-and-white Vought branding was buried under a bunch of the most basic clothing she could find. "You run your mouth more than you do your feet."
…I'mma take that as a compliment. Reggie wasn't sure how he was supposed to, but he'd figure it out.
Walking beside Nubia, he kept his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his oversized generic black hoodie, charcoal beanie pulled all the way down to his eyebrows as he tried to pretend he didn't have security eyeing him from the moment he walked in. The recycled air was thick with Auntie Anne's and other perfumes, Roosevelt Field Mall's overconditioned atmosphere washing over him with basic mall smells and the white noise of hundreds of bodies milling around.
"Imma say it again for you, 'cause I know you don't listen." He leaned out of the way of a swing that might have had a normal man laid up in the hospital for a good day, laughing his ass off at Nubia's scowl. "If people don't expect to see a superhero walking in the crowd with them, they don't see a superhero walking in the crowd with them."
It was simple enough, and pretty obvious; something he remembered from his first life, his normal one, after hearing about how the guy who played Superman could just walk around in glasses in the heart of New York. "People only really look up when somebody's flying or being flashy. Down here?" He slid to the side, edging back to Nubia as he dodged a double-wide stroller the size of a golf cart. "We just look like two tired people trying not to lose a kid."
Speaking of the kid, Maya Nubian was only a few yards ahead of them; the little girl pressed flat against the thick glass of a Build-A-Bear Workshop, both palms slapping against the window as she shouted back at the both of them.
"You think you're real smart, don't you?"
Reggie shot the tall woman a sideways glance. "No need to think, my heart." He flashed his teeth with a grin, turning his head just enough for her to catch it. "Your boy knows what he knows."
"Don't move too fast, boy." Nubia scoffed back at him, gray eyes rolling hard enough she could see the ceiling.
He didn't miss the way her mouth twitched though, just enough to make the grin on his face flash even brighter. Smile for me, bumblebee. You know you want to.
Speaking of boys, Reggie allowed his thoughts to drift back to the cavalcade of fuck-ups that were still using his mansion, Lamplighter included. Need to get them the fuck out of there as soon as this Vought testimony is over. He fought the frown back down at the thought of a certain particular fuck-up. Kenji and Lil Kim and… The scowl was strong, but he was stronger. Okay, pretty much all of them can stay, but Beans and Toast needs to get the fuck on.
Shaking his head at the thought of Billy Butcher, Reggie adjusted his beanie as he and Nubia walked side by side, hands close enough to touch and then even closer than that, squeezing even tighter to dodge a group of teenagers glued to their phones.
"Not gonna lie, it's a little weird. Didn't expect you to say yes when I asked you out." Reggie kept talking, eyes on the bouncing yellow blur that was Maya Nubian in front of them. "Thought you might swing at me again."
"I did swing at you again."
Reggie tilted his head to that. "Yeah, but you ain't put any heat on that thing. 'Sides, you still said yes."
"Because I'm not rude."
Reggie shot her another side-eye just to meet a pair of gray eyes narrowed back at him. I'm not even gonna take that one. "Whatever you say, Bia. Still weird, though."
A groan left the woman's lips. "You do run your mouth a lot. What's weird now?"
"I'm just saying…" He kept his eyes locked on Maya as she kept smacking the glass, yelling something muffled at the stuffed animals just inches away. "Don't people wait until the third date to introduce the kid to the new guy? You kind of skipped ahead on that one."
"Yeah, well, most people don't have their kid's life saved by the new guy, so…" Nubia's laugh came out sharp and short. "You mind?"
"Nah," Reggie bumped his shoulder right up against hers, on purpose this time. "Pretty sure Maya's the sweetest thing about you."
Nubia's jaw shifted, mouth open with something sharp ready to fire open. A breath later, it simply stayed like that as the woman looked at her daughter currently jumping up and down in front of a bin of un-stuffed teddy bear skins.
"...you're probably right." The supe deflated all at once, the words coming out quiet and almost rushed. Her chin tilted back up, vulnerability locked back away before it could melt her. "Don't get a big head about it, though."
Reggie allowed himself a smirk. "Told you I knew I was smart, bumblebee."
"...why bumblebee, out of all things?" Nubia clicked her tongue, the woman folding her arms again. "I get Big Bird, but bumblebee?"
"Oh, that's easy." Reggie's smirk grew to a grin. "You're black, you wear yellow and you fly like a drunk."
"...I'mma kill you, Reggie Franklin."
"Mr. Reggie!" Before Nubia could make good on that specific threat, Maya bounded back over to them, the girl nearly tripping over her own neon pink sneakers. "Mr. Reggie! The guy in the store ignored me! Like, so rude!"
"Oh no, princess." Reggie laughed, dropping down a little to meet her at eye level. "Want me to beat him up for you?"
Both tiny fists went up in the air as Maya voiced her approval with a hissed, "Yessss!"
"No beating up anyone." Nubia shut the fun down instantly, hand planted firmly on her hip. "You can use your words, Maya."
"Boooo!" Maya's pout puffed her cheeks up into two round little balloons. "Mommy, are you sick or something?"
"You little…" Gray eyes narrowed down at Maya as the little girl just giggled, hopping a few steps back toward the safety of the stuffed-toy store. "And you…"
Reggie aimed a finger at his chest, blinking at the woman in the Dodger's cap.
"Yes, you. Stop encouraging her."
"Encouraging…?" Reggie opened his mouth to deny what had clearly been the fault of years of violent TV and living with supes when Maya rushed up to him again, pointing her own tiny finger exactly where his had been aimed a second ago.
"Hey!"
The speedster blinked down. "Hi?"
Maya tilted her head, attention squinted right where the zipper of his hoodie was pulled down a bit, the bright blue piping of his super-suit barely visible underneath. "Why's that big 'Z' on your suit anyway? You went from A to B, right, so why Z?"
"That's an easy one." Reggie straightened up, already having explained this one a few times to his own nephews. "Ya see, in physics, something happens when things move super fast closer to you, and light shifts to the blue spectrum. Long story short, the Z is the symbol for that shift. It's science, little bee."
"That's so…" Maya blinked up at him, face scrunching up as her mouth searched for the right word. A few seconds later, she found it, "…dumb."
Reggie blinked back. "No, it's cool."
"No, you have a big 'Z'." Maya shook her head at him. "You should just go by Zoom. Zoom is way cooler."
"I can't go by Zoom, Maya." Reggie sighed, one hand rubbing the back of his neck as he thought about all the heat that would bring down on him; probably from Vought, too. "That'll get me sued. Copyright infringement is no joke."
"But aren't you, like, super rich?" Maya crossed her arms, the full devastating force of nine-year-old logic on display.
"Yeah, kid." A dry little chuckle scraped free from his throat. "That's exactly why I don't want to get sued."
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
Reggie hadn't been expecting a lot from Build-A-Bear workshop, but things had gone a whole different way than he'd thought from the start.
Maya Regina Nubian was a precocious handful, easily as willful as her mother, and with a sense of humor that could easily belong to someone twice her age. That was made especially obvious when she completely bypassed the generic bears, all the licensed Disney characters, and the sparkly unicorns too on her march straight to the Vought-licensed merch.
She didn't pick up the Starlight bear. She didn't even look at the Queen Maeve bear. Even a Homelander plush got knocked aside in her single-minded hurry to pick up the last-remaining A-Train plushie.
Reggie blinked at the cartoonish approximation of his likeness, complete with the blue-tinted glasses and the white and blue chest plate. "Seriously?" He leaned back against a bin of tiny stuffed sneakers, face half-buried in one hand. "Maya… you don't want anything else?"
"Oh, this is too damn good." Nubia was right up next to him, shaking so hard with laughter he was surprised she hadn't ruined her makeup with her tears. "We are buying this immediately."
"It's vintage!" Maya made her defense clear, clutching the plushie to her chest. "They don't even make these anymore!"
Reggie sighed to himself, pulling his beanie even lower as eyes turned their way. "Yeah, there's a reason for that."
The embarrassment was almost worth it when they hit GameStop ten minutes later, Maya vibrating out of her shoes as she stared at the display for the VoughtStation 5. Nubia just shook her head, mentioning the simple and honest fact that Maya hadn't cleaned her room in three weeks.
Oh, you don't want her to have this? Bet. Reggie didn't even hesitate as he stepped up to the counter, a matte black card pulled free from his wallet. "I'll take it."
Nubia spun on him almost immediately, the woman halfway to yelling. "You are not buying my daughter a seven-hundred-dollar video game console!"
"It's her birthday next week," Reggie swiped his card with a shrug. "Besides, she's on a date with us, right? Let her get a lil something."
"You're the best ever!" Maya didn't give her mother a chance to argue, her little arms already wrapped around his waist in a tackle of a hug. "I'm totally calling you Zoom now!"
"Please…" Reggie patted her back, biting back a groan. "Please don't."
By the time they stepped out of the Gamestop, Reggie carrying the massive white VoughtStation box under his arm, Maya was already skipping ahead with her A-Train plushie clutched tight.
Nubia's mouth was already half-open, probably ready to lecture him about spoiling her kid, when the noise hit.
Breaking over the ambient noise of the mall was a scream; sharp, jagged and terrified enough to make everyone that heard it — him, included — freeze up.
A thud vibrated through the whole place, glass storefronts rattling around them as another scream joined in with the first; more and more and more overlapping and compounding into a wave of pure panic.
"Maya, get behind me!" Nubia's snap came out the same moment as Reggie dropped the VoughtStation box, cardboard hitting the floor with a hollow smack.
He was already in motion before super-mom could get the next sentence out, vaulting the glass of the second-floor concours as the world around him dropped into a blue-tint that made everything shudder.
Gravity turned into molasses, coffee cups hovered in the air while hot brown liquid spilled in thick droplets. Shoppers slowed mid-sprint, scrambling and trampling with faces stretched out and distorted with fear. Tables and chairs were overturned and already flying, half-eaten trays of Sbarro and Panda Express scattered across the tile.
Down in the food court below, a yellow-skinned man in dirty streetwear had his head reared back, throat bulging as something steamed out of his mouth; a messy arc of battery-acid vomit suspended in the air and tracking directly toward a family huddled behind a turned-over fiberglass table.
Gravity was too slow.
Blue lightning sparked off his sneakers as he kicked off the glass right behind him.
A split-second later, he hit the floor tiling hard enough to crack the ceramic, not slowing down as he drove his weight forward. Sneakers smoked against a freshly-waxed floor as Reggie forced his path direcly in front of the caustic sludge.
C'moncmoncmon. He didn't try to catch it and didn't bother with trying to block it. Blue sparks bleeding off him, Reggie slid under the mess as he throttled his pace just enough to grab the father by the belt, the mother by her waist, and the two screaming kids in one hand by their shirts.
Thirty feet away, time snapped back in a rattle of a blur as he dragged all four of them backward to safety; his body in front of them like a shield as he held them close.
Vomit thicker than mud and the color of dehydrated piss splashed across the space where'd they just been, hitting the fiberglass and ceramic both with a hissing eruption of white smoke that melted straight through both.
A heavy splatter clipped Reggie's back and shoulder, his eyes going white from the heat and chemical burn. A choked scream forced its way out through gritted teeth as acid sludge chewed through the thick cloth of his hoodie, the whole thing dissolving into a sticky ruin.
"Motherf-!" He ripped the hoodie over his head as quick as he could, melting fabrictossed off to the side as he was left standing there, disguise blown; a bright blue 'Z' stark against the tight black fabric.
"Ge-" Reggie bit down another hiss as he yelled at the family, shoving them toward the nearest exit. "Get outta here! Now!"
Heavy boots crunched behind him and Reggie spun around at the sound to see exactly what he expected; three raggedy-looking bastards. Fuckin' Rojos, man.
Chapter 7
The world was a beautiful place, yeah.
And almost everything in the world had beauty in it.
Every creature and person on some level had something good about them, you know? Reggie wasn't even the kind of guy to judge a book too much by their cover, especially because he'd been trying his best to be the kind of person that heroes were supposed to be.
But - "Goddamn, nigga, the fuckis wrong with your face?"
But ugly was ugly, and on his soul, this nigga was ugly as a motherfucker.
Steaming spit, so yellow it was damn near orange, dribbled from one man's mouth and sizzled against tile as he kept wiping at his chin. His long sleeves had extended trails of cloth missing from them, the filthy once-white shirt halfway to a tee at this point as the acid kept eating away at them. Eyes bulged out from a jaundice-yellow face, thin strands of greasy hair trailing over a pimply forehead greasy with more acne than Reggie had ever seen — even as a teenager surrounded by other teenagers.
Jesus.
Standing right next to Senor Slobber was a skinny guy in a half-torn tank top, his gut poking out like he was a good couple months pregnant. Veins stood out in his arms, bulging pressurized ropes pushing against too-tight skin like a roadmap. On the other side was another guy in a leather vest, tan skin already red and even more red with visible heat around his burning forearms and palms.
Rojos.
It couldn't be anybody else. The veins were always a good hint, but honestly — and Reggie hated the profiling — it was the fact that he was pretty sure they spoke more Spanish than they did English.
The skinny guy snapped his right arm and muscle fibers and tendons distended with a sickening stretch, the supe's fist whippingoutward across thirty feet of empty space like a skin-colored bungee cord.
Reggie swayed to the right, the elongated fist whistling past his ear, the kinetic recoil generating a crack across the food court. Luffy?
"¡Gargajo! ¡Atrás!" The rubber-armed guy yelled, snapping his elongated limb back toward his body with a loud CRACK.
Reggie stepped out from behind a Starbucks counter, right hand twitching as blue sparks danced across his knuckles.
"Gargajo?" Reggie sneered. "'The Loogie'? Nasty."
"Si, Goma!" Gargajo's throat swelled again.
Reggie didn't give him the chance to vomit.
He slipped the distance, dropping his shoulder as he blurred in with a messy cross aimed directly at the slobbering supe's distended throat. Ew. The impact was as slimy as he expected, his costume lacking the gloves he was used to. Ew.
Even still, Loogie-Boy choked on the hit, a wet gasp leaving him as he stumbled back, the supe collapsing onto the acid-melted floor.
"Gargajo!" The rubber-armed supe anchored one hand to the end of an escalator and lashed out with the other, the limb flying right towards Reggie. In a blur, the speedster darted to the right and let it snap clean past him.
Spinning on his heel, he grabbed the distended wrist with both hands, planting his cleats into the tile. "Get over here!"
Reggie yanked, double-digit tons of force enough to snap the skinny supe off his feet, propelling him forward in a wild, tumbling trajectory. Guiding the momentum, he hurled the rubber-armed banger directly into the guy with the superheated hands.
They collided in a tangle of limbs and screams; hot-hands accidentally grabbing onto the skinny guy's shoulder, white-hot grip instantly melting through the tank top and searing fingerprints into the flesh.
Hot-hands jumped back up as the rubber-man screamed on the ground, cradling the burns on his chest. Reggie blurred forward, slipping a set of frantic swings from hot-hands as he stepped in tight, shoulders loose.
"You!" His head darted back, avoiding a tight arc of flame. "Messing up my day right now!"
Rapid hooks slammed clean into hot-hand's ribs, each one light enough to keep from tearing him apart but hard enough to make him regret every mistake he ever made. In a blur, Reggie grabbed the back of the guy's scarred leather jacket and shoved him hard, tripping the supe over a ruined kiosk.
The vomiting supe reared his head back again, chest heaving as he opened his mouth, a fresh wave of steaming acid rising in his throat.
Reggie danced around loogie after acidic loogie, body bursting from side to side against the machine-gun mouth aimed at him. Snapping forward, he spun his leg out in a high-speed arc that connected clean with the back of the vomiter's knees.
The heavy supe's legs flew out from under him, jaw snapping shut on impact as the thickest part of the sludge backfired down his own chest; already eating through his clothes. Both his hands went down to cover what nobody wanted to see and Reggie didn't give him a chance to do anything else.
The heel of his right cleat snapped out, a super-fast piston of a kick sending the loogie-man to dreamland.
No sooner did he finish the last — and first — supe off, a deafening shockwave rattled the glass of every storefront on the first floor.
Reggie snapped his head up.
Skin as gray as a gravestone rushed past on the second floor, a mountain of muscle charging through the mall and moving with all the force and speed of a runaway Mack truck. A localized, forcefield projected directly in front of him, doing its part to physically plow over massage chairs, planters, and an entire pretzel stand.
Before Reggie could rush up to stop the supe, another blur dropped from the roof.
"The hell are you doing?!" Nubia didn't bother with lightning. Yelling at the supe like he was just a rowdy kid, she brought a good thirty-something tons of raw V'd-up muscle down in a two-handed hammer strike directly against the brawler's shimmering forcefield.
The force of her hit exploded outward, localized pressure enough to blow the glass out of a nearby sunglass hut.
Nubia didn't even flinch against the backlash, the lightning-throwing supe grabbing the gray-skinned giant by his heavy jaw, volume cranked to maximum as she threw blow after blow into his face.
"I!" — Jab — "Am trying!" — Cross — To buy!" — Hook — "My kid!" — Cross — "A fucking present!"
With a final uppercut, the barrier shattered.
Nubia grunted, the woman thrown back with a blinding orange shockwave, skidding across the tile before she caught her balance. "Oh, you wanna hit?" Her voice echoed through the mall, rising up into the air as golden electricity began to arc across her hands. "I'll give you a fucking hit!"
She didn't wait for him to get his bearings again as she launched herself forward, closing the distance. With another cross, she drove her glowing charged-up fist into his nose; the impact a sickening crunch that echoed over the alarms.
The brawler stumbled, his momentum completely broken, as he swung wildly. Nubia ducked the haymaker, and rushed in again with another two-handed hammer into the supe's dense gray jaw.
The giant's head snapped back, a sound like two boulders colliding echoing out.
"Why won't you?!" Roaring again, Nubia grabbed the supe by the head and spiked him. "Stay down!"
Face-first.
Through the glass railing, and all the way down to the first floor where he crumpled into an unconscious heap in the center of the food court.
Silence rushed back into the mall, broken only by the whimpering of hidden shoppers and the hiss of melted tile.
Reggie stood over the unconscious fire-boy, breaths coming heavy as small arcs of electricity died out around his cleats. The burn on his chest throbbed but he'd dealt with way worse. "You good?"
Nubia stood up, brushing some dirt off her sweatpants. Anger slowly draining from her stormy eyes, she looked down at the unconscious giant, then over at Reggie.
"Yeah." She let out a long breath, adjusting the Dodgers cap on her head. "I'm good."
A crowd of terrified shoppers peaked their heads out from behind the stores on the second floor, voices murmuring and halfway to cheers as dozens of smartphones came out, each one recording the aftermath.
"Mom!" Maya squeezed past a security gate, clutching the VoughtStation bag in one hand and the A-Train plushie in the other as she ran down the stopped escalator, pink sneakers slapping metal steps.
She hit the ground floor, brand-new smartphone held high.
"Momma!" Camera pointed at the wreckage, Maya rushed forward. "Zoom totally beat up the vomit guy!"
"Maya…" Reggie's face met his palm, another groan slipping free that had nothing to do with pain. "It's Blushift, Maya. Please."
"Zoom is way cooler!"
– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –
@VoughtFanatic99: Did anyone see the Roosevelt Field mall footage?! The new guy just wrecked the Rojo bangers!
@PrincessSparkles (Reply): His name is Zoom! He told me! #Zoom #NotBlushift
@SupeSpotter: Wait, is it Zoom? That's actually sick. #ZoomTrending
@ToddTheBodd: Zoom? What kind of copyright-infringing bullshit is that? Vought legal is gonna have a field day.
@SupeTeaLive: BRO did anyone else catch the mall fight?! A-Train out here dodging acid vomit like it's nothing! And the little girl just rebranded him live on stream lmaooo #Zoom
@VoughtCritic99: okay but the way Nubia just dropped from the ceiling and folded that gray dude??? Mother behavior fr. Also Zoom is a way better name.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Like they're up there doing some renovation. Reginald Jesse Franklin rolled his eyes, head dropping back against the white leather of his couch as he listened to the resident beanpole of the Boys pound his way to the other side of a certain pair of walls.
Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump.
The speedster bit back a snort, eyes going wide at the sudden speed, a rhythmic pace that did a hell of a job at vibrating right through the half-million-dollar ceiling that was supposed to be double-layer insulated.
Supposed to, at least.
But that didn't account for supe hearing, now did it?
Goddamn, Hughie. He shook his head. I mean, damn…
It was the only way to put it at this point. Months of practice had made one thing pretty clear to Reggie — not that he needed or wanted the info — and that was that Hughie 'Soup Can' Campbell had some strokes on him. Pause.
Reggie fought to hold back another snort, the sheer absurdity of the lanky motherfukcer putting numbers up on America's Sweetheart was still one of the funniest things to ever happen in this mansion. Not bad, White Urkel. Not bad at all.
It only took a moment for that smile to fade just a little bit, nose wrinkling as another thought slapped him in the face. I really hope Lamplighter ain't beating his shit to this. The washed-up firebug was parked somewhere down in the basement guest wing, and considering the man's degenerate browsing history over the last couple weeks, Reggie didn't even bother putting limits on what he could be up to.
Hughie did tell me he was talking about some cuck shit. His mouth sunk deeper into a frown as he remembered that fact. He better not. This ain't the place for no more of that degen shit. Not anymore.
The recessed lighting overhead flickered for a quick half-second as Reggie stared up at his white ceiling, a lazy dip in the voltage that was definitely less about the Jersey grid and a whole lot more about Starlight seeing God for the third time in fifteen minutes.
"O-ho, Petit Hughie is at it again, I see."
Speaking of degen shit…
"Pick another topic, Frenchie." Reggie's words came with a sigh, not wanting to get into this outside his head. "Anything else."
"What about the news then?" Frenchie giggled to himself, the man wearing a smile as he hovered by the fireplace, a dish towel clutched in one hand as his mouth ran a cool ninety miles an hour because silence apparently made the guy look for a vein. "The news, Monsieur Colibri! Or should I say Zoom, as they are so obsessed with the name!" Frenchie waved the towel over his head, taking his sweet time in wiping down the mantle. "Everywhere on the Twitter, the hashtag Zoom is trending higher than the new Vought-a-Burger downtown! The mall save, c'est magnifique! They are calling you the savior of the boroughs!"
"Blushift, Frenchie. Blu. Shift." Reggie grunted out both syllables as he repeated it for the drug-addicted Frenchman. "My big bro's already got it trademarked, man. More importantly, going by Zoom gonna get my ass in court, bro."
"Nah, bro, Zoom is clean," MM rumbled from his left, Marvin taking up a solid two cushions all by himself. The big man's oversized arms were crossed over his chest, eyes fixed on the flipping channels of the jumbo screen. "Try and get a deal with them for it. Cash out."
Across the rug and room, Kimiko's eyes did a slow liquid slide over from her corner, fingers still sticky with frosting from whatever sugar-glazed monstrosity she'd stolen out of the Sub-Zero five minutes ago. Her eyes met his, both of them still hearing the thump-thump-thumping coming from the second floor.
Kenji couldn't hear a damn thing, her little brother limp and slumped over against her; mouth opened in a quiet snore. Both his hands — still wrapped tight in thick white gauze — twitched in his sleep; fractured and still-healing bones probably being used in whatever telekinetic dream he was having.
"I didn't ask for a focus group from the peanut gallery." Reggie shifted his weight, teeth grit as he pulled tight against a bruised rib. That kid… That fuckin' kid was another Rojo — one of several that had been fighting with that El Diablo dickhead this morning up in Bushwick — who'd sent a car flying hard into Reggie, forcing him to catch the shit before it hit some civvies, just to give them time to run. Dickheads. "And the mall was just…"
Reggie winced again with another stretch. "...just four dudes juiced on Red V doing some early Christmas shopping."
"Ah, Le Bleu Rapide, but the showmanship, the heroism and, of course, your new lady of lightning." Frenchie clicked his tongue, eyebrows waggling as he pulled on deeper levels of Frenchness Reggie hadn't seen since Pepe LePew. "Have you… how do you say… tasted that ripe fruit yet? The blogs, they say you are the new 'King of the West Coast', if you know what I mean."
Jesus Christ, Serge. "I don't kiss and tell, Frenchie." Reggie leaned deeper into the couch, arms crossed and voice flat with forced boredom. "We're just friends. Friends who hang out." His correction came as quickly as Frenchie opened his mouth. "That's it. Stop reading the comments on the Shaderoom, man, they rot your brain."
MM's eyebrow went up so high it almost hit his hairline, face as flat as Reggie's voice.
Reggie just tilted his head, giving the big man the same look.
Palms hit soft and fast, a dap passing unseen between them the same second Frenchie turned around to wipe down another smudge on the fireplace.
"Y'all heard from Butcher?"
Reggie didn't even bother looking at Marvin as he snorted at the question. "Don't ask me. Mr Trenchcoat can fuck off and die for all I care."
"Yooo, Gee." A palm went up from Marvin, the man looking offended even as Reggie rolled his eyes back over at the man.
"Nigga threatened my family a couple weeks back." He clicked his tongue loud enough to echo in the half-empty living room. "Imma say what I feel. That limey nigga is evil."
"Monsieur Charcuterie has his, uhhh, how you say… uniquities…" Frenchie turned around again, waving that cloth. "Not too far from normal in his line of work."
"Evil-ass uniquities is all I'm saying." Reggie shook his head.
"I mean…" MM tilted his head, the big man just grunting. "Can't deny that. That ain't answer my question, though. Frenchie?"
"Petit Hughie told me Butcher was headed on a trip, I think to the… uhh, Catskills?"
"Fuck he's doing up there?" Grunign again, Marvin picked up the remote, channels flashing across the massive screen with strobing blue and then red light, some cooking show where the chef looked red enough to cry over a spilled risotto, a rerun of Reacher, then—
"—esse Franklin."
"Yo, go back." Reggie hit the cushion hard with his elbow. "MM, go back."
The screen settled on the pale face of one Cameron Coleman, the anchor's teeth shining a porcelain-white under the harsh studio lights. SEVEN ON SEVEN WITH CAMERON COLEMAN flashed across the screen in branding-approved Vought News Network colors, before shifting smoothly into a split-screen that showed Robert Vernon, the Tek-Knight himself.
The man looked as comfortable as being worth billions made you, lounging back in an all-black suit tailored down to the perfect dimensions of his nutsack, complete with a silver tie and a neat little diamond clip.
"Tek Knight, your new true-crime series — The Whole Truth — is already shattering streaming records," Coleman beamed out loud, smile as loud as his voice and both just warm enough to sound reasonable while laundering pure propaganda. "But tonight, you're bringing us a staggering piece of investigative work."
"That's right, Cameron."
Reggie blinked. What's this gotta do with me, though?
"If I have this correct, Tek-Knight, you've been following a trail that has led you on a straight path to former Seven speedster, Reginald Franklin. Now, we know Reggie Franklin as A-Train, but he's been making waves as independent hero Blushift over the last few months for those of you at home unaware of his recent career change, but what America wants to know is… what is that you've uncovered that has you here?"
Tek-Knight let out a dry chuckle, the sound smooth and over-enunciated in a way that came standard with prep school and old money over nine figures. "You have to understand exactly what it is I do, Cameron." Vernon shook his head slowly, fingertipss touching each other to form a small triangle. "I'm well aware that Mr. Franklin remains a deeply valued part of the Vought extended family. His current independent endeavors are... outstanding. Respectful, even. But a man like me… of my stature, of my standards…"
The billionaire supe smiled. "Well, I believe in the truth."
The hell? Reggie leaned forward like that would help him hear any better, the bruised rib almost forgotten. …what truth?
"I've been following a deep lead that took me down a path to Mr. Franklin himself." Tek-Knight leaned in too, just an inch closer to the camera as he let out a pressurized breath. "All this stemming directly from the arrest of former hero Popclaw out in Las Vegas, following an almost industrial-sized purchase of liquid heroin."
Popclaw.
Reggie's whole chest went as tight as the scar over his ribs as that name hit him, an ugly reminder of A-Train's needle-tracked memory, and the cold reality of knowing exactly how her story was supposed to end. Told her to go west. Told Charlotte to keep her nose clean. He hung his head, annoyance mixing with a deeper exasperation as two lifetimes worth of dealing with addicts slapped him with how stupid of an idea that was. Jesus Christ, woman.You had the biggest out I could give. He'd even wired her the cool half-mil he promised to get her out of the crosshairs, and she still got herself knocked over by the Feds. Fucking supes, man.
"During this entire investigation into the depths some supes can sink to, I uncovered some rather fascinating... little tidbits regarding that famous speedster's old habits." If Tek-Knight's smile could look more like a sneer, Reggie wasn't really sure how he could pull it off. If anything, the man had an expression that made it seem like he was expecting a laugh any second without going through the trouble of earning one. "Naturally, as a responsible investigator, I attempted to reach out to Stan Edgar directly to probesome of these particular anomalies in-depth."
"And the CEO of Vought International…" Coleman raised a quick eyebrow, the man really doing his media-trained best to push all that performative concern. "How did he respond to these rather dark inquiries?"
"Mr. Edgar… Well, of course, he had plenty to say." Tek-Knight smiled just a little bit wider, expression losing some of that hunger for something less eager and far more controlled. "And it was all nothing but... glowing things to say about our retired A-Train. 'A beacon of recovery', he called him, a magnificent example of a second chance. An admirable character witness, but you'll notice that he's talking about the present, not the past."
Cameron nodded at those words, like Tek-Knight had said something worth the air. "I do. I do see it."
"And of course," that hungry sneer slid back on the investigator's face, "I've always been about digging a bit... deeper to find the hole."
I see how it is. Reggie clicked his tongue. I see how you do, Stan.
And he did.
Reggie really fucking did, because it was obvious. Throwing dirt on him by getting Tek-Knight to call him a junkie in the past on national television, just to take the PR credit for him being clean and wholesome now. Smooth.
Fuck you, old man. Reggie allowed himself a small laugh he didn't feel, leaning back on the couch again. And your whole bloodline.
"We here at VNN and those at home will certainly be keeping our eyes peeled as your investigation penetrates further." Coleman's voice sounded out loud as the graphics began to shift for a commercial break. "Up next, a look at the suspected gang-related early adolescence of the Jersey-born speedster, and claims relating to his affiliation with the Grape Street Crips before his recruitment into Godolkin University."
"Gee, you a Crip?"
Reggie's eye twitched at MM's question, the big man raising an eyebrow as he spoke. "No, no, n-" The words came out too fast in a way that had nothing to do with his powers, the supe rubbing hard at his temple. "I was never a C—"
Before he had a chance to fully explain himself, his iPhone buzzed loud against his thigh, cutting him off before he could do it to himself again. against his thigh, the vibration loud enough to cut straight through his sentence. Unknown Number?
Reggie slid his thumb across the glass, jamming the speaker to his ear before Frenchie could jump in and start asking questions about a life he barely had any concrete memories of. "Yeah?"
"Ayo, Reggie cuh!"
The phone almost fell from his ear, the voice on the other end that loud; Jersey bounce distorted through a good few layers of speaker static. "My nigga Gee, where you been at? Big Nate blessed my phone with them digits, my nigga. D-Roll told me you been wildin' with that Nubian Queen, deadass! They talking about you on the news, Crip-ass ni—"
Reggie let the phone drop, a long sigh enough to deflate his chest. His other hand rose high, thumb and forefinger already tight on the bridge of his nose — squeezing hard enough to actually hurt.
Goddamnit.
"-ot out here out here. Man, Reggie was — listen, I'm not sayin' he was in nothin'. Not sayin' he shot nobody. Don't put that on me. I ain't saying that." The man on the stoop leaned back as the mic was pressed forward, one of his Timbs planted on the second step. "Like, he wasn't no church boy. He wasn't in the house playing GameCube all day. He was outside with them n****s."
A woman offscreen laughed. "He wasn't no gangster."
"I ain't say gangster, woman!" The man's face twisted, two fingers pointed off to the right at the unseen speaker. "I said he was outside."
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"People lying. Half these n****s ain't even know him like that." A woman held a baby on her hip, refusing to take a step off her porch. "They seen him run fast one time and now they callin' him a real killa."
"So he wasn't gang-affiliated?" The interviewer's question made the woman's frown deepen.
"I ain't say that either. I said people lying. Two things can be true."
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"I mean the n***a's all in blue right now. Blue on white, blue on black. Like, be real." The woman outside the mini-mart clicked her tongue, lips smacking at the same time. "Reggie wore blue all the time. Everybody know that. Blue hoodie, blue fitted, blue bandana sometimes. But it's Trenton. Half these dusty little boys was color-coordinating like they had sponsors."
"So, was it fashion or affiliation?"
The woman pulled a face at the camera.
"Baby, why is you asking me police questions?"
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"I ain't gonna say he was put on. Everybody from Trenton got a cousin that swear they know Reggie. Ask them anything real, and they quiet. Ask them what block, suddenly it's 'I heard.'
"What did you hear?"
"That he was with them blue boys too much. That's it. That's all I heard. And that's enough for TV, right?"
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"They say he jumped in front of his mans during a drive-by. I don't know about all that."
"And wearing blue?" The interviewer pushed a little further.
The man took a pull off his cigarette. "Usually."
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"Why y'all always back here asking about gang s**t? He made it out. Ask about that."
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
"So, you're not a Crip?"
Reggie's fingers curled inward as he stared at the paused image on the flatscreen, 4k pixels frozen on some guy outside a corner store in Jersey; gold teeth grinned in his open mouth as he spun his own little fairytale for the local news about A-Train 'running corners' and 'repping sets' back in '08.
The gray-and-gold marble was cold under his fingertips, pressure building as he struggled to keep from gripping until the absurdly expensive stone gave way.
Motherfuckin' Stan Edgar.
"No, Bia… " With a sigh, the man's forehead hit the cool countertop as he slumped forward, vintage Globetrotters hoodie pooling around and over his head. The thick fleece did its job of hiding the black-and-blue branding of Blushift underneath, and for good reason. Vought was not touching the new suit. He'd give himself an acid enema before he let their media department get a single frame of footage with him in it, at least not while he was in their tower. "No, I'm not a Crip."
He was only even here for a reason, and it hadn't even been to meet Nubia. No, Reggie had made it all the way up to the eighty-second floor today just to kick the big man's door off the hinges. Unluckily for him, Edgar was a ghost, an executive phantom, and he was about to blur off with his questions unanswered as to what the hell this media blitz was all about.
Ashley Barret had chosen that moment to jump in his way, nearly risking her life just to ambush him with her own statements; hands raised and eyes wide. 'It's just part of the new image, Reggie. Barely gang-related at all.' Frantic voice drilling into his head with all that high-pitched corporate panic, Reggie stood there as she stacked up defenses to whatever he had to say about his image. A redemption-focused image, obviously. Making you a tiny bit less clean to deepen the plotline for the rewrites. Makes Kid A-Train shine brighter, too. Some more contrast so you can step out of the Seven's light and he can one day squeeze right in, you know? Brand synergy!
Synergy.
I gotta be a fictional gangbanger to sell movie tickets and boost Montrell's Q-rating.
"Not a Crip. Never been a Crip." He groaned each and every one of the words into the marble as Nubia just laughed, both sounds echoing off the vaulted ceiling.
"You in blue, though?"
Reggie let out another groan again, suddenly glad Maya wasn't here to hit him from the other end with her mom. With her at school for the day, the apartment was missing its nine-year old tornado, leaving the Vought-issued hyper-expensive Seven suite almost sterile.
His eyes flicked down to the hoodie, blue jeans and color-matched foamposites staring back at him too. Damn… maybe I do wear too much blue.
He shook his head. "Not the same, though."
The woman shook her head as she let the humor fade out, leaning back against the stainless steel of a refrigerator. One arm crossed over a white silk robe, the other held a half-empty mug full of something that smelled far too strong to be coffee. "If you say so, Reggie."
"You know I don't do that banging shit." Reggie pushed off the island with a sigh. "I don't know those people. Hell, I barely remember any of it. I know for a fact A-T…" He shook his head as Nubia raised an eyebrow his way, the sudden use of third-person a bit too much. "I know for a fact that I didn't run with anyone or anything like that."
He bit back another sigh. At least not till Mr. Red White & Blue had me… m… had him run his drugs.
"No judgment, no judgement. I mean…" Nubia flicked a wrist around the entire room, the tower, and the skyline staring back at them from behind thick windows. "Look where we are. Running the streets is literally the least criminal thing you could have done compared to like, ninety percent of the people in this place."
I mean… Reggie tilted his chin up to survey the oversized open-concept living room, well aware this used to be Translucent's spot. Guy was just a pervert. Not exactly the same as doing drive-bys.
"Look, I'd rather have to deal with Homelander again compared to people thinking I'm a whole new kind of criminal, Bia." A hand dragged itself over a fresh haircut, a crisp fade doing nothing to loosen the tension in his jaw as he glared off at nothing in particular. Matter of fact, where the hell is Homelander lately?
"C'mon, Snoop's a Crip." Nubia set the mug down on the counter, the sound almost heavy enough to echo as wine sloshed around in it. "You better than Snoop now?"
"What Snoop is or does is up to Snoop." Reggie threw his hands up as he stared back at the only other supe in the room. "All I'm saying is that I'm an upstanding citizen, Bia."
Storm-gray eyes stared back at him, one perfectly-trimmed brow scaling her forehead. "...you ran through a girl, Reggie."
The speedster hissed out loud, almost reeling back from Bia's words. "I'm an upstanding citizen now." He corrected, hands chopping the air to cover the backpedal. Reggie knew he couldn't wipe the past that cleanly but it still hurt to remember what he had to live with. "I'm not about using violence for no reason. Like you said, we use our words. Growth."
Nubia stared harder, the silence loud as she somehow managed to telepathically transmit the memory of him uppercutting an asphalt monster off the ground like he was in Street Fighter or something.
"...you know what I mean?" All he had was a weak grin to answer her this time.
Before Nubia could stare even harder, Reggie felt something shudder in his pocket.
Blinking, the man in blue pulled the phone out of his pocket just to stare at the lack of caller ID on the screen. No caller…
His eyes slid shut for a second. Oh.
If he had a guess, he was hoping that it was the wrong one.
A single index finger went up as his eyes opened up, the universal hold on a second sign aimed Nubia's way; a 'shush' in physical form.
Nubia's chin dropped as his went up, eyes narrowing as ozone filled the kitchen. "I knowyou did not just shush me."
Finger still up, Reggie swiped the green call button and brought the glass to his ear, eyes still on Nubia as the woman worked on her anger management breathing techniques. "Talk to me."
"R-Reggie — Okay, fuck, f-fuck, man, we nee—" The voice was pitched high and all over the place, raw unfiltered panic turning what should be a simple sentence into a backtracking clusterfuck of a stutter. More than anything, it was familiar as any other; Hughie Campbell's particular cadence completely unmistakable if you were around it for more than five solid minutes. "I mean, he's here, fucking here right now, okay, he's actually here!"
"Whoawhoawhoa… Imma need you to slow down." Reggie blinked as he tried to parse the words bunched together, everything sounding more like a pileup than a solid message. "Who's coming?"
"He's trying to kill us right now, Reggie!
"Fucking who, man?"
"Noir!" Reggie almost pulled the phone away as his eyes went wide, Hughie's voice nearly blowing out the simple phone mic. "It's fucking Noir!"
Black Noir. The name was enough to force a hitch in Reggie's chest.
The silent motherfucker himself; Master of all things Martial. Fuck meeeee. The only supe who was actually trained to be more than a walking show pony and unfortunately all that training was on how to slit people like deli meat and vanish back into the shadows.
"We went looking f-for… okay, that doesn't matter, he's just outside and we have no idea what else to do!"
Reggie pulled in a breath. "...Where are you, man?"
"L-L-Long Island. A suburb in Long Island. Butcher's aunt's place."
"Well, I'll be sure to be right over as long as I get a fucking address!" Reggie leaned into the phone as he screamed a simple command. "A zipcode, a street name, man! Give me something!"
Hughie rattled off a string of numbers and the street name Reggie asked for, everything all in one breath. "Just hurry, please! I think Frenchie's about to set off some kind of chemical… chemical something!"
"-oys, guess who found us a way out o' this fockin' death trap!"
The line went dead with Butcher's voice, Reggie staring at the black mirror of his phone for all of a second. Fuck.
He bit back a hiss as he pocketed his phone, already regretting what he was about to do. Can these guys ever go one fucking week without something like this? Reggie's head shook almost immediately, answering his own question already. Why the fuck am I even asking?
Besides, it wasn't like they could call Starlight.
As the phone slid back into his pocket, the fabric of his super-suit underneath already begant to tighten against his skin, blue sparks shedding off his sneakers as he picked up his feet.
"Ahem!"
Reggie looked up to see Nubia still there, across the kitchen island with her arms crossed tight over her chest and a literal storm brewing in her eyes.
"What?" He bit his tongue almost as soon as he said it, not ready in the slightest to introduce Nubia to the fugitives he was helping. "Something on my face?"
"...you shushed me."
Oh thank God. Reggie tilted his head to the side, biting back a snort at the stormy woman's usual attitude. "Yell at me later."
A finger came up, aimed right at him. "I'll yell at you r—"
A stack of Vought memos tore off the island as Reggie drove his weight forward, the raw mass of his body a concussive shockwave tearing through the room.
The balcony railing was cleared in a fraction of a heartbeat, Reggie plunging off Floor 99 of Vought Tower free as a bird. It took another fraction before his soles found the vertical glass of the skyscraper's exterior.
Blue lightning arced a jagged streak down the side of the tower, Reginald Jesse Franklin pushing past three — four — five hundred miles an hour as sheer velocity carried him towards ground level.
He was already halfway down before Nubia even finished her sentence.