CHAPTER 4: THE TOWER'S SHADOW
POV: Rayen
Vought Tower looms like a cathedral of glass and lies, reflecting the morning sun in a way that feels almost mocking. Seventy-three floors of corporate ambition and superhuman oversight, housing everything from marketing departments to secret laboratories where scientists play god with Compound V.
Rayen watches from across the street, coffee in hand—his fifth today, sleep being a luxury he can't afford when nightmares feature cosmic entities and burning eyes. The sidewalk bench he's claimed offers perfect surveillance angles while maintaining the fiction that he's just another New Yorker taking a coffee break.
He's been here for three hours, studying security patterns like his life depends on it. Which it probably does.
The building's layout exists in his memory, fragments of scenes from a television show he never expected to visit. But memory and reality don't align perfectly. The show focused on dramatic moments, not mundane details like guard rotations or camera placements. He needs real intelligence, not Hollywood shortcuts.
A shift change occurs at nine-fifteen. Vought security emerges from the employee entrance—professional, alert, carrying themselves with the confidence of people who know they're protecting gods. Some display subtle physical enhancements: a woman whose movements suggest enhanced reflexes, a man whose forearms bulge with concealed strength.
Powered security. Of course Vought would use Supes to guard Supes.
The main entrance opens to admit a stream of employees: accountants and marketers and PR specialists who sell heroism like breakfast cereal. Among them walk figures he recognizes from billboards and news broadcasts.
Queen Maeve emerges first, her warrior persona perfectly maintained for the handful of photographers stationed outside. She moves with predatory grace, each step calculated to project strength while maintaining media-friendly approachability. A crowd gathers immediately—fans and tourists with phones raised like digital offerings.
But Rayen sees what the cameras miss: how her smile never reaches her eyes, how her shoulders carry tension that speaks of sleepless nights and compromised principles. She signs autographs with mechanical precision, saying all the right words while her gaze searches for escape routes.
The Deep appears next, posing for selfies with the practiced enthusiasm of someone who's discovered fame is both addiction and poison. His charm radiates like a weapon, every gesture designed to charm and disarm. Fans giggle at his jokes, mothers push children forward for photos with the aquatic hero.
Rayen knows what The Deep does to women when cameras aren't watching. The knowledge sits in his stomach like swallowed glass.
No sign of Homelander yet. Thank god.
His phone buzzes—a news alert. "Translucent Stops Armed Robbery in Midtown." The headline includes a photo of the invisible Supe materializing to accept applause from grateful civilians.
Translucent will be dead within weeks.
Rayen tries to feel something about this—sympathy, regret, even satisfaction. But there's only numbness. Translucent isn't innocent; none of The Seven are. They're products of a system that turns power into performance art while real heroes get buried in unmarked graves.
"If I break in now, change things too early, does the timeline collapse? Or am I already too late?"
The questions spiral through his mind like water down a drain. Every moment he spends in surveillance, people die. Every day he delays action, the corruption spreads. But acting too soon might trigger butterfly effects that make everything worse.
What if he saves Robin Ward and A-Train never joins The Boys? What if Hughie Campbell stays a civilian and never meets Butcher? The entire chain of events that eventually brings down Vought could unravel from a single premature intervention.
Movement catches his attention. A couple walks past his bench, hand-in-hand, laughing about something private and wonderful. The man is slight, nervous energy radiating from his movements. The woman beside him glows with the kind of happiness that makes strangers smile.
Rayen's heart stops.
Hughie Campbell. And Robin Ward.
POV Shift: Hughie
Hughie doesn't notice the man on the bench staring at him like he's witnessing a ghost materialize. He's too busy listening to Robin explain why pineapple belongs on pizza, her passionate defense of the controversial topping accompanied by gestures that make her look like she's conducting an invisible orchestra.
"—and the acidity complements the cheese! It's basic food science, Hugh!"
"Food science," he repeats, grinning. "Is that what we're calling your weird taste buds now?"
Robin bumps his shoulder with hers, nearly making him stumble. "My taste buds are adventurous. Yours are just boring."
They're heading toward the subway entrance, planning to catch the morning showing of some independent film Robin discovered through a blog he doesn't understand but supports anyway. It's their three-month anniversary—not of dating, but of the first time he worked up the courage to ask her to coffee. She keeps track of weird milestones like that.
"Hey Robin?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
She stops walking, turns to face him with an expression of mock surprise. "Just figured that out, did you?"
"I figured it out weeks ago. Just finally worked up the nerve to say it."
"Good." She kisses him quickly, tasting like the strawberry lip balm she applies obsessively. "Because I love you too, you anxious disaster."
They walk on, unaware that their happiness is being observed by someone who knows exactly how it ends.
POV Shift: Back to Rayen
Rayen watches them approach and something breaks inside his chest. They're perfect together—Hughie's nervous energy balanced by Robin's confident warmth, their obvious affection creating a bubble of joy that makes passersby unconsciously smile.
He knows what happens to her. Knows it's soon.
He stands abruptly, the coffee cup falling from nerveless fingers to splatter on the sidewalk. His mouth opens to shout a warning—anything that might save her, change the trajectory, prevent the horror he knows is coming.
"Don't stand on the street corners! A-Train will—"
But what emerges from his throat is: "Purple monkey dishwasher banana!"
Hughie and Robin pause, turning toward him with matching expressions of concern and confusion. Robin giggles nervously, the sound bright but uncertain. Hughie frowns, taking a half-step forward with the instinctive protectiveness of someone in love.
"Uh, you okay, man?"
Rayen clamps his mouth shut, humiliation and fury burning through him in equal measure. The Entity's curse is perfect—he can see the disaster approaching but can't warn anyone. He's Cassandra with a speech impediment, doomed to watch tragedies unfold.
He nods stiffly, not trusting his voice. They exchange glances—Robin whispering something that sounds like "Maybe he's on something?"—and continue walking. Their conversation resumes, but quieter now, their joy dimmed by the encounter with urban strangeness.
I could follow them.
The thought forms before he can stop it. He could trail behind, keeping them in sight, intervening when A-Train comes blurring down the street in three weeks. But that assumes he knows exactly when and where it happens—and the Entity's curse might prevent even indirect intervention.
I could use Heaven's Door.
The darker thought whispers from the part of his mind that's already been corrupted by power. Read Robin's memories, write a simple command: "You will avoid street corners for the next month." Harmless. Effective. Saving her life with minimal violation.
Except it wouldn't be minimal. It would be crossing a line that can never be uncrossed, using divine power to override free will for his own peace of mind. The road to hell, paved with good intentions and justified by necessary outcomes.
He watches them disappear into the subway entrance, their laughter echoing up from underground. Robin's final words drift back: "I still say pineapple pizza is a gift from the gods."
But that's evil. Violating her mind to save her life.
Rayen stops walking, fists clenched so tightly his knuckles crack. The Entity's curse means he can't verbally warn them, but he could act—kidnap Robin until after A-Train's rampage, use Erasure on the speedster preemptively, create some crisis that keeps them both indoors.
But would changing this one event cascade into something worse? A-Train's collision with Robin Ward sets everything in motion—Hughie's recruitment, Butcher's revelation about Becca, the entire chain of dominoes that eventually exposes Vought's corruption to the world.
Save one girl, damn the timeline. Let her die, preserve the greater good.
When did I start thinking like this?
His head throbs, the weight of foreknowledge pressing against his skull like a migraine made of moral complexity. He lets them disappear into the crowd, another choice made through inaction.
"I'm not a hero. I'm a coward with god powers."
The admission tastes like ash. Heroes save people. Cowards make calculations about acceptable losses. The Entity gave him the tools to rewrite reality and he's paralyzed by the responsibility of choosing who lives and who dies.
Night falls with its usual urban indifference. Rayen returns to his surveillance position, watching Vought Tower's lights shift as day staff yields to night security. The building never truly sleeps—too many secrets, too much power, too many gods requiring constant management.
He dreams of the Entity's message on loop: "You will find your other half deep in the CEO of Vought, Edgar Banker."
He wakes with sudden clarity.
Not in Edgar. Not a metaphor about finding kindred spirits in corporate boardrooms. Something hidden beneath Vought Tower itself—buried in sub-basements or concealed behind executive facades. A person, perhaps. Someone imprisoned in the depths where morning light never reaches.
He needs blueprints. Access codes. Security protocols.
And probably a death wish.
But first, he needs to test his powers one more time—on someone who deserves whatever horror Heaven's Door might reveal.
The city is full of criminals. Time to hunt.
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