"Thank you. Would Mr. Greevs like to sit in as our special guest this episode?" Courtney flicked Ivan a wink without making a show of it.
She knew the fan line was just manners. A man at his level was never actually watching her show.
She would still be more than happy to get into certain kinds of trouble with the big shot in front of her.
"Non. I am not here to steal Homelander's spotlight." Ivan smiled and turned her down.
He had no interest in a woman like Courtney. Put plain, who the hell knew how many men had used that arm as a pillow. A whole company, easy, as a starting number.
"No? That is a real shame. You on camera would spike our ratings." She did not get pissed at the no. She kept smiling.
"Next time. We work together when the chance comes." Ivan looked around, picked a chair at random, and sat.
"Looks like you people are set. Start the interview."
He glanced down at the watch on his wrist. Without noticing it, the clock had hit seven in the evening. By the time this wrapped, it would be dark.
"Okay. Departments, get ready."
Courtney turned and barked at the crew to roll.
Snap. The fill lights on both sides kicked on. Camera ops swung the lenses onto the two people on the round platform.
"We are honored to have Homelander on the show…"
After the open, they dropped into the Q&A everybody came for.
Courtney sat across from Homelander, crossed her right leg over the left, nice and elegant, and went first. "Homelander, you are all anyone is talking about. A lot of people are calling you a butcher who kills without blinking. They cannot understand why you would put down one of your own. Anything you want to say to that?"
Homelander smiled for the camera. "Time will answer that. I believe a lot of people got scrambled by the noise online and lost the judgment they should have had."
Courtney nodded like he had preached gospel.
"Exactly. The second I saw the news, my first thought was no. Homelander does not kill Stormfront. That is as insane as Jesus killing one of his own flock.
Then I opened my phone and the abuse was so thick it almost blacked out the screen. Good thing my gut said it could not be that simple. Turns out my gut was right. You had a reason. I think they owe you an apology."
Truth was, before the photos dropped, Courtney had figured Homelander was high and snapped Stormfront on impulse.
She was not stupid enough to say that out loud.
"Homelander, what do you make of this online pile-on? Did any of it get to you?" Courtney kept going.
Homelander spread his hands, playing tired of it.
"If I said none of it got to me, that would be a lie. Those words hit like blades in the chest. My skin can take a bullet. The inside of me is as soft as anybody else's. If I can say one thing, I want to ask people to stop the online attacks. You do not know when one throwaway sentence, or one line you type, puts a hole in someone."
"That was beautiful. That is our American hero. I honestly think that last line should go on a poster." Courtney did not even try to hide the ass-kissing.
While the cameras rolled, Ivan dropped his attention inside his body and watched the replacement numbers.
"One more thing. Can you walk us through what happened that day?" Courtney asked.
"Of course."
The smile on Homelander's face went stiff.
"I do not think I will ever forget that day." He put on the remembering face. "I went to her with the photos. She would not admit they were real. She even said they were photoshopped. Vought's tech lab told me there was no composite work on them. The pictures were real. I did not expect a Nazi leftover to be sitting right under my nose."
"I have to say, I blame myself for dropping the ball."
If you did not know the actual chain of events, Ivan would have bought that Homelander killed Stormfront. The man's acting was that good.
"God. Who would have guessed Stormfront was leftover Nazi trash? So do not beat yourself up too hard. This is not on you. Stormfront was just that good at wearing a mask." Courtney sighed and shook her head.
"No. I should have seen it. On stream she kept putting out racist shit, and I let it slide. Pardon my language.. sigh.. Looking at it now, I got sloppy."
The guilt on Homelander's face was built to move people.
No question, once this episode dropped, it would pull him a fresh pile of fans.
Homelander picked up the glass in front of him and took a sip. "I wanted to sit Stormfront down and talk. Make her see she was wrong and walk away from The Seven on her own. What I did not see coming was her threatening me. She said if I did not bury it for her, she would paint New York in blood. She is smart. She knew where I am soft. But I am Homelander. I do not cover for someone testing the waters on a war and selling race hate.
So I shut her down. And to keep other people from getting hurt, I was going to put her down and hold her."
"Oh my God. She lost her mind?" When she heard Stormfront was ready to butcher all of New York, Courtney's face went shocked, like she could not believe it.
"She read me. She hit me, then ran from the restaurant. I went after her fast so her threat did not turn real. I just should not have killed her. I should have put her through a government trial."
Courtney listened to the whole thing and then let it out. "You did the right thing. If she had lived, New York, maybe the whole country, would have hit the end of the world. You are the real hero."
…
After the interview, Homelander went to the conference room alone.
He stood in front of Stormfront's statue with a mess on his face, grief mixed with anger.
He wanted someone to take the edge off. He turned his head. Nobody was there.
"The mysterious man wore my face and killed you. Maybe I should be furious. Instead I am lucky. Lucky Greevs pulled those photos so I did not fall off the altar and get spat on by the whole country. Those pictures put me back up as a god. The cost was losing a real woman who loved me. A perfect god."
Homelander crushed the pain down as hard as he could.
In a blink he had the statue on the roof of Vought Tower.
Under a clean moon a figure kept rising and falling. A few seconds later Homelander stopped. He clamped the statue by the throat and roared, "I am going to fucking kill you, mysterious man!"
Bang. He twisted the statue's head clean off.
Red light lit in his eyes. He grabbed the head and walked to the edge of the roof.
Then he started kissing the head while pumping his limp shaft. After a while, he started drilling a hole in it with his eleventh finger.
A minute later, he roared, and a hard jet of fluid shot out with two crimson lasers.
Like he was dumping every drop of rage onto the moon.
___
[]~(￣▽￣)~*
Read 12 Advance Chapters—P@t- Captain69