Chapter Text
Henry got the call at around 3 am. Usually, disturbing his sleep like this would get whoever it was fired, but of course, there were exceptions. Such as telling him that the most famous supe in his Portfolio had just crash-landed into a museum, while high on something.
Susan from crisis management was the one who called. She was still home, too, but after Henry begged her to come in early to help him handle this, she relented. Thank the Gods for Susan. The longer these things lie, the worse they get. He drove to the office as fast as he could. On the way there, he tried to calm his racing mind and remember happier moments.
He remembered being so fucking psyched when he got promoted to senior brand manager for the city. And with a speedster and a flyer to manage, no less. Easy money, he thought. Powers like that sold themselves, he thought. His job would require little effort on his part to skyrocket these two supes to the highest echelons of Vought's pantheon, he thought. Just sign them to the right deals and watch the money come pouring in, he thought. Little did He know that Hyperion was a psychopath and Sentinel Violet was a depressed junkie.
He drove past the entrance sign that read "Vought Offices, San Diego," and parked in his spot. The one labeled Senior Brand Manager. Henry always thought that title didn't sound executive enough for the highest-ranking person in the building. Apparently, running company operations in a single city, even one with a market as large as San Diego, wasn't enough to earn you fancy sci-fi titles like Director. He stared at the building from inside his car as if this was the last good look he'd get before he was fired or transferred. Before the higher-ups decided that he actually was too inexperienced to have an entire City branch to himself. At 26, he was probably the youngest Senior brand manager Vought had. That was probably thanks to a few lucky strides early in his career as a talent relations assistant. It had been promotion after promotion, but he feared that ended now. It didn't matter whether or not it was his fault; a hero dipping too much in approval could be disastrous for whoever it happened under.
Having no one below him in the building was nice while it lasted. He walked over to crime analytics, where Susan was waiting for him in pajamas and a robe, along with some lanky kid.
“Hey, Blondie,” Susan said to him
The aroma of the cup of coffee she cradled beckoned him.
“Make me one.”
“This is Toby,” she said.
“Jesus. How old are you?”
“23, sir.”
Henry beckoned Susan for a private word at the other end of the room. “Is this kid trained up on this sort of thing?”
“Did you just call him Kid? I think your position is getting to your head, Henry.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I trust him. He's discreet and proven.”
“Are you sure?”
“Calm down. He's signed all his confidentiality papers and everything. He's helped me out on stuff before. Might actually be crisis management material one day.”
“Why aren't we using one of your tech guys for this?" asked Henry.
“Because, unlike you, I don't like waking my employees in the middle of the night,” said Susan. “And also Toby had the CA night shift, so he already knows what's going on. You're the one always saying keep the circle as small as possible for this sort of thing, in case, you know…”.
“You're right. You're right,” said Henry. "We’ll bring people in as we need them.”
What Susan meant was in case they had to do something a tad too illegal. Something that they would prefer to get out of the way before more people were let in to assist with the crisis. Most of Henry’s staff were very discreet, but it never hurt to be safe.
“Did anyone see her?” Henry asked.
“The two security guards and the first cop on the scene,” answered Susan. “There was footage. The museum's camera shows the crash, and the detective's body cam shows Sentinel Violet afterward, clearly High to the gills, taking a few wobbly steps before launching again. Both videos are trending online already.”
“What! How!?”
“Cops must have leaked it.”
“Her numbers ?”
“Already down 10 points and plummeting.”
One of the screens began playing the vid of Sentinel Violet crashing through the central Atrium. She emitted a kinetic burst whenever she made hard enough contact with a foreign object. Her entire body crashing into a building at that speed would have sent a pulse that crumbled concrete, snapped wood, and shattered glass. It's a wonder the whole building didn't collapse.
“Her blast left several priceless pieces destroyed and two security guards injured, although not critically,” Susan said. “Want me to get media suppression on this?”
Henry checked the estimates of how many people have already seen it across all sites.
“No, it's too late for that. That'll probably just make it look like we've got something to hide. Fuck! Why didn't someone send in Hyperion to get the footage before the cops got it? Didn't crime analytics get an early alert when the officer on-site radioed in? We should have been on this an hour ago.”
“First cop to arrive at the scene called it in as a robbery,” said Susan. “ He also didn't mention the supe on the ground. By the time Toby here got the alert that Sentinel was involved, there were already too many personnel at the scene to send H.”
That was probably true enough, faster than light or not; Hyperion still made a very distinct sound when he came wheezing past. And a smarter cop might connect the dots.
“The cop,” said Henry. “Why didn't he mention Sentinel when he radioed the department?”
“That brings me to our chief problem.” Said Susan. One of the large screens in the room now displayed a man, a name, and a badge number.
“This is Detective Oaks.” She continued. “His partner was some supe’s collateral back in 09, and we're guessing he's holding a grudge against the whole company for that. He likes every post that comes across his feed, defaming superheroes. Also, back when Sentinel and Hyperion were still in talks to become this city's defenders, he sent a letter to his chief threatening to resign if the deal went through.”
“Fuck!” said Henry. “Why was this guy the first on the scene anyway and not some patrol cop?”
“He's claiming he was nearest when the alarms went off, but he probably saw the bright purple streak tumbling downwards and followed it, thinking he'd get some dirt on a supe.”
“And he fucking did.”
Henry had to think. There was almost always a way out of these things; the trick was getting it to come to you when you needed it and not two weeks later in the fucking shower.
“Were any crimes going on nearby?”
“Nothing,” said Toby. “ A jewelry store alarm was tripped a few blocks away, but that was a fluke. The wind or something.”
“Can't we still use it?”
“Traffic cams will prove nothing happened. That usually wouldn't be a problem. But this detective will probably be put on this case too if we press it, and he'll leave no stone unturned.”
Smart Kid.
“We say the jewelry store alarm was tripped by the criminals to cause a distraction,” Henry said. “That they were after the museum.”
“What criminals? Everything was quiet in a 50-block radius.”
Henry checked the clock. According to the timestamp on the footage, Sentinel crashed at around two. An hour or so is a perfectly acceptable amount of time to lie low after evading a supe before trying again. Especially if the cops were distracted a few blocks away.
Susan said the kid knew what the deal was, and Henry trusted Susan, but he still needed to be sure. He turned to Toby.
“You got any groups on the shelf we can use for this? Guys that would be interested in a jewelry heist and could get ready within an hour if the opportunity seemed lucrative enough.” How the kid responded would be Henry’s sort of Litmus test to see if this Toby could be trusted, like Susan was saying.
Kid didn't even blink. “We're tracking a few that fit the description, yes.” Guess he was cleared for this sort of thing.
“Got a believable way to leak information to any of them.”
“One of my informants has a reputation,” said Toby, “Master scoper. I can get him to tell some guys that a shop owner forgot to activate his alarm tonight. He’ll offer to tell them which shop for a sum.”
“The shop that had the False alarm, right?”
“Yes.”
“Brilliant,” said Henry. “I like this guy,” He said to Susan.
“And if your informant tells them they have to hit it before five a.m., because that's when the owner comes to open up and the alarm resets or something. Will that be too much for them to bite?”
“I know some crews hungry enough. And Lionel is trusted by many. Of course, this could burn him, but saving Sentinel’s rep is probably worth an informant or two, right?”
“ Indeed. This informant of yours, who does he think he's getting his information from?”
“Dan. A fixer who only wants 10 percent of whatever the informant gets for the info.”
“Good. Good.”
“So we say that Violet got a tip about a robbery about to go down.” Said Susan. “That she was after them blocks before they even got to their mark, about to bust them for weapons or drugs or something. High-speed chase. Firing machine guns in her face. That can disturb any flightpath.”
“Exactly,” said Henry, “ and maybe Violet was also hit with some sort of drug bomb by the robbers, causing her to fly and crash into the museum.”
They sat there, making calls and monitoring spikes in Sentinel's stats. At some point before five am, Toby told them that the robbery was in progress and he switched one of the screens to display the live feed. The Vought satellite, which they had now set on monitoring the jewelry store, picked up a black van and 4 masked individuals entering the shop.
“Want me to share the ping to SDPD now?” asked Toby.
Henry watched the screen as the armed men seemed to be conducting their business smoothly with no flashing lights or signs of an alarm being triggered.
“The alarms aren't actually disabled in that place, right?”
“They are. The owner disabled them remotely after the false alarm. He probably figures he’ll clock in in a few hours anyway and get the thing fixed, so no need to bother the cops or Vought with the alerts.”
“Hold off on calling the cops. Let them rob the place.”
“Aye aye, captain,” said Toby.
Henry turned to Susan, “You know those two guys of yours over at media suppression?”
“My memers.”
“ Give 'em a call. I want dozens of posts flooding the feed that suggest that the detective got an alert when the jewelry store alarm was first tripped and decided to go after the supe instead.
Have them strongly imply that he did so not to check on her, but because of his personal vendetta against Supes. That he was planning on catching her robbing the museum or something, and in doing so, let real criminals slip away.”
Susan's eyes lit up. “That could work. That guy makes no secret of his dislike for supes. We could even leak the letter he wrote his chief, threatening to resign if the Vought contract went through.”
They watched as the robbers hauled their score into the van and took off.
By flooding the feed with dozens of posts from dozens of accounts, they made sure that mentions of the jewelry store robbery were almost hand in hand with mentions of Sentinel's crash. After a while, every new post concerning the incident had comment sections filled with a fair amount of people and bots claiming that obviously the jewellery store robbers used some sort of chemical weapon on Sentinel and that the cops should have been at the jewellery store the first time the alarm was tripped instead of having 9 squad cars at the museum, hoping to catch a celebrity doing something embarrassing like they were TMZ.
“This, cops are acting more like TMZ angle is doing wonders,” said Henry. “Did that start with one of our guys?”
“ I don't think so, “ said Susan. “These things take on a life of their own after a while. All you need is to put an idea out there.”
“You sure this won't get us too much bad blood with SDPD?”
“Not if we openly defend them while the media defames that supe-hating detective for us. The department will probably pin the whole thing on him if criticism veers too heavily against them. We could even get him transferred. That would be one boon to come out of all this?”
Henry headed towards his office to wait out the storm. “Call me if there are any spikes.”
At around 7 AM, he checked back in with Susan. “Violet’s approval rating?”
“Stabilizing at 65. Still 10 points below her pre-crisis numbers, but positive mentions are still creeping slightly. We might come out of this having lost only 5 points or fewer.
That wouldn't be too bad, but nothing had been decided yet. They still had to remain on top of this. Henry had seen much higher dips for lighter collateral and lower for much heavier collateral. It was all a matter of how the narrative was managed.
“Toby. The jewelers. We got a hideout?”
“We do indeed. Ping Hyperion? He'll have the perps arrested, and the jewelry returned in 5 minutes. ”
“We got a fan over here,” said Henry. Jerking a thumb at the Kid. “No, not Hyperion. I think we'll give Sentinel a redemption arc in a few days if she's feeling up to it.” He turned to Susan. “Where is our resident earthquake?”
“Back home. Flew right there after the museum.”
“She's probably not in the headspace to come in today. You mind driving over there for me, Susan? Brief her on the situation and how we're handling it before she posts something damning.” Just as Susan turned to go. “And by the way, did she get that fucked up at a public venue?”
“No,” said Susan, “Tracker had her at home. Museum, then back home. And no footage circulating of her partying or anything.”
“Good.” At least she had the sense not to record herself snorting some shit like some other supes Henry had managed over the years.
“Good job, everyone. He said to Susan and Toby before leaving for his office once more.
At 10 am, Henry found himself waking up at his desk. He did not remember falling asleep. After it all came back to him, he quickly turned on his desktop in a panic, logged in, and checked the situation's progress.
That was when Henry realized that he had overdone it a little. Sentinel violet now had an approval rating of Eighty fucking nine percent. Fourteen points higher than her pre-crisis average. Bumps in all demographics. A fourteen fucking point uptick in just a few hours! That had to be a company record. His Frantic damage control had turned out to be the best PR campaign that they could have asked for.
He picked up his phone to call Susan. She picked up before it rang for a second.
“I'm guessing you've seen Sentinel's hike.”
“What the fuck happened? How!”
“She was coming down off the trip when I got to her place. Told her how we were handling things, and she offered to help. I said she was in no condition to go back into the field, but she insisted she was ready.”
“And no one woke me!”
“There was no need to disturb your slumber, boss. Toby and I coordinated it. She flew to the hideout and subdued the perps, recovering the jewelry they stole, along with a bunch of other missing shit from crimes earlier in the year that they should have fenced by now. These guys were artsy criminal collectors or something. Their spot looked like a genuine secret layer. The footage the camera crew got of the hideout is getting us a lot of eyeballs and getting Sentinel a lot of approval for busting the operation.
Violet being drugged with some sort of weapon on her first encounter with them, causing her to crash into a museum, but then recovering and catching them on her second attempt, seems to be the main narrative being circulated about the event.”
“Holy Fucking shit,” said Henry. “What happened with her anyway? She tell you yet?”
“She had a bad trip. Some drug clashed with her supe physiology or something. It made her lose control of her powers and fly about her room, wrecking everything, so she flew out and went on that crazed flight…”
“.....Crashing into a museum.” Henry finished. “What a night.”
“What a night indeed,” said Susan.
*********************************************************************
Henry stood outside the office, trying to collect himself before he went inside. He'd just flown into LA this morning for his meeting with the regional director. He didn't know what it was about, but it had to be a good thing. Maybe a raise or a promotion. Maybe they were giving him more supes to manage now that he'd proved himself in one more gauntlet. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be bad. It couldn't be. After all, thanks to him, Sentinel Violet was becoming a household name nationwide, not just in San Diego, and the merchandising revenue was beginning to reflect that, not to mention the offers they'd gotten for further endorsements.
Of course, it wouldn't be bad. Who would throw away the employee who managed that? That gave Henry the confidence he needed to knock.
“Come in.” He heard a voice say.
It had been a few months since Henry spoke with the Regional Director, but he remembered enough to know that that wasn't him. If he got replaced, surely Henry would have heard about it. Screw it. Whoever it was, he was probably just about to give Henry a pay hike and more responsibility, so it didn't really matter.
Henry walked in and almost froze in shock. It was Stan Fucking Edgar. What the fuck was the CEO of the entire company doing here, and why would he need to speak to Henry of all fucking people!?
“No need to look alarmed,” Stan said in a calm monotone. “Take a seat, Mr. Vassal.”
Henry did so.
“I had Victor lend me his office and call you in for a meeting. You probably thought you were here for a promotion.”
He did. But now he wasn't so sure. Positive or negative, he couldn't think of anything concerning him that would require Mr. Edgar's presence.
“Well, you sort of are. This could very well be the most important day of your career. I'll cut to the chase. Last week, you faced a situation that could have spiraled into a PR crisis involving one of our supes. You managed it well, and the company has you to thank for another revenue spike. And this isn't your first time pulling something like this either. You seem to have a knack for hero management.”
“You're here because of your particular brand of resourcefulness and the loyalty to this company that you've displayed time and time again.”
Stan then folded his arms on the desk before continuing, “I have a task for you. It's of a very sensitive nature; I trust that everything discussed in this room will stay in this room.” He looked intently at Henry.
“Of course, sir.”
Mr. Edgar rolled out a drawer from somewhere under him and fished out a vial of blue liquid.
What the fuck is going on?
“I know you know what this is.”
“Compound V, sir.”
“A lot went into choosing a candidate for this. One criterion was knowing what this was but never having mentioned it to anyone.”
Henry knew about compound V thanks to an incident a few years ago with a supe called Shatterscream. He had been raging at his mother about injecting him with some drug and making him a monster. After that, it was clue after clue until Henry had a pretty clear picture of Vought's secret operation: Juicing babies around the country with compound V, to create superheroes, all the while telling the world that supes were natural phenomena. Chosen by god, as it were. The revelation had come as a little bit of a shock to Henry at first, but afterward it made perfect sense. How the fuck had he ever believed that shooting lasers out of your eyes was a naturally developed genetic trait to begin with?
My Edgar placed the vial on the desk.
“Our scientists have made several breakthroughs recently. This is V3T5, one of our newest iterations of the compound. We have perfected several versions of the serum that not only have much higher percentages of success among adult subjects but also grant the subject specific abilities, not random ones.”
This shit sounded way above Henry's pay grade, and he was a little scared that he was being told this at all, but he just listened and nodded.
“This specific vial grants Super strength, super durability, teleportation, as well as the most enhanced Telepathic abilities in the Vought arsenal. This is the only vial of V3T5 I allowed them to make. It’s never been tested, but based on the data from other iterations of V3, the lab coats say that this has a fifty percent chance of working on an adult subject.”
“Since you already know of V and the company's usage of it and have proved your discretion, I wish to give you a very special task that concerns the compound, and in fact, the future of this company. But before any further discussion, I need you to inject this into your veins.”
“What!?. Sir, didn't you just say that this version is untested? That I would have a 50 percent chance of dying?”
“I did. That's why if you take this and survive, we are willing to make it worth your while.”
Mr. Edgar handed some papers to Henry. “This is an unofficial contract, of course, off the books. I believe page 3 will interest you. Line 6 would be your bonus the second after you inject that and survive. The number below will be your annual salary for each year you remain in my employ. You'd also get a board seat.”
Jesus fuck! Instant billionaire. Who wouldn't risk killing themselves for a 50 percent chance at that fucking number? Unless Mr. Edgar was lying, and it was more like a 1 percent chance of survival, which was probably the case.
“Sir. Do you mind if I ask exactly what you would need from me afterward? If it succeeds, that is.”
“I am afraid I can't tell you that until you agree, inject the serum, and sign the papers. I have already revealed more than I should to someone who isn't all in, but I believed a certain modicum of trust is expected, considering what I am asking of you.”
“And if I die.”
“ We will come up with a story that’s not damning and generously compensate your loved ones.”
That probably wasn't true. Why would Vought do something they don't have to? Henry would be dead, and this deal was not in the system. Giving anyone anything would only make people wonder why. Stan was lying about that, and probably about his chances of surviving the serum as well, but probably not about the serum's effects or the fact that he had an insanely lucrative job for Henry if it succeeded.
“Can I have a day to consider this?”
“You have five minutes.”
What The fuck.
“May I?” Henry asked with his arm outstretched towards the vial.
“Of course.”
Henry rolled it in his palm and, for some idiotic reason, actually fucking considered the mad offer. Actually, it wasn't an idiotic reason at all. He knew exactly what tempted him, and it wasn't the fucking money.
“Telepath, you say?”
“The most powerful telepathy so far. Mind reading, mind control, memory manipulation, mental paralysis, all the good stuff, and with a range unprecedented. That, paired with the ability to instantaneously appear anywhere in the world, you'll be a regular master of mankind.”
In that lay another hole in this proposal. Another reason why it was probably all bullshit.
“Why would you trust anyone with this? Why wouldn't you take it yourself? No offense, sir, but if I agree and it works, what's stopping me from taking over the company, or the fucking country?
“Your contract. and ….”
Mr. Edgar's eyes glowed white, and before Henry knew it, he was somewhere else. Nowhere, actually. There was nothing but himself, Mr. Edgar, and blackness.
“What the fu… You're a supe!”
“ I did not inject the V3T5 because I did not wish to die, and I don't quite like the odds of that serum. However, as of last week, the board of directors and I each injected a less-risky iteration of V3 that granted us significant psychic abilities. Not anywhere near what you will gain after injecting what I gave you, and no teleportation, but powerful enough to guard myself against other telepaths.”
Well, that fucking answered his question about how they were gonna keep such a supe in check. In an instant, they were back in the office.
“So what do you say, Mr. Vassal?”
Like almost every other kid in America, Henry grew up obsessing over superheroes. Watching and rewatching the movies and shows of his favorite supes dozens of times. Buying as much superhero merchandise as his parents could afford. He'd always held a deep reverence and an even deeper envy of the fuckers.
Of course, getting a job at Vought had washed away most of those naive notions about defenders of truth and justice. He now knew the ugly inner workings of the superhero business. That working with the supes mainly meant selling a lie and hiding the truth. That most of them weren't very heroic or even kind. That many were cruel, destructive powerhouses who used humans as they wished. But even after all these years mired in the corporate cynicism of it all, an inkling of that wide-eyed reverence still remained. A small, vile part of him probably even admired them more now that he knew their true nature.
For if they could kill and save at their whims, and it was nearly impossible to harm them; If millions worshipped at their altars but deep down feared them because of the sheer power that could be wrought upon mankind if the supes so much as found the mood; What did all that make the supes if not Gods? And here Henry was, sitting in an office across from Zeus himself, being offered a chance to join the fucking pantheon.
And what the fuck else was there anyway? Henry had no friends outside of Vought, no passions outside his work. He could feign contentment well enough, but lately he had been miserable. Only the product was fantastical in this business; the work itself was corporate and mundane, and starting to become quite stale. Nine to fucking five day in, day out, doing different versions of the same abominable tasks over and over again. He could feel his midlife crisis creeping on him, waiting to pounce in a few years and leave him even more miserable and wondering with even more hopelessness if this was all there was to Henry Vassal. He decided.
Henry rolled up a sleeve, grabbed a syringe that Stan had just procured, and immediately began drawing the blue liquid. What the fuck are you doing! A more sensible corner of his psyche asked. You're gonna fucking kill yourself. You're probably the 10th idiot they've tried this on! He ignored it all. After a brief look up at Mr. Edgar, who was keenly observing, He jabbed the needle into a vein and pushed.
He didn't feel a thing for the better part of a minute.
Then, pain.