Free Web NovelChapter 12: Chapter 12: The Return That Rocked the Nation
The news was released by Vought’s PR department.
A single photo.
No caption. No press release. No announcement for a press conference.
Just one photo posted on Vought International’s official Twitter account.
The resolution was poor.
It was obviously a screenshot taken from some security footage.
In the image, a man in a brown-green jacket stood on the rooftop of an apartment building in Brooklyn, with New York’s gray-blue predawn sky behind him.
Only three-quarters of his face was visible in profile, but that was enough.
That jawline.
That shoulder width.
That posture, standing with one hand in his pocket, was exactly the same as the footage from the black-and-white documentaries that played on loop in the Vought History Museum.
The photo was posted at exactly seven in the morning. By eight, Twitter’s servers had crashed.
More than eight million quote retweets flooded in within a single hour.
Led by TikTok, every platform was spreading the same sentence at an exponential rate.
"Soldier Boy is back."
The Nasdaq screen in Times Square, New York, switched its display at once. freewebnovёl.ƈom
They replaced the day’s stock market feed with an old photo of Soldier Boy provided by the Vought Museum.
Normandy Beach, 1944. He carried that iconic diamond shield with the bald eagle emblem, burning landing craft and anti-aircraft fire filling the sky behind him.
Beneath the black-and-white photo, a line of gilded text scrolled past.
"The Legend Returns. Soldier Boy Confirmed to Return to Vought International."
More and more people gathered in the square.
Some held up their phones and took pictures of the giant screen.
Some called their parents on video and cried at the image.
Others rushed out of their hotel rooms still wearing pajamas.
A veteran in his sixties stood directly beneath the screen, wearing an old, washed-out military uniform with several faded medals pinned to his chest.
He looked up at the black-and-white photo, tears running down his wrinkled cheeks, his lips trembling as he repeated again and again,
"I saw him when I was a kid. I saw him in a parade when I was a kid..."
CNN cut away from its regular morning news programming.
The female host on MSNBC, eyes red, said into the camera,
"What this means for America cannot be put into words."
Several Fox News commentators reached a rare unanimous agreement.
They used "The Greatest Comeback of the Century" as their headline, the letters so large they almost filled the entire screen.
And the man at the center of this frenzy had now stepped out onto the street.
He was going to find someone.
...
On the Upper East Side of New York, in an old apartment building that was well maintained but not overly flashy.
The doorman was an Italian man in his sixties. He glanced at Benjamin and stepped aside without asking a single question.
The Legend opened the door.
The Legend, former Senior Vice President of Vought International, the man who had once overseen the entire Supe Affairs Department.
Now, this former legend lived in an apartment packed with old posters, film reels, and outdated magazines.
He wore a pilled bathrobe and held a martini in his hand.
At two in the afternoon.
He looked much older than Benjamin remembered.
"Jesus."
The Legend stared at Benjamin in the doorway. The martini glass in his hand wobbled, nearly spilling.
"What they said on Twitter was true."
"You didn’t unfollow me on Twitter?"
"I did. Then I made a burner account."
The Legend stepped aside from the doorway.
"Come in. You’re America’s original hero. Don’t let anyone notice you."
The apartment was much larger inside than it looked from the hallway.
The walls were covered with movie posters. Some were originals, some were signed, and some were out-of-print editions that even the Vought Museum might not have in its archives.
Benjamin stood in the middle of the living room, his gaze sweeping over the posters.
His own face looked back at him from several different frames.
Wartime propaganda posters from the forties, recruitment ads from the fifties, and a rough-looking comic book cover.
"You haven’t changed much from the posters."
The Legend closed the door, leaned against the doorframe, and looked Benjamin up and down.
Benjamin turned around. "You kept my things, didn’t you?"
The Legend was silent for two seconds.
"How did you know I kept them?"
"Because you’re The Legend." ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
Benjamin said,
"You couldn’t have thrown away my Supersuit."
The Legend took a sip of his martini and said nothing.
He went into the bedroom, then came out a moment later with a dust bag in his hand.
He placed it on the sofa.
Inside was a Supersuit, mainly dark green, with a white star emblem on the chest and scratches of varying depth across the shoulder armor.
The fabric felt a little stiff, but overall, it had been preserved almost perfectly. Even the metal buckles on the wrist guards had been polished until they shone.
Then there was the shield, though only Soldier Boy could take it. The Legend could not lift it.
The shield was engraved with a bald eagle spreading its wings.
Soldier Boy’s weapon.
The edges were slightly worn, but not a single rivet was missing.
Benjamin went to where the shield was kept.
He reached out, hooked his fingers around the leather straps on the inside, and lifted the shield. He slipped his arm through the straps and turned his wrist.
The shield cut through the air with a low, heavy sound.
The Legend watched, a complicated look passing across his face.
"You killed Black Noir last night," he said, not sounding like he was asking.
"My son killed him."
"What’s the difference?"
The Legend picked up his martini glass again and sat down on the sofa.
"Edgar called me this morning. Guess what he said?"
"Say it."
"He said you’re starting work at Vought tomorrow. Executive Director of the Supe Affairs Department. Higher authority than even Homelander."
The Legend looked at him over the top of his reading glasses.
"Vought tortured your son and packaged you off to the Russians, and now you’re planning to sit down and have dinner with them?"
"I don’t have that kind of appetite."
Benjamin leaned the shield against the arm of the sofa and began taking off his clothes.
"Good God."
The Legend stared at his body, then paused.
"They used you as a test subject."
"That’s right. A test subject for forty years."
Benjamin put on the inner layer of the Supersuit, moving unhurriedly.
"But that’s not the point. I have something to ask you. Where is Crimson Countess?"
The Legend’s fingers paused on the rim of his martini glass.
"You didn’t come back to catch up. You came back to settle accounts."
"I came back to catch up, and to settle accounts."
Benjamin fastened the chest armor and began buckling the wrist guards.
"Give me the address."
"She’ll run."
"She can’t."
"Even if she does, with Vought after her, how long can she run?"
The Legend fell silent.
Then he set down his glass, picked up a pen from the coffee table, and wrote a few lines on the blank edge of an old magazine page.
"Not everyone at Vought is a bad person."
The Legend handed him the slip of paper and spoke slowly.
Benjamin took the paper, folded it, and put it into the inner pocket of his Supersuit.
He understood what The Legend meant. Then he said,
"I know. You’re not a bad person. Maybe my wimpy son isn’t either. And some of the workers, the low-level employees, some normal Supes...
So I’ll rebuild Vought into something new, not destroy it completely. You should know that I’m a superhero. I’m not a bad guy."
He hung the shield on his left arm and walked toward the apartment door.
Halfway there, he stopped and turned his head toward the old man on the sofa.
"Where’s the gun?"
"What gun?"
"My gun. There’s no way you only kept the clothes."
The Legend stared at him for two seconds, then walked over to a corner piled with cardboard boxes and rummaged around for a while.
First he took out an M1911 pistol, then the iconic eagle-head dagger, along with several other weapons.
He placed them one by one on the coffee table.
"I loaded the bullets myself. They still work," he said. "You owe me four hundred bucks. Ammo expenses."
Benjamin slid the dagger into the hidden sheath on the side of his combat boot, tucked the M1911 into the holster at the back of his belt, and slung the Thompson’s strap over his shoulder.
"I feel like you’re different, Ben."
The Legend stared at Benjamin, his gaze shifting slightly.
"Forty years."
Benjamin straightened.
"A lot of things change."
"Yeah," The Legend murmured to himself. "A lot of things change."
Only, he had not expected Benjamin to care so much about this unfamiliar son.
...
Sunlight slanted in through the dusty window at the end of the apartment hallway, falling across Benjamin’s back.
The shoulder armor of his deep green Supersuit reflected the sunlight with a dull, almost imperceptible sheen.
With his free left hand, he pushed open the apartment building’s front door, and New York’s early autumn wind rushed toward him.
Vought Tower waited for him in the direction of Manhattan. In its conference room, the superheroes were preparing to accept rules unlike any they had ever known.
In the distant suburbs of Pennsylvania, there was also a woman who owed his original body a debt nearly half a century old.
But right now, he was going to Vought to see his son.
As for Crimson Countess, there was no rush.
He had waited forty years.
Another day or two would not matter.
...
The forty-second floor of Vought Tower, The Seven’s main conference room.
Inside the conference room, all six members of The Seven had already arrived. Ashley stood near the wall beside the conference table, listening in.
A-Train sat in a wheelchair.
His knee had almost fully healed, but he insisted on using the wheelchair, claiming that "it makes me look more like a victim."
An exaggerated brace was still strapped to his right foot.
Because of yesterday’s near attempted murder incident, A-Train had been busy with PR these past two days.
But this look also helped draw sympathy from some of his fans.
After all, he had only ended up like this by accident while pursuing a fugitive.
Translucent sat at the other end of the long table, not invisible. He looked a little nervous.
The Deep sat beside him, a glass of water in front of him as usual, his expression even more lost than normal.
He had already heard about Black Noir, but he did not know the details.
All he knew was that after last night, Black Noir’s lounge had been permanently sealed off, and no one had told him why.
Had Black Noir gone to Orlando?
The Deep was not very bright, so he did not understand.
Queen Maeve stood by the window, arms folded as she leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window frame.
There was only one person who could have killed Black Noir...
Queen Maeve thought silently.
What is that lunatic planning now?
Of course... there was another person too, but that person had not been in the company yesterday.
The conference room door opened.
Homelander walked in, his cape stirring a small gust of air behind him.
He smiled faintly as he walked to the head of the long table, but he did not sit. Instead, he stood to the right of the main chair and placed one hand on its back.
"Everyone."
Homelander’s voice was clear. Compared to his usual tone at press conferences, it carried less showmanship and more solemnity.
"Before we begin today’s agenda, I’d like to introduce someone to you."
He turned toward the conference room door and extended his hand.
Everyone’s gaze turned to that door at the same time.
They all knew who was coming.
