Running from Himself 3 (Patreon)

It was said that Madelyn Stillwell was an ice cold bitch. 

Her office was definitely worthy of that much.

Not just the temperature, though that AC was definitely cranked up to "freeze your ass off" levels. Nah, it was just the whole vibe. 

Floor-to-ceiling windows showed off New York like she owned the whole damn city, along with an officeful of furniture combined that probably cost more than most people's cars, and to top it off, the woman herself was standing with her back to him like she was posing for some corporate villain magazine shoot.

Reggie kept his hands loose at his sides, fighting the urge to bounce on his feet. A-Train's body wanted to move, always wanted to move, but he wasn’t exactly willing to give into the impulses and instincts that came with it. That felt like a slippery slope.

It was already bad enough that the only thing he had to wear was the guy’s costume. He didn’t feel like pushing it any further.

So, he just stood there and waited as Madelyn Stillwell kept him waiting from the moment he walked in here. Let her talk first. Just let her think you're an idiot. It's safer.

Fifteen minutes of silence was a lot of waiting, though.

He'd been counting without meaning to, medical residency training kicking in with that automatic time-keeping doctors got used to doing during procedures. Except this wasn't surgery, this was... whatever the hell this was supposed to be.

Stillwell finally turned around, the woman in a black sweater and matching skirt like she was on her way to a funeral. Mine, probably. And Reggie nearly flinched because damn, the tight not-scowl on her face looked like she was about to murder someone. 

Slowly. After making them fill out the paperwork first.

"Explain yourself."

Her voice came out barely above a whisper, which somehow made it worse than if she'd been screaming. Reggie's throat felt dry as sandpaper, but he kept his breathing steady. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Same technique he'd used during his first code blue.

"I did what was right." Don't let her see you shake. You're not him. You don't have to be.

That laugh that came out of her mouth wasn't anything close to funny. No, it was a sharp, ugly thing that made his shoulders want to crawl up to his ears.

"Right?"

Now she was moving, heels clicking on that marble floor in a rhythm that felt calculated to get under your skin. The woman slowly circled him like he was prey, and as frozen as he felt under her gaze, maybe he was. The perfume hit him when she took another step too close; something floral and expensive that made his chest feel tight. 

"You of all people?” The blond woman almost spat the last syllable, lips curled into a tight sneer. “What would a junkie whose heart gave out from too much blue know about what's right?"

Okay, that one stung a little. But it wasn't his addiction, wasn't his heart that seized up on some random weekday afternoon. A-Train's body, A-Train's mistakes, A-Train's highlight reel of bad decisions. 

Reggie just inherited the mess.

"Tell me, Reggie,” the blond woman folded her arms across her chest as she stared him down with ice-cold eyes, “when in your entire, thoroughly documented baller life have you ever done what is 'right' over what is easy? Be honest, do you think it was 'right' when you leaked those photos of Shockwave to sabotage his energy drink deal? Or was it 'right' when you demanded we fire your last three assistants because your friends slept with them and you didn't want 'weird energy'?"

The words bounced off him weird, like one of those small hard superballs that could ricochet for a while. It felt like she was talking about some dude he'd seen on TV once, but at the same time, he still felt the hit a bit, from somewhere deep. That’s not me. It wasn’t and he wasn’t going to let her mess with his head for other stuff he couldn’t remember and never saw. 

Don't take the bait. It's not your life. It's not your file." I don't know what you're talkin' about. I don't remember that."

And he didn't. For whatever reason, he'd only gotten pieces of A-Train's life when he woke up in this body. A-Train's memories were scattered fragments anyway; flashes of wind and cameras and pressure he couldn't quite place. And honestly? He was grateful for the gaps. From what he'd seen so far, the dude was a mess.

She stopped right in front of him, close enough that her perfume made his nose itch. Personal space violation 101, the kind of power play they probably taught in Evil Executive school. His body wanted to step back, put some distance between them, but he held his ground. 

Barely.

"Oh, of course, you and your amnesia." The way she said it made the word sound dirty. "How convenient. Cracked your head open trying to sneak off with almost twenty vials of V, now you can't answer for anything."

Almost twenty? The number sat weird in his head as flickers of A-Train's last coherent moments kept hitting him in pieces; running, that red bag bouncing against his shoulder, vials clinking together with that expensive glass sound. I could have sworn... no, it was twenty-one.

Right?

The memory felt slippery, incomplete. Like trying to remember a dream while brushing your teeth. These fragments of A-Train's life were all broken anyway, pieces of a puzzle he didn't want to solve. Honestly, these last couple days, he was glad for the gaps.

Reggie shook his head, forcing himself back to the woman who looked ready to feed him to sharks.. "I almost died. I killed a girl. Something had to change."

"Something did change." Stillwell's tone shifted in a way he didn’t like, voice all sickly sweet like poisoned honey. "You just vaporized nine billion dollars in market capitalization in ninety seconds. You turned a containable, forgettable tragedy into a global referendum on our competence. You handed every single bitch in a pantsuit in this building the fucking rope to hang me with." Her voice got quieter, somehow worse than screaming. "And you have the gall to stand there and talk to me about 'right'?"

Nine billion. The number bounced around his skull without landing anywhere that made close to sense. He couldn’t even picture that and he knew A-Train definitely couldn’t, and the guy already had fuck-you money. 

Stillwell pulled back from him, her face shifting from hot rage to something colder as her heels clik-clik-clicked back to her desk. She stopped by the side of it, one hand resting on the glass surface, as she looked back at him the way she’d look at a stain on her shoe. 

"I just spent an hour on a conference call with the board,” she half-hissed. “An entire hour, Reggie. And that’s with Mr. Edgar in attendance. Some of them wanted to know if you were a co-conspirator. If you were trying to blackmail the company. If you were working with a competitor. They wanted to know if you had, and I quote, 'gone rogue'."

He shook his head. "I just told the truth."

The look she gave him could have frozen blood. Like he'd just started speaking in tongues in somewhere that definitely wasn’t a Baptist church. "'Truth'? Truth is a product, Reggie. A narrative we shape and sell. And you just walked out on stage and took a steaming shit all over one-seventh of our best-seller. Christian focus groups are calling you a 'moral failure.' Sales of your energy drink have cratered so bad people aren't even buying them to pour out for views. I have senators on our payroll two days ago threatening congressional hearings."

She paused, the woman taking in a deep breath with her eyes closed. 

"And Homelander... Homelander is... curious. He wants to know why one of his teammates would be so foolish. He suggested a... 'performance review'."

Ice water hit his veins, fight-or-flight response kicking in hard as cold sweat dripped between his shoulder blades. Performance review. Right. That was corporate speak for "we're going to laser you into component atoms." He'd seen enough of the show to know exactly what Homelander's performance reviews looked like.

She would do it. She would actually do it.

"But your little public confession has made you a martyr to every bleeding heart in the country, liberal and conservative.” Stillwell sighed. Actually sighed. “We can't just do the easy thing and make you disappear. So, for now, you will go to your apartment. You will pack your shit. Your access to this tower and all Vought facilities will be revoked by end of day tomorrow. We will handle the legal fallout, which you have made infinitely more complicated. And you will be leaving the Seven, effective immediately."

Fired. From a job he never wanted, wearing a cheap plasticky costume he didn’t like, representing a company that made his skin crawl. He should have felt relieved.

Mostly, he just felt tired.

But there was something else there, some tiny part of him that saw an opening. One small chance to land a hit back.

"Didn't I say that already?"

Stillwell's eyes flashed, but her voice stayed level as she pointed one perfectly manicured finger toward the door.

"Get. Out."

He turned and walked out, not trusting himself to say anything else. The heavy office door clicked shut behind him with that expensive, final sound rich people's doors made when they wanted you to know you'd been dismissed.

CRASH.

Crystal hit the wall and shattered loud, probably that untouched water glass she had on her table. Good. Reggie allowed himself a little bit of a smile. Let her throw her little tantrum. He'd already burned the whole place down anyway.

The hallways up here were pristine in that corporate way that made you feel dirty just for breathing the air. Ninety-second floor, where all the real decisions got made and all the real money changed hands. His footsteps echoed against marble that probably cost more per square foot than most people made in a month.

Queen Maeve rounded the corner ahead, moving with that superhero stride that looked casual but covered ground fast. Heading straight for Stillwell's office, probably to do damage control or get her own marching orders. On instinct, Reggie gave a small nod.

"Hey, Maeve."

She didn't even slow down. Her gaze stayed fixed on Stillwell's door like he was a piece of furniture she was walking around as her voice came out flat, cold, final.

"Don't talk to me."

Okay. Message received. Loud and clear.

The hallway filled with whispers as he passed the executive suites. Sharp suits and sharper smiles, all of them suddenly very interested in their phones or the carpet or anything that wasn't him. Phone calls getting made behind his back, probably. 

“He's walking past right now…” “yes, that A-Train…” “I know, right?”

Radioactive. That's what he was now.

The private elevator for the Seven stood open, all gold-plated and pretentious. He stepped inside and hit the button for ninety-nine, watching the number light up in that soft corporate glow. 

As the doors slid shut, his reflection stared back from the polished gold surface.

A-Train's face. A-Train's super-strong, super-fast body. But the expression looking back was pure exhaustion mixed with the kind of fear that sat in your chest and made everything feel hollow. Okay. Okay, you're alive. Step one complete. But now what? They’re not just going to let you walk away. Not after that.

The elevator climbed, and for just a second, that weird hum hit him again. Deep in his bones, that clean energy that felt nothing like the dirty buzz A-Train's memories carried. Gone before he could really feel it, but it left this warm spot right behind his ribs. Huh.

Ding. Ninety-ninth floor.

Reggie walked out and down the hall until he stopped right at signplate by the door that read "A-TRAIN" in that sleek corporate font. His apartment. Or rather, A-Train's corporate showcase masquerading as a place to live.

The space hit him wrong the second he stepped inside.

Vast, cold, flashy, but impersonal. 

Two-story windows showing off New York like a screensaver, floors and walls in gleaming white and blue arranged in some pattern that worked his logo into the design in a way A-Train probably thought was real subtle. It even had a floating staircase leading up to a bedroom loft, everything in corporate-approved blue and white with chrome accents.

It wasn't a home. It was a brand statement.

But it was quiet. First real quiet he'd had all day, and his shoulders dropped without him meaning to let them. Maybe he had a few hours. Maybe he could figure something out. Maybe...

A-Train froze.

Sitting in some ridiculously angular designer chair, facing the door like they'd been waiting for him, was a figure he didn't recognize.

"The hell is wrong with you?"