Chương 64: Firestorm - A-Train

A-Train was bored.

He'd been in a commercial shoot with Starlight when they got the call to rush them both halfway across the state to help out.

Only there wasn't much help they could give as the evacuation was in progress and it was obvious the man in charge didn't like them.

His first instinct had been to leave and let the emergency personnel handle this whole thing but Homelander had told them to wait for him there and he wasn't about to go against Big Blue.

Homelander had certainly changed in the past year but one thing was still crystal clear, insubordination was not tolerated. Some of the rowdier Supes that had mouthed off during the re-training project had already felt the brunt of HL's displeasure.

Not a pretty sight.

Surprisingly no casualties but for some it might as well be the end of their careers, some injuries weren't really recoverable. He'd seen Noir do some nasty stuff to some of them…hell he had to apply some of the accidents himself.

Outside of his own personal fear there was also the fact that Vought and by extension Homelander were creating the potential cure for his brother's paralysis.

An event he wholly blamed himself for.

He knew it was likely a long shot no matter what Homelander or the science nerds said but he still had to have hope, he still needed to make things right for himself, for his brother and most of all for his nephew and niece.

It was how they looked at him now that hurt him the most.

He'd been their hero and now he was less, less than a hero, less than an uncle, less than even a family member. Their excitement to see him was gone, they wouldn't really talk to him they treated him like a stranger like someone to stay away from.

It hurt him more than anything else he'd done so far. He couldn't bear how they looked at him. He had to make things right.

So no slacking off for him.

If Big Blue told him to jump he'd ask how high and if he told him to run he'd only ask where and how fast. And if he told him to drop everything and rush half-way across the state to help he would.

Still with no camera's in sight, a command tent that was obviously annoyed to have to put up with them there, he'd wisely let Starlight deal with that she was captain after all, and not a lot of coordination of where to go and what to do there really wasn't much for him to do.

He was both annoyed and relieved when the other speedsters showed up. Annoyed that he would now have to share the limelight and relieved that he had someone else to talk to.

Shockwave was his friendly rival in the media and he knew the younger man had been the first pick as his replacement on The Seven still he couldn't hold it against him the guy was a 'bro' trying to reach the 'top'.

Racer he knew from when he was young in his career and even looked up to the older speedsters at one time. It was always a pleasure to talk to the mild-mannered man though he was somewhat bland, likely due to his mid-west upbringing and persona.

Blink on the other hand was new.

The kid wasn't with Vought but that didn't stop him from venturing out into super-heroing antics on his own in his native San Diego. A-Train could tell the kid was very excited to be here especially having received a call from Homelander personally.

Why Big Blue called a non-Vought affiliated supe, especially one so young, was beyond him.

Definitely not standard procedure.

The only thing he could think of was that Homelander was trying to recruit the kid but even then there were official avenues and procedures to go through.

Still it wasn't up to him to questions the big guy. He'd leave that to Starlight.

As he listened to Racer and Blink exchange stories A-Train couldn't help but think back to how things had changed in the team.

Working with Starlight had been good for both of them. He'd let her take the lead on the project at first thinking he might be able to skate by with a few appearances but soon enough found out that she drove hard and was on his ass constantly.

She held him to deadlines and hadn't let him slack off. He'd attended every meeting, every storm braining session, met with every vendor, read all the materials no matter how boring they were and put in all the late nights that were required.

Between the projects, his training sessions with Ryan and all his other hero responsibilities he'd had little time to himself and to his family.

He sighed inwardly as he thought it was probably for the best since relations were strained.

Still overall he felt quite proud of all that he'd achieved in the last year. A part of him thought for sure Homelander will take all the credit for the re-training project but surprisingly he'd been very hands off.

Though, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised considering Homelander's space project, Vought responsibilities and raising Ryan.

His thoughts were interrupted by the landing of the big guy himself.