43 Aftermath - Ashley

The small vibration indicating that Ashley pressed the end call button on the screen was accompanied by the closing image of Starlight fading to black.

"Ok, good, good, Starlight is coming over…" she whispered more to herself than anyone else not that there was anyone else in her office.

"This can be salvaged, just need time for counsel to…" she didn't get to finish as her office door opened and her assistant walked in.

"What do you have for me?" She asked expectantly of her mini-self.

Mini-Ashley's face scrunched with hesitation as if she had just taken a sour patch bear.

"Not good, no one's answering. The contacts at DoD are silent and the few lower rung aides that answered all said they had no idea about it but can't reach the Senators now."

Ashley felt anxiety building in her chest again along with a fire of rage.

"AAAARRRRGGHHHH!" She let out a frustrated yell while her hands made to choke a non-existing person making her mini-self shrink back in fear.

"Those fucking assholes! They smell blood and don't want to be caught on the wrong side of this. FUCK!" she yelled.

"This is why you can't trust politicians! They will take Vought's money but when it comes to a little information…" she just shook her head in denial "fucking assholes!"

"Congresswoman Neuman answered she said FBS didn't know about the raid either but she's looking into it." Her assistant tried to reassure her.

"Of course she didn't." Ashley's hands went to cover her face. "Of course, she fucking didn't."

She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down.

"… 'just figure it' out he says 'you're the CEO'" she mumbled to herself remembering the conversation she had with Martin when she pulled him out of the O.R to warn him about the incoming agents.

'I shouldn't have done that' she thought as she started to bite her nails. 'No, it wouldn't have mattered' her consciousness changing course 'Noir was going to be there anyway.'

She'd just reached the top and now it was all close to crashing down around her. Worse it might drag her down as well and end up in prison.

Martin outright said if he goes down he's bringing everyone else with him and then Noir had to go and be a one man fucking army.

'And now no-one is picking up the phone….FUCK!' she thought and bit harder on the nail in her right thumb.

'What would Stan do? Fuck! This never would have happened under Edgar! Fuck! Ok calm yourself, what would he do?' she thought rapidly.

'Ok' she thought and took a deep breath 'he would play to his strengths. He would use his political connections and favors to squash this…but I can't do that because I don't have his contacts…and no one is fucking answering me! '

Her inner frustration realizing only as shaky closed fists on the outside.

'What are my strengths? I don't have the same connections as him.' She shook her head. 'because I spend every fucking waking second crisis managing selfish, egoistic, self-absorbed and incredibly stupid super powered celebrities. Idiots who wouldn't be able to string two sentences tog…" she suddenly stopped, her eyes widening in realization.

"Ashley are you ok?" she heard her assistant ask. "Do you want me to get you anything? Maybe a band aid?" she asked reluctantly. "Your thumb is bleeding."

Her eyes looked down at her hand and saw the tiny red droplet going down her knuckle from the outside side of her nail.

She had ripped off a bit too much skin trying to chew on the dead end.

Her instant reaction was to bring it back to her lips and suck the remaining drip out.

She held it there for a second taking the time to formulate her thoughts.

"We're going live." She said as she removed the appendage from her mouth.

"What?" the Mini-her asked.

"The CIA wants to pull this shady shit in the middle of the night? Let's see how America feels about this." She paused.

"We promised more transparency right? So let's shed some light on what just happened!" She said with conviction.

"So Live on TV?" Mini-Ashley asked. "The studio's a mess I don't think the crew can-"

"Fuck TV." Ashley said.

"Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Tik-Tok." She paused "we'll go live on all of them at the same time." and finished with a smile.

She wasn't Stan but she had her own strengths.

-

Author Note: Here is Annie and some Ashley POV.

I hope the chapter was able to explain some of the going-ons while Homelander was unconscious in the O.R getting fixed up along with the motivations of the two women.

I think this is all I'm going to elaborate on that time period.

In the next chapters I will start the time skips to show the progression of Homelander and Vought.

What steps should Homelander first take to start in the space race and make humanity multi-planetary?

I am also working on my main fic Stumbling Through Godhood. Check it out when you have time, looking forward to hear your thoughts on there as well.

Once again thank you for reading.