𝐃𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐥

8 | A Masochist's Ultimate Fantasy

Ashley's new assistant Ashley stood behind her like a shadow, escorting Ashton to the last-minute meeting she was apparently late to. After Homelander had sent both Ashley's to retrieve Ashton from her hotel room, A-Train, with furrowed brows, fretted about needing to remember so many similar names.

For Homelander however, the tongue twister of names wouldn't be a difficult feat at all. He only ever called Ashton by her hero name and he barely acknowledged the current Ashley, who he practically viewed as his assistant anyway. So why would he ever need to learn the name of her assistant?

The flag clad hero clapped his hands together as the trio returned and Cerebella took her seat. "Great. Now that we're all here, I wanted to tell you that our beloved pal The Deep, is returning to The Seven."

The Deep smiled and thanked Homelander before turning in his chair to speak directly to the team. "It's an honour to be welcomed back. I'm so thankful to have been given a second chance by our fearless leader. Thank you Sir. And Starlight... I only hope that you can look inwards and into your heart to allow me a second chance as well. I know I've done the work on myself, I hope you can too."

Ashton wasnt surprised to hear on the news that The Deep had been accused of sexual assault because when Ashton was at God U, it was a pretty well known fact around the campus that Deep fucked college girls. Whenever his old fraternity threw one of their infamous parties, he would be there without fail.

For the record, and as a reminder, The Deep only attended Godolkin University for a measly 3 weeks before dropping out to join The Seven. Yet to this day, the Sigma Vhi boys clung to their disgusting claim to fame as much as he clung to his 'brothers'.

Ashton, who at the time was a frequent and age-appropriate attendee of said parties, would often point out to their members that 'Vhi' wasn't even a real letter in the Greek alphabet. She had a theory that none of their members were ever smart enough to realise and always tested them whenever she'd meet them for the first time.

For the most part it was a silly game she played with herself to laugh at other peoples stupidity. Though she also treated it as a litmus test into understanding their personalities. How they reacted said a lot about them as a person. Fraternities and sororities symbolically used those specific letters as a way to honour the Ancient Greek principles of leadership, philosophy, scholarship as values.

A.k.a, the whole fucking point.

There was only ever one Sigma Vhi that passed her test, though Ashton didn't know what qualified as someone passing in the first place. She guessed it was anything remotely close to understanding or agreeing with her. It wasn't until spring break in junior year that she found someone who thought the name was equally paradoxical. His answer was all it took for her to say yes to a first date, and continue to date for five and a half years.

Starlight snapped back at The Deep, "I wasn't the one mouth raping people so please, enlighten me with what 'work' you think I should be doing here."

Ashton snapped out of her daydream hearing Starlight raise her voice at him and looked up to watch The Deep's reaction. But nope, nothing. Ashton wasn't surprised to hear that The Deep had joined a cult either during his 'sabbatical' in Ohio. In her eyes, he was basically begging to be indoctrinated no matter where he went. The fraternity, The Seven and The Church of the Collective? The man was desperate to find equally shitty people to justify his actions.

Homelander went to speak to the group and only got out a few words before pressing his fist against his lips. Most in the team looked over to him, except for Maeve who continued looking down at her fingernails out of boredom. She was used to every pathetic play by play in Homelander's book of asserting authority. This was just one of them.