Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

36

"Are you gonna say something?"

The shapeshifter was being held indefinitely. It was confined to a white room, no windows, something anti-supe as much as it could be. Since it could replicate The Seven's powers, Vought decided to be careful with it. Stan Edgar had ordered Vought security to beat, taunt, wear the shapeshifter emotionally. It didn't work. It was very strong and it didn't seem to fold under pressure. Homelander didn't want anything to do with it, mostly because he would end up killing it out of anger. Nina wasn't hurt when the last shapeshifter attacked, but it seemed like they were following her. He let Vought do its job for a while, but the lack of responses started bothering him. He could easily end that one, but how many would come? What if they came when he was away from Nina? Even if they were never apart, Homelander couldn't live with the uncertainty that someday she could be attacked and fatally wounded. So he tried to take matters into his own hands.

The shapeshifter was in its natural form. A man, possible in his thirties or forties, black hair, mustache, tanned from the sun. His clothes were dirty, as if he lived in poverty. It contrasted with Homelander's red white and blue cape and suit, such a powerful visual. It didn't seem to be intimidated, even when Homelander approached it, with nothing but a terrifyingly angry face. He wanted the creature to feel his power, to crumble and fall to its knees at the mere sight of him. But it didn't work. Sitting on a bench with his wrists restricted, the Supe laughed. It was sort of a response to what Homelander was trying to do. The shapeshifter wanted him to know it wasn't working.

"What would we talk about?", said the creature, in plain English. It had a foreign accent that Homelander couldn't identify. "I have plenty of subjects we could go through."

"Why are you doing all of that?", asked Homelander. He shook his head. "You'll get nothing from destroying the city."

"You look pissed off," said the Supe. "It's enough for me."

"Look-", Homelander pointed angrily at the thing, just to be cut off.

"No, Mr. America. You look," the shapeshifter began, "you look. Don't you think you caused enough destruction to this world? Your selfish actions are the reason many people are suffering right now."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Oh!", exclaimed the creature, feeling a bit angry and offended, "you don't know? Did you forget? All the people you and your friends killed like cockroaches. The way that you snap your fingers and your racist friends come out of the sewers spewing hatred."

"I have no racist friends," he frowned.

"But you have me, right? Remember."

Remember.

As if magic unfolded right before his eyes, the man was now the one he once loved so much, wearing her usual super suit. Seeing her face again felt like a punch in the gut. Ever since her death, everything about her existence, from promotional pictures to footage of interviews and everything she was ever in was discarded. He still kept the bloodied sheet covering her bed the day she died. He had to learn to forgive himself for it, and to forgive her from taking his happiness away from him. He was happy to see her the way she was before the accident, before what they did to her. But her being there was also a reminder of what could have been, it was a reminder that she was gone, and that whoever came back in her form wasn't her. Homelander felt like holding back tears. He couldn't be weak. He just had to remind himself that it wasn't her.

"I'm your perfect Aryan Princess, am I not?", said Stormfront, as if she had risen from the dead during Judgment Day.

"You son of a bitch," Homelander muttered. He was too stunned to say much.

"I miss you dearly," she smiled. It was her, all her, but the smell.

Homelander sighed, "change back."

"Change what back?", she leaned a bit in his direction.

"Change back," he looked away and put his hand over his forehead, closing his eyes.

"I was always like that, honey," she giggled, "always so beautiful like that."

"Change back!", he screamed, staring deep into her eyes, his powerful voice made the bench in which Stormfront was sitting vibrate.

She giggled, "oh, you mean... like this?"

Now the beautiful face of Stormfront was no more, only burnt skin, her third degree burns covering half of her body. It reminded him of that faithful day, the day he lost her. He didn't lose her on that hospital bed as she lay immobile. He lost her when he couldn't protect her from the Boys. It was too realistic, except for the fact that the creature still had all its limbs. But the appearance was the same.

"Why did you leave me to die, love?", Stormfront tilted her head, "You never really loved me, do you?"

Homelander shook his head and closed his eyes once more, refusing to open them. The shaking of his head became frantic, as the creature taunted her with that sweet voice. It was torture. He wasn't okay. He wasn't over it. It hurt. It was way too soon.

"Why don't you give me a kiss?", she asked.

He decided to go, turning around and leaving, which prompted a maniacal laughter from the thing. The memories of the doppelgänger imitating Stillwell came to his head, as a warning. He was clinging onto things that weren't real. Stormfront wasn't real, that one wasn't. Stormfront was dead, she was dead and buried. He never believed in the supernatural or the divine, but she was there talking to him like a ghost of his past, throwing his mistakes over his face. He was in no shape to talk to it again, and it would be worse if he went alone. He walked through the corridors of Vought and everybody could feel he was tense. He went to the only person he could talk to. He didn't want to tell Nina everything, he couldn't. He couldn't just reveal that he knowingly dated a Nazi and that he missed her terribly. But he could be in Nina's arms.

Her arms were the safest place in the world.