"Why, exactly, had every passenger off that flight ended up in military custody instead of just being sent home?"
Stillwell sat with bloodless features when Clark walked into her office. Her jaw was locked. The anger radiating from her was not an act.
"You expect me to believe you couldn't have just carried that plane across the Atlantic and set it down in New York?" she asked.
Clark kept his voice even. "Hundreds of tons of dead weight, thousands of kilometers over open water, and I'm supposed to keep every passenger inside alive the whole way? That is the plan you wanted?"
"I can't manage that," he added. "Maybe somebody else could have."
Their eyes met. Clark understood the root of her anger. She had poured herself into Homelander since the day he signed with Vought. Over the years he had become her most valuable asset, a walking IP goldmine completely loyal to her. With him behind her, there was no question who would take over from Edgar once he stepped down. Stillwell, the Senior Vice President of Hero Management, had numbers and influence that eclipsed everyone else in the building.
Underneath the business logic was something simpler. Homelander was the strongest hero on Earth. She had spent years feeding him the values she wanted him to have, closing the distance between them however she had to. She understood he was not just a celebrity. He was a weapon nobody else could switch off.
If a rival inside Vought looked to cut her out, or if the FBI or CIA decided she had become a liability, they all had to reckon with the fact that Homelander's temper could level Manhattan. The department's testing backed it up. The man could catch a live warhead out of the air and set it down without a scratch. Whether he could hold the line for the whole country was an open question. Whether he was afraid of nuclear weapons was not. He was not.
You don't fight something like that. You manage it. Otherwise, the day it finally went wrong, everyone from the White House down to some general on a base somewhere would be reduced to hiding under their desks right alongside the grunts on the front line.
The sunk cost of raising a superpowered child had been enormous. For years, the returns justified it. She had not planned for the one operation meant to be the crown jewel of her career to turn around and cost her the asset she had built it on.
She knew none of this was Clark's doing. The hijackers had not engineered this to bury Homelander. Superman's presence had allowed her plan to succeed in the broad strokes. It just had not been cheap.
She had nowhere else to point the anger, so she directed it at him.
Best case, the three of them save the flight together and a few bruises along the way don't matter. Worst case, it goes down and nobody makes it out, but nobody ever finds out we were there either. Either way, we're clean, as long as all three of them are gone before the Air Force shows up.
She had never imagined it going this way.
"All hundred and twenty-three of them are sitting with the military right now. Homelander doesn't have a defense left. Some of those idiots even had their phones out. HD, every second of it. High. Definition." She forced the words out.
Her jaw worked. "But the plane is still standing. We did save it. Do you understand what that actually means?"
"It means you have a choice to make," Clark said. "No witnesses, and you could protect Homelander to the grave. It would cost Vought some standing, but it would keep you exactly where you are. Vought is a star-driven business. Control the biggest star on the roster, and Edgar can't touch you."
Her gaze flickered.
"But that is not the situation you are in. You have witnesses. You have footage. That is not something you talk your way around. On top of that, both Maeve and I came out of this with the public turning to us. Your rescue operation went off exactly like it was supposed to."
"I'm not slow like Homelander," Clark went on. "I actually think before I act, which means you can't run me the way you run him. But you already know the vote on putting heroes into the military has better odds now than it did yesterday. There's a real path here for supers in uniform. All it costs you is one decision."
"With Edgar's blessing, you'd be next in line for the presidency. Vought's about to jump a whole tier. The upside is basically limitless. All you have to do is choose it."
Stillwell closed her eyes. Her shoulders drew tight.
That was the core of it. She was not furious that the plan had failed. She was furious that it had come close enough to touch.
And now I have to cut off my own arm to collect the winnings.
There was nothing worse than sunk cost stacked on sunk cost. The original investment was gone, with no way to claw it back. It was the choice a gambler makes at a table they cannot walk away from. Double down again, and hope this hand pays for the others.
If I didn't want this badly enough to risk everything, I wouldn't already be sitting this high up.
"Getting angry at me doesn't fix anything," Clark said. "I did everything that was possible. Got on the plane, gave you advance warning, worked a landing site, kept the passengers breathing. Instead of putting this on me, you might want to sit with why Homelander turned into whatever that was up there."
Stillwell did not answer. She stared at him for a long moment, then waved a hand toward the door.
The next morning, Vought International called a press conference.
"We remain convinced that Homelander's contributions over the course of his career have been real, and his record of heroism speaks for itself."
"That said, it is a fact that Homelander broke the superhero code of conduct during this rescue. Whether that came from a place of fear or guilt, he responded to pressure with threats we cannot and will not defend. Vought International does not condone this kind of behavior under any circumstance."
Under the camera lights, Stillwell's voice held steady. She delivered the words smoothly.
"Homelander will receive exactly the punishment he has earned."