Chapter 28: The Goddamn Plane Incident
The little girl looked down at the bill in her hand, then looked up at the blond man before her. The tears in her eyes weren’t even dry yet, but her mouth had already split into a wide, gap-toothed grin.
"Superhero! Mr. Holander, thank you! I love you!"
Holander reached out and pinched her other cheek. "Alright, don’t trip next ti. If you wipe it onto this Soldier Boy’s pants next to , you might get chewed out."
Benjamin’s mouth twitched. "Fuck you."
The little girl turned and ran back to her mother’s side, waving the hundred-dollar bill over her head as she shouted, "Mommy! Mommy, the superhero father and son gave money to buy a triple-scoop ice cream!"
Mia’s mother stood in place, looking at the puddle of cream still dripping down Holander’s pants, then looking at the hundred-dollar bill in her daughter’s hand. Her lips moved slightly. "Mr. Holander... is a truly good superhero," she muttered to herself.
Mia tugged her mother’s hand and looked up. "Mommy! I want to buy a Holander action figure!"
"We’ll buy it, we’ll buy it. We’ll buy the biggest one." Mia’s mother knelt down, pulling a tissue from her bag to wipe the snot and tears from her daughter’s face. Her voice still carried a residual trace of her previous panic, but her lips were already smiling. "Let’s buy a Soldier Boy one too—a father-son set, how about that? We’ll buy the most expensive one!"
"Thank you, Mommy! I love you!"
"I love you too, my good daughter."
The mother and daughter walked around the street corner hand-in-hand, the little girl’s golden pigtails bobbing under the streetlights. Her laughter drifted back from far away, crisp like bells shaken by the evening wind.
Benjamin stood a few paces away, taking everything in. He stepped forward and handed a tissue to Holander. "What the fuck did you an by that just now? I wouldn’t chew out a little girl that small."
"I saw you chewing out Starlight earlier..." Holander took the tissue, lowering his head to wipe the cream off his pants a couple of tis. The more he wiped, the more sared it got, so he finally just gave up.
"Fine." Benjamin shrugged his shoulders. He watched the receding backs of the mother and daughter vanish around the corner, falling silent for a mont. "She has a nice smile. That little girl."
"Yeah."
"I used to find it annoying when I saw kids cry." Holander crumpled the dirty tissue into a ball and threw it into a roadside trash can.
"That’s what’s called fucking growing up." Benjamin turned and strode toward the hobby shop. "Let’s go. Buy four sets. We’ll have spares if we ss up the assembly."
Holander followed, his pace even lighter than before. The streetlights cast the shadows of the two large n onto the late-night New York sidewalk, one in front of the other, occasionally overlapping.
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"Fuck you, Madelyn! You goddamn bitch, you old whore! Fuck, fuck!"
Benjamin kicked open the door to Madelyn’s office with a thunderous crash, the door slab slamming against the wall.
Madelyn was sitting behind her desk holding a coffee cup, so startled by the sudden kick that half the coffee spilled onto the desk. She didn’t even have ti to wipe it; she stood up, her expression shifting from shock to confusion, and from confusion to utter bewildernt.
"Mr. Soldier Boy, what is the aning of this?"
"You still have the fucking nerve to ask what I an?" Benjamin strode over to her desk, planting both hands on the surface and leaning forward. "Why the fuck didn’t you tell that Holander and Maeve went to rescue a hijacked plane?"
Madelyn parted her lips. She looked down at the coffee stain spreading across the desk, then looked back up at Benjamin, her mind racing, yet completely unable to calculate what she had done wrong. "There are only three hijackers on that plane. Holander and Maeve are the two strongest Supes on The Seven. Sending the two of them to handle three hijackers—I don’t see any prob—"
"Of course you fucking don’t!" Benjamin slamd his hand onto the desk. The coffee cup jumped and completely overturned, the deep brown liquid flowing across the desktop and dripping onto the hem of Madelyn’s skirt. She didn’t even dare to wipe it. "You know they’re two Supes! You know they’re the two strongest on The Seven! Did you ever consider that with my dumbass son’s personality, cutting loose inside a cramped airplane is highly likely to get everyone on that plane killed?"
Madelyn froze. The expression on her face shifted from confusion to a total blank. She genuinely began to process this possibility in her mind, and realized that she had never once considered it.
"Then... what do we do?" Madelyn asked. She had a thought—if it really ca to that, she only hoped Holander wouldn’t leave any...
"So hand over the goddamn location right fucking now!" Benjamin straightened up, rapping his knuckles hard against her desk twice. "The real-ti location of that plane over the Atlantic. Now. Hurry up."
Madelyn frantically opened her tablet. She swiped it with her finger, scrolling quickly. A small red dot popped up on the map, moving slowly along an arc.
"Right here. Latitude 38 degrees North, Longitude 71 degrees West, altitude thirty-eight thousand feet. The position is constantly updating."
Benjamin glanced at the coordinates and turned to walk out. Reaching the door, he stopped and threw a backward glance over his shoulder. "Get on the phone with The Deep imdiately."
"The Deep?" Madelyn’s voice carried a trace of uncertainty. "He’s no longer a mber of The Seven..."
"Forget it, I’ll contact him myself." Without looking back, Benjamin slamd the door and left.
In the corridor, Benjamin pulled out his phone as he walked and dialed The Deep’s number. The phone rang several tis before it was picked up, The Deep’s cautious voice coming through the line.
"Sir? I... I’ve already been fired. I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong lately..."
"Shut up and listen to ." Benjamin kept his voice low, his words rapid. "Get your ass over to the Atlantic right now. Coordinate 38 North, 71 West. There’s a hijacked plane. Holander and Maeve are on it."
"Holander? He can handle it himself..."
"He can’t handle it, he might break the fucking plane. You wait down below. If sothing goes wrong with the plane, you’re responsible for saving people. There are over a hundred lives on that flight. If shit hits the fan, Holander can bring the people down to you, so he won’t have to carry them all the way to the coast. Don’t you fucking love the ocean? Don’t you love fucking dolphins? Deploying those goddamn dolphins to rescue people from the Atlantic is right up your alley. If you pull this off well, I might just let you back onto The Seven."
The Deep fell silent on the other end for two seconds. Then his voice shifted, carrying a layer of solemnity it had never possessed before.
"Understood, Mr. Soldier Boy. I’ll head over right away and make sure it’s handled—assuming Holander is willing to bring them down to ."
Benjamin hung up, feeling a bit agitated. He had no idea what would happen by the ti he arrived. Had Holander already fried the plane’s controls? Had he already chosen to abandon everyone? Had he already decided to bury the truth for the sake of his approval ratings? Just yesterday, he had said "that’s what’s called fucking growing up." If Holander pulled this stunt on him today, that so-called growing up would look like a total fucking joke.
Benjamin imdiately sent The Deep a shared link for real-ti coordinate tracking.
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A/N: Next goal: 300 Power Stones = 1 bonus Chapter!
And if you want to read ahead and find out what happens next right away, you can get up to 20 Chapters ahead on my p@tr~on:
/ForgottenDaoist (@ = a, link is in my profile).
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