The disappointment in Annie's voice lasted about three seconds.
Which was understandable. Clark could trace the logic of it even from the position of being its object. Superman was the shape people's imagination assigned to the upper limit of what a living being could be. The bearing, the capability, the rightness of existing in a given space. If anything in the physical world was supposed to match humanity's interior architecture of divinity, it was supposed to look like him. If that mapping turned out to be imprecise, if some other entity outperformed him in measurable ways, it registered less as a limitation of the individual and more as a failure of the category itself. Superman is supposed to be the ceiling. If he isn't, the problem is with the ceiling, not with Superman.
But the disappointment resolved quickly. Annie wasn't someone who calculated friendships against ability or status. That much was apparent in the choices she'd made since Clark's arrival, in the way she'd positioned herself at the meeting table, in what she'd said to The Deep with her eyes before she'd said anything else. The disappointment had been about expectation. The warmth was about something different.
"Superman." Her voice had found its footing again. "Thank you. For yesterday."
"Anyone would have stopped it," Clark said. "Someone sees what was happening in that hall and they intervene. That's not heroic conduct, that's minimum conduct. If being part of this organization means I'm expected to override basic decency for the sake of the brand, I'd rather not be part of it."
"Yeah." A pause that carried more weight than simple agreement. "Has Ashley sorted your schedule yet? I looked at the calendar and it seems... like a lot."
"Nothing confirmed yet. They need to finish the ability assessment before they'll slot me into anything external." He paused briefly. "I'm hoping Homelander won't find the delay frustrating."
"Why would he be frustrated?"
"Our ability profiles overlap significantly. The endorsements, the business arrangements. Things that were exclusively his by default before I arrived. I might look like someone who stepped into his lane without being invited."
"He won't see it that way," Annie said. "I ran into him today. He seemed... actually like a real hero. Grounded."
After a few more exchanges, Clark took the initiative to end the call. Smoothly, without telegraphing it. The way you close a call when you know the line may not be entirely your own.
Jude spoke into the earpiece once the audio on his end went quiet.
"Okay. Understood."
No voice came back. Instead, the patch pressed against his skin somewhere beneath the suit pulsed three times. Three faint electrical signals, even and deliberate.
Clark walked out through Vought Tower's main entrance with the expression of a man who had nothing in particular on his mind.
He'd had the briefing memorized since the day Jude had delivered it.
From the moment you're inside Vought and on the team, Clark, you become their most closely monitored asset. A metahuman who appeared without any prior history in their system, at your capability level... they will track everything. Every text message, every call, every movement, every person you meet, every location you enter. Assume the entire signal chain runs through Vought.
That leaves us what, exactly?
More than you'd think.
Jude had held up his phone.
I've modified the software on your device. There's a secondary channel embedded in your lock screen. The trigger is a mistyped password. A normal person fumbles a PIN occasionally. Nobody flags it. But you won't mistype by accident. Your motor control is precise enough that an incorrect entry will always be deliberate. Every time you enter a wrong password, your phone silently opens a connection to me. No thread, no call log, no app activity. Nothing appears on your screen. Even if someone from Vought is standing directly behind you watching you unlock your phone, they'll see a fumbled code and nothing more.
One-way. I listen; I don't respond. Just know that I'm receiving whatever's in your environment.
Clark had smiled. The way he smiled at things that caught him by pleasant surprise.
That's a brilliant idea. It sounds like something from Mission: Impossible. Are you a genius hacker?
Jude had glanced briefly at his phone, some list he maintained, a catalog of some kind, and shrugged.
I think so, yes.
The channel can't stay open around the clock, he'd continued. Battery draw, hardware audits by Vought, and frankly, you have your own life. Being monitored continuously by an ally isn't something a reasonable person should be comfortable with.
Clark's expression had shifted slightly. Something he'd observed in the Dark Multiverse was surfacing. The timeline reconstructions, Batman's operational relationship with the people he worked alongside, the full scope of the ongoing awareness that entailed.
You're thinking about something, Jude said.
In the timelines I observed... Batman maintains fairly comprehensive surveillance of his allies. Locations, movements, activities...
Batman, Jude said, with the flat precision of someone who had considered this question thoroughly and arrived at a firm conclusion, is clinically obsessive, and you should not use him as a behavioral reference point. You are a person. You are allowed to find ongoing surveillance by an ally uncomfortable. You are allowed to object to it. Strongly. Is that understood?
The expression on Clark's face at the time had been that of someone who had technically received the information.
In any case. Jude had produced something from his pocket. A small disk, deep blue, circular, no bigger than a lentil, nearly weightless in the hand. Return channel. Press it to the inside of your suit, somewhere against the skin. Nanobot assembly. The technology is roughly thirty years ahead of current development, so don't lose it.
When I've finished receiving your transmission and need to respond, I signal through this. Vibration only, no sound. One pulse: yes. Two pulses: no. Three pulses: understood. That covers most of what we need to exchange. And if something comes up that genuinely requires you to speak to me in person... come find me. We're supposed to be old friends. It would look strange if we never crossed paths at all.
Clark had held the patch in his palm for a moment.
You've thought about this very carefully, he'd said.
I had some time, Jude had said. Which was true, in the strictest technical sense, though not particularly illuminating as answers went.
After the call ended, Jude ran through the next logical steps.
First: the apartment, get settled. Second: reconnaissance on Butcher tonight, or as near to tonight as the timing allowed.
The Villain Affinity talent was supposed to accelerate trust-building with exactly this kind of person. The type who didn't extend it voluntarily and needed a reason. But Billy Butcher's baseline was set very low and moved slowly, and the current trajectory made it clear he would not be inviting Jude into the fold without some form of external pressure applied first. Jude would need to manufacture a reason. Something that made him useful in a way Butcher couldn't source elsewhere, or made Butcher's position precarious enough that the math changed.
He'd work out the specifics later. For now, the apartment.
He climbed onto Satsuki and let her handle the navigation while he ran contingencies. Fifteen minutes, through neighborhoods that were functional rather than aspirational. The kind of streets where landlords had learned not to ask unnecessary questions, having concluded long ago that the answers were rarely interesting enough to be worth having.
The landlord met him at the door. Middle-aged, the build of a man whose relationship with physical activity had peaked somewhere in his late thirties and been allowed to lapse at a comfortable pace since then. He ran through the key handoff and house rules in the practiced cadence of someone who had delivered the same briefing many times and still considered it worth delivering, and then left.
Jude set his bag down.
He opened the surveillance feed on his phone and, with the same unhurried practicality he brought to most things, began tidying up the room.
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