Chapter Text
[WINSTON]
She was being released soon. Winston knew it wouldn’t take too long, after all he did have one of the best legal teams working today – a luxury of being one of the wealthiest people alive. He also knew it wouldn’t take too long before the public found out about this. What he didn’t expect was how quickly people responded physically. The moment the news broke, he could almost feel the stocks in their company drop as if the floor had been whipped out from beneath it. Not enough to do too much damage as the sheer size of it enabled it to keep its footing, but he made a point of noticing the bruises that the fall caused.
Moving was a tender process and he had to be very careful to move in just the right places so as to not cause further damage; ‘like walking on eggshells’ his sister had mentioned many years ago – a lifetime ago when they were just starting out. It fit perfectly now. Every step he took – the company took – was painful. He wasn’t walking on eggshells, he was walking barefoot across the debris his sister had left behind and he refused to look down.
Ahead of him was the future of the company and the future of superheroes across the world; it glowed golden just out of reach, but beneath him lay the grey and lifeless minefield: the wake of the incident on the Everjust. Evelyn set out the ruin the image of supers forever and she thought she had failed. That was the ironic bit, he supposed, because in a way she had, but if he wasn’t careful, he might still yet finish the job for her. She had taken the Deavor name and raked it through the mud. Their stocks had never been lower. All the money he had poured into the program to reinstate superheroes might have well been swallowed up. They had been so close. The phone calls and the meetings and the interest across the globe was getting everyone talking and their stocks climbed and climbed only to drop so far…
Despite what hadn’t seemed like it, people had been injured by the crash of the ship – the Deavor ship – on the coastline and Evelyn Deavor’s face and name graced the front of every newspaper for days – weeks even! She, for all her failings, managed in taking the front headlines away from the signing and away from superheroes, instead highlighting the problems in them before things really got moving. She hadn’t killed the idea, nor his work, but she planted the seed of doubt in the mind of the public. People didn’t like her now, but at least they knew about her and what she was willing to do to get her point across. She already had a small number of sympathisers; he would just have to hope none of them were prepared to act out so violently. He would have to monitor the public very closely and modulate them if he had to – and it would have to be him. In the events leading up to and directly after the crash, he was acutely aware of the number of eyes on him. It had never really affected him before. He lived off the attention of others, the deals, the negotiations; the PR… but this…
“How do feel, Winston?”
“I love my sister. I don’t want her to rot in jail any longer and I want to see her again. I want to talk to her again.”
“But?”
“If I do, the public will see me as sympathising with a terrorist who hurt… many people because of me. We’ll lose even more shareholders. The company will suffer.”
“Your options?”
“I talk to her and care for her despite everyone else and lose stocks and support for the supers and everything I’ve worked for will dematerialise in front of me.”
“Or?”
“Or I push her away and focus on the supers. They and the company will benefit as I will take the company as far away from my sister as possible.” It wasn’t even a balanced argument. He breathed against the glass and studied for a moment the skyline illuminated by a thousand lights in a dark city. His reflection sighed as well and ran a hand through his hair.
“Which will it be Deavor?”
Winston turned around. His office was vacant and shining in perfect polish beneath the mountain of files and books and papers. It was mess. Dicker was standing in the doorway.
“What?” he said.
“Which will it be?" Dicker repeated, "You have a very important decision to make, don’t you think?”
Winston kneaded his hands together, “It’s not really a question” he responded quietly.
“Then you know what you have to do for the betterment of everybody?” There was a long and drawn out pause that hung low and heavy around them. He knew what Dicker wanted to hear from him, but the idea that he should forsake…
“She’s my sister…” he said. Dicker sighed heavily and he waited for the lecture about how he was being selfish and how he needed to put the needs of the many above his own. God did he already know it! But it didn’t come.
“Family is the something none of us should forsake.” Dicker said instead and Winston couldn’t help but blurt out,
“You’re not going to tell me how selfish I’m being?”
The old agent looked at him with a thousand year old eyes, “Have you thought about the consequences?”
“I have.” He had. Carefully. His head swore up and down that the decision he was making would ruin the company – the company his father had founded, but he just couldn’t ignore the ache in his heart. Thinking with emotions, it seemed, ran in the family.
“You will hurt-” Dicker began, but Winston knew what he was going to say.
“The company, I know. It might still recover.” He turned back towards the window, folding his arms behind his back. “I managed to take hold of it when Dad died when no one believed me, or Evelyn could. It’s strong; it will survive.”
“Not the company.”
“The program can’t be stopped now” he argued, trying to validate his decision now it had been made (if a decision had really been available before), “The public loves superheroes even more now that they saved the city. If we continue the way we’re doing being careful not to cause too much damage early on, that support can only grow…”
“You will hurt yourself, Winston.” That he didn’t expect. His hands sagged and he glances sideways at Dicker who hadn’t moved from his position in the doorway.
“I will… either choice I make” he said finally. Bitterly. He would manage. He could deal with the fallout.
Afterall, she was being released soon and time was running out.