Cal’s response comes low and deliberate, the kind of voice built from years of silence and orders barked in bunkers, not boardrooms. There's a rasp to it, gravel smeared in molasses—slow, steady, unbothered. But it cuts straight through the lazy swing of music and the flicker of the old soccer game on the bar’s TV like a blade.
“…You sure this is the place to talk about special cases, John?”
He doesn’t look at him right away. Just steps up to the table, lines the cue, and leans in. There’s a worn-in grace to how he moves—shoulders broad, body built like it was meant to withstand hits that level buildings—but it’s all coiled tight, like a dog taught too many times not to flinch. The way his hand wraps the cue is more muscle memory than leisure.
Crack.
The rack breaks apart in a violent bloom. Two balls drop. The rest scatter and drift like ghosts on the green felt. Cal straightens with a quiet grunt, rolling the cue between calloused fingers. His knuckles are split—one still scabbed over from a fight a few nights ago that didn’t make the news. He never makes the news. That’s the point.
“I get it,” he says, finally. “You like it quiet. Still. Feels like 1983 in here.”
The smirk he gives is more bitter than amused, curling up on one side like it doesn’t belong on his face anymore. There’s a tattoo on his forearm—faded black ink of three snarling heads tangled in barbed wire, half-buried under scar tissue and a long-dead unit designation. A relic from a time when he wasn’t Cal. When he was just a file number and a leash.
“You never just give me something, John.”
He finally turns to look at him. That stare is old. Not just tired—old. Like he’s carried lifetimes under his skin and still hasn’t figured out how to drop them. His eyes don’t glow. They don’t need to. They weigh.
“You want something from me.”
He starts pacing the table, a slow, circling drift like a wolf in thought. One of the old men at the bar watches him for a second too long and then goes back to his drink like instinct told him not to make eye contact.
Cal was part of the early black ops cleanup—when Vought was still trying to see if they could manufacture gods in meat suits and drop them behind enemy lines without starting a war or a news cycle. They couldn’t. Not without blood. Not without lies. He was made for control, then rebranded when he didn’t break quite right. Now he works where cameras don’t go, for people who pretend they don’t know his name.
The leash is invisible now, but he still feels it. Especially when Vought calls.
“And let’s not pretend this isn’t about them,” he adds, tone cooling. “You come to me with something worth looking at, and you don’t want me asking where you got it? Then you already know I’ve got reason not to trust you. Or whoever’s signing the check behind your smug face.”
He stops across from Homelander and leans the cue against the floor with a gentle clack.
“So let’s not dance.”
A flicker of a grin—more teeth than charm.
“I’ll bite.”
He tilts his head slowly.
“But what’s the catch on this ‘thing worth looking at’? And why the hell does it feel like you’re feeding me scraps off a plate Vought doesn’t want to admit exists?”
