Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Life in Des Moines, Iowa, was the quintessential American sedative. It was mundane, peaceful, and flavored with a kind of aggressive safety. The place was a meticulous landscape designed for those who viewed not much to accomplish as a comfortable life goal rather than a prison sentence. 

That was the trajectory Annie January was meant to follow, a slow fade into the local scenery; until she was handed a “gift” at birth. Or at least, that was the gospel according to Donna.

​While Annie was still a mere blueprint in the womb, Vought International came along like a door-to-door salvation salesman. They had spent seventy-five years showcasing their proof of concept, parading a glamorous pantheon of Earth's gods as a convenient distraction for the masses. 

They promised Donna and her husband a glittering hallucination of a future for their unborn child. It was a dream that looked particularly appetizing to a woman who had spent her youth drowning in the grease and lukewarm coffee of a diner, her hands permanently smelling of cheap dish soap and a clawing desperation for a better life.

​The realization that superheroes were not birthed from the womb, but brewed in a lab, was a brief, cold shock. Yet, the revelation that divinity came in a vial was quickly smoothed over by the intoxicating scent of a tax-free future. 

So, despite the clinical horror of the truth, that their daughter would be injected with a confidential cocktail of a radioactive blue hued chemistry designed to rewrite her DNA into something profitable, the excitement eventually won out. Donna and Annie’s father were sold almost on the spot. The next step was simply awaiting the birth. 

Seven hours after her first breath, Annie January was wheeled into a Vought supervised NICU. And while the rest of the world slept in blissful ignorance of pharmaceutical divinity, a technician in a lab coat pumped the neon blue of Compound V into her spinal fluid. 

As Vought’s legal team had promised over a mountain of NDAs, the results weren't always immediate. The miracle usually simmered in the blood until the fires of puberty stoked the engine. So, the Januarys waited, transforming their domestic life into a high-pressure greenhouse of sanctimony. They rebuilt their household on a foundation of Higher Purpose, a term Donna used to describe Annie’s destiny whenever the bills came due.

Annie was entirely raised in an environment where the air was always dense with the scent of floor wax and forced piety, her childhood grounded by the rigid mechanics of evangelical conditioning. She was told she was a vessel, a gift, an instrument of the Lord; though the Lord’s trademark was conspicuously owned by a corporation with a soaring stock price. 

She spent her nights praying for the strength to uphold virtues she didn’t yet understand, waiting with an ache in her chest for the day her body would finally catch up to the marketing.

The gift finally arrived during Annie’s sixth birthday party, precisely as she drew a breath to extinguish her candles. It wasn’t the circuit board that failed, though the sudden, deafening plunge into darkness suggested a mundane overload. Then in the void of the living room, Annie ignited. 

Her palms and eyes flared with a predatory, golden brilliance; not a holy light, but a hungry one. She became a biological vacuum, dragging every watt of electricity from the grid and venting it back out in crude, unfiltered sonic booms of radiance. The discharge didn't just blow the windows, it scorched the retinas of thirteen guests, including her own father, whose last sight on this earth was his daughter’s silhouette framed in a blinding, violent halo.

That split second of uncontrolled power became the catalyst for a lifetime of practiced repentance. For Annie, her abilities weren't a blessing; they were a debt that could never be repaid, a stain she tried to scrub out with constant, agonizing self-control. 

Her parents, to their credit, never complained. They remained chillingly supportive, their love morphing into a suffocating brand of guidance that ensured she stayed on the path toward Vought’s waiting arms. 

But the weight of a miracle was heavy, and some spines are more brittle than others. When Annie was nine, she walked into the kitchen to find her father suspended from the ceiling, a lifeless pendulum in the morning light. According to Donna, he hadn’t left a note; apparently, some regrets were too loud for paper.

Annie retreated into a monastic silence following the funeral, weathering a year where the environment in their house felt thin and recycled. Donna’s attempts to cheer her up were less about maternal comfort and more about frantic maintenance on a dented investment. Annie couldn't reconcile the God of her mother’s Sunday school lessons with the man who had preferred a noose to her company. 

The guilt was a physical weight, a phantom limb that ached with the memory of the light she’d used to render her father's life pointless. She convinced herself that a blind man had simply lost his way in the dark she created, leaving Donna to navigate the wreckage of a single-motherhood Annie had authored.

But Donna January didn't believe in wallowing; she believed in the grind. While Annie stared at the ceiling, Donna was elbow deep in the trade secrets of the superhero industrial complex, mapping out a tactical ascent into Vought’s stratosphere. 

The ultimate prize was The Seven, the elite, multi-billion dollar pantheon that sat at the apex of the food chain. In an era before the instant gratification of the internet, fame was a slow-bleed process of local pageants and regional circuits. You didn’t just become a god, you had to audition for the role in middle-American community centers.

Eventually, Donna’s relentless optimism wore Annie down. She pitched the annual Power Fest in Kansas not as a greedy spectacle, but as an altar. She weaponized Annie’s grief, weaving a narrative where every plastic trophy and Little Miss Miracle sash was a tribute to her father’s memory, a way to honor the man she’d blinded by becoming the beacon he could no longer see. It was a masterful stroke of emotional redirection, and it worked.

Thus began the meticulously choreographed life of Annie January. She was branded as an angelic, corn-fed vessel of Christian virtue, a sweetheart persona that fit her as tightly as a corset. Starlight. 

With her golden curls and a smile that seemed to radiate genuine, unearned hope, she became the darling of the Capes For Christ and the annual Believe Expo demographic. She was a prodigy of the prayer-breakfast circuit, possessing a terrifyingly precocious wisdom that played well to crowds hungry for a savior. 

Donna drove her across the heartland in a battered Honda Civic, the car’s tires balding as they chased the horizon from one talent show to the next, burning through rubber and childhood in equal measure.

But none of the frantic, forced blending of evangelical fervor and show-business glitter offered Annie a moment’s peace. She moved through a world of synthetic smiles and sequins, making a few shallow friendships that felt as disposable as the pageant sashes she collected. In the quiet gaps between sets, she’d retreat to the stained bathroom stalls, sobbing until her eyes burned and a dull, rhythmic ache threatened to split her skull. 

The costumes Donna meticulously tailored were beautiful to the eye, but the boning dug into Annie’s ribs until her muscles screamed. Whenever she whimpered, Donna was there with a sharp pat and a platitude: “pain is just fear leaving our body, Annie”. 

It was a hollow mantra for a girl who wasn't fueled by aspiration, but by the crushing weight of a debt she’d been told she owed to her community, her mother, and the ghost of the man who hadn’t waited for her to grow up.

Then came 2007—the year the trajectory of her life shifted from a slow climb to a vertical ascent. It happened in Pennsylvania, during a Capes for Christ convention that felt like any other, right up until the point the auditorium erupted. Mid-way through a scripted morality play, the venue was shattered by the staccato tune of gunfire. Radical anti-Vought protestors, desperate and furious, turned the safe space into a slaughterhouse. The screams and the smell of cordite filled the space, and three children had died.

But Annie’s luck was of a different, more cinematic breed. Out of the smoke and the wreckage emerged the impossible: a primary colored god in a star-spangled cape. It was Homelander, the apex, the leader of the Seven, the man whose face was a literal currency. 

He didn't just neutralize the shooters with a hilarious casual efficiency, he also lingered, playing the part of the grieving protector for the rolling news cameras. He allowed Donna to capture a photo, a masterclass in PR, featuring Annie propped in his ripped, invincible arm, a tiny bandage on her forehead acting as a badge of survival. They both flashed thumbs-ups and wide grins at the lens, perfectly framed for the evening edition.

Before he ascended back to the heavens, leaving the ordinary cleanup to the mortals, Homelander signed a flurry of autographs. For Annie, he left a personalized poster, the ink scrawled with a looping, performative kindness. On the back, he’d written:

“You will do great things in life, Annie. You are the real hero! - Homelander”

It was a benediction from the highest power in the land, a holy relic for both Donna and Annie. 

That encounter became the holy spark that ignited Annie’s trajectory, transforming a grieving girl into a high velocity projectile aimed straight at the sun. It wasn't just about bettering herself anymore, it was about becoming a brand, the face of national comfort, a blonde-haired, brown-eyed sedative for a nervous country. The hero. From that moment on, Annie was the one dragging Donna to the car, her eyes fixed on the next stage, the next podium, the next camera lens.

​The remaining years of her adolescence were a blur of ruthlessly efficient combat of pageantry. It was a dizzying rotation of hyper-religious Bible camps, choreographed dance contests, and talent circuits that functioned more like glamorous gladiator pits. 

Annie didn’t just want to win, she wanted to dominate, to embody the lethal perfection she had felt in Homelander’s grip. Under Donna’s tutelage, she became a surgical practitioner of social sabotage, whispering poisoned rumors about her rivals until they were disqualified or broken. She bullied the girls who lacked her light-bending pedigree with a serene, Christian smile, knowing they never stood a chance against Vought’s preferred aesthetic. 

Winning wasn’t just a vanity for Annie. It was the essential groundwork for her ascension to the Seven. Annie weaponized Donna's advice, becoming a high-school predator; cruel, cunning, and perfectly marketed.

​In the halls of her high school, Annie moved like a celebrity. She was the girl who had been held by a god, and she used that photograph like a royal decree to bypass the social hierarchy. Her bedroom was a shrine, a temple papered with the faces of the Seven. Homelander’s towering silhouette occupied the center, his gaze following her as she navigated the digital frontier of the early internet. 

Under a pseudonym, she ran fan forums and penned elaborate fictions, weaving herself into the myths of the people she intended to work with, and their dreamy romantic lives. Especially Queen Maeve and Homelander’s, who were publicly in a relationship at the time. 

​She was a scholar of their manufactured lives. She nursed a quiet, simmering celebrity crush on Queen Maeve, practicing the Supe’s cinematic snarl and world-weary monologues in front of her vanity mirror. She swooned over Lamplighter’s pyrotechnic bravado and laughed at the scripted, wholesome quips of The Deep and A-Train in their Vought produced rom-coms. Like every other teenager in America, her world revolved around the Seven, but with one crucial difference: for everyone else, they were stars. For Annie, they were a seating chart too. 

By the time she reached her senior year, Annie had outgrown the Little Miss Miracle sashes and graduated to the title of the ‘Defender of Des Moines.’ It was a local brand, small potatoes by Vought’s coastal standards, but in the cornfields of Iowa, she was a neon goddess. She eventually traded the solo pageant circuit for the Young Americans, a state-sponsored ensemble of teenage supes who specialized in aggressive patriotism and selling traditional values to kids who didn’t know any better. 

It was there she met Drummer Boy. They were a match made in a marketing department's heaven: the star-spangled Hispanic boy next door and the radiant blonde virgin. They started dating shortly after Annie’s eighteenth birthday, and Iowa swooned. They represented everything wholesome, hopeful, and fundamentally marketable about the American dream.

Over the next five years, Annie’s local stardom reached a fever pitch. Her face became a permanent fixture on regional news cycles and local broadsides, a recurring character in the daily drama of Des Moines crime-fighting and charity work. She was the gold standard of her generation, a tactical asset with a Sunday school smile. 

Annie eventually drifted away from the Young Americans during a stint at a community college, a strategic pivot designed to sharpen her skills for the Vought big leagues. She spent her nights in high intensity training, refining the light-bending violence of her gifts until she could control her powers with laser precision, rather than the chaotic flashbang.

By the time she walked across the graduation stage, the universe, or more accurately, the Vought PR machine, conspired in her favor once again.

The rumors began as a leak and ended as an anthem: Lamplighter was retiring from the Seven. 

The news triggered a nationwide feeding frenzy as Vought announced a televised audition process to fill the vacant throne. For Donna and Annie, the realization that the "Golden Ticket" was finally being called in, hit them like a thunderbolt.

At twenty-three, Annie was no longer a child prodigy; she was a finely tuned weapon of mass appeal. She was powerful, she was disciplined, and she was still tethered to Drummer Boy; now rebranded as ‘Supersonic’; providing the perfect stable relationship optics for the cameras. She was ready to step out of the cornfields and into the pantheon, eager to finally stand shoulder to shoulder with the heroes who had wallpapered her childhood.

When the recruitment circus finally rolled into Des Moines, Annie didn't just audition, she performed an exorcism of her small-town roots. She left the entire room drowned in blinding light for a few terrifying seconds. 

A misfortunate junior technician had been caught in the crossfire of her radiance, but Vought’s legal team smoothed over the incident with professional indifference. Accidents were the fine print of divinity. 

Compared to the other participants, one of whom had accidentally liquefied a sound engineer's internal organs; Annie’s blinding flash was practically a professional courtesy. In the world of the gifted, collateral damage was just a messy synonym for potential.

Followed next a clinical Vought intake process: a marathon of dope tests and deep-tissue blood panels designed to ensure her chemistry was as pure as her PR. Then came the month-long silence, a static filled void where time seemed to slow for both the mother and the daughter. 

It ended on a Tuesday, a dull, eventless morning that was promptly disrupted by the call.

The Defender of Des Moines had been summoned to the coop. Annie January had been drafted into the Seven.

The itinerary was a speedy ascent into a fever dream. First, a televised induction at the Seven Tower in New York, the glass and steel needle that pierced the heart of Manhattan. But the true prize lay a week beyond: the Seven Station. 

Annie’s scheduled arrival coincided with the start of the weekly "Rotation," the working rhythm of the elite. One week was spent on the ground, performing for the cameras and the shareholders in the Tower; the next was spent in the cold, majestic isolation of the orbital headquarters, a space station. 

Floating two hundred miles above the terrestrial muck, the Station was a gargantuan ring of industrial steel and shimmering solar wings. It was a private Olympus for the chemically sanctified. 

For a girl who had spent her life staring at posters of the stars, the reality of being sealed in a pressurized titanium tube with her idols was almost enough to make her realize yet again how much the Lord loved her, backed her. She was finally going up, leaving the gravity of Des Moines behind for the weightless, lethal vacuum of the big leagues.

This was the moment the years of grit, the whispered scandals, the strict diets, and the lost time of her childhood had all been leading toward. Annie’s life had finally aligned with the glossy brochures. She had spent every waking hour of the past twelve years of her life orbiting the idea of them, the gods in the Tower.

And now, she wasn't just a girl from Iowa anymore; she was a new addition to the pinnacle of power and justice.

Annie's faith, at this point, was like a high-octane fuel. She was convinced, with the bone deep certainty of the chosen, that her Lord had a specific purpose for her. She was a vessel of privilege, a girl born with a gift, and the debt she owed to the masses was finally ready for collection. The prophecy was to come true at long last. 

——

Present Day

The upper floors of the Seven Tower were a masterclass in architectural ego, polished to such a high, aggressive sheen that the floor reflected Annie’s image like a clear mirror. She walked in a daze of lingering adrenaline alongside the Deep from The Seven, the man Vought had cast as her official welcome wagon to the world.

They had just ascended from the cavernous gut of the building, floors three through five, a space specifically designed to house the kind of spectacle Annie had previously only imagined in her fanfictions. The launch had been a televised liturgy; millions of viewers across the Republic had tuned in to see the new member of The Seven, while hundreds of the lucky elite had sat in the pews of the auditorium to witness the coronation in person. 

Madelyn Stillwell had been a titan of corporate grace onstage, a sharp, noticeable contrast to the frantic, sweating energy of Ashley Barrett backstage; a woman whose entire existence seemed to be a desperate prayer that the Seven’s schedule wouldn't deviate by a single, catastrophic second.

The event had been a glorious, high-definition hallucination. Annie had stood at the center of it, drinking in the synthetic adoration of the masses, finally tasting the nectar she had spent twelve years salivating for. It felt like the arrival she had been promised.

Now, in the post show vacuum, the silence between her and the Deep felt heavy and tentative. He led her through hallways that were an intricate, nauseating contrast of bone-white marble and black obsidian, gold leaf tracing every vein in the stone. The architecture was obsessed with itself; the Vought monogram and the Seven’s iconography were woven into the very textures of the walls like a designer virus. Every few yards, the hallway offered up a ledge housing the golden busts of the team; frozen, metallic stares that followed her progress.

Annie found it impossible to look away from the sheer, expensive density of the detail. It was a cathedral built for living gods. 

Beside her, the Deep moved with a relaxed, proprietary grace, occasionally casting her a polite, practiced smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. The look was cryptic in the sort of way a veteran predator gives a fresh shipment of livestock.

Realizing she had drifted into a prolonged, monastic silence, her senses overstimulated by the sheer, expensive vastness of the interior, Annie felt a heat creep into her cheeks. It wasn't just the architecture, it was the proximity. Walking side by side with the Deep felt like stepping into a living movie poster.

"I still can’t quite wrap my head around it. That I’m actually... here," Annie finally said, her voice small against the vaulted ceilings. She flashed him a wider, unpracticed grin, her eyes brimming with the kind of raw, kinetic excitement Vought usually had to script.

"Yeah, no... I get it. The vertigo takes a minute to fade," the Deep replied with a slow, easy nod. He kept his hands loose at his sides, projecting the casual energy. "But look, it’s no surprise to the rest of us that you made the cut. Your performance during the trials? Remarkable. Real top-tier stuff."

He offered a casual shrug as they drifted to a halt before a massive, floor to ceiling mural. It was a cinematic relief carved directly into the ebony wall: the Seven frozen in a pose of coordinated, god-like defiance. 

Annie’s breath caught in her throat in an instant, her gaze traveling up the carved muscles and capes of her idols. "Oh—wow," she murmured, a soft, endearing gasp escaping her as she stood in the shadow of the stone giants.

The Deep watched her reaction with an indulgent expression, his face a mask of friendly, professional warmth. He stepped toward a sleek biometric scanner embedded in the wall, the red laser tracing the lines of his palm with a clinical hum. 

With a soft, hydraulic whir, the heavy doors opposite the mural began to part, granting them entry into the inner sanctum: the Conference Room of the Seven.

Annie stepped inside, her mouth parted in a permanent state of wonder. The hall was immense, a cathedral of data and granite. Gleaming marble stretched toward walls lined with intricate, dark paneling, while one entire side of the room was dominated by a colossal array of monitors. The screens pulsed with the heartbeat of the empire, real-time analytics, scrolling news feeds, and live crime surveillance grids flickering like a thousand unblinking eyes.

"Wow," she breathed again, a small, breathless laugh escaping her.

The Deep chuckled, a low, patronizing sound that vibrated in his throat. “Pretty slick, right?” he said, sauntering past her into the cavernous gloom of the room. “So—you going to miss the cornfields? Is there a ‘someone special’ waiting back home for a signed glossy?”

A fresh wave of heat climbed Annie’s neck. She offered a coy, lopsided smile, her eyes still wide with a naive optimism that Vought usually drooled over. 

“Yes,” she admitted, her voice hitching with a girl next door charm. “Drummer Boy, from the Young Americans. Actually—” she corrected herself with a self-important little nod, “he’s rebranded. Goes by Supersonic now. We actually met at Capes for Christ, in one of the Junior Ministries.”

The Deep kept nodding, a rhythmic, empty gesture. He didn't bother interrupting her; her backstory was just white noise to him.

The conference table dominated the space, a heavy, aggressive fusion of the letter V and the number 7, a slab of industrial arrogance polished to a black-mirror finish. A battery of overhead spotlights pinned the table in a harsh, theatrical glare, leaving the rest of the massive chamber to drown in predatory shadows. 

The Deep eventually gestured toward the seats of the Seven with an owned pride, but Annie was still too busy navigating her own romantic highlight reel to catch the shift in the atmosphere.

“We didn’t want to ruin the relationship by rushing, you know? We’re waiting—” She cut herself off, her breath dying in her throat as her gaze snagged on a specific chair.

It was his. Homelander’s.

A soft, nervous laugh escaped her, the sound of realizing she wasn’t dreaming anymore. She pointed toward it, her finger trembling with a mixture of religious fervor and sheer, unadulterated awe. 

“That’s his, isn’t it?” she asked, her voice hushed. To her, that leather and steel wasn't just furniture, it was a physical manifestation of ultimate authority, heroism, and a brand of divine justice.

To the Deep, though, it was just a place to park an ass. He stood beside the head of the backrest, his arm draped casually over the frame as if it were a barstool. His expression remained light, a mask of harmless, collegial charm.

“Homelander’s? Yeah, that’s the big man’s seat,” he confirmed, his tone as flat as if he were describing what he’d had for breakfast. The myth meant nothing to him; he’d seen the god too many times for reverence. “But you’ll have your own seat soon enough,” he added, his grin widening as he pulled the chair out with a practiced, greasy chivalry. “Here, come on. Have a seat, Starlight. You’ve earned the view.”

After a few agonizing seconds of debating whether she was even worthy of the upholstery, Annie let out a small, breathless squeak of surrender. Her shoulders hiked up in a flash of girlish, playful joy as she finally lowered herself into the sanctum. The chair didn’t just hold her, it embraced her, the leather sighing under her weight with a regal, heavy authority. Annie sat there, a permanent, wide grin plastered to her face, radiating that wholesome ecstasy of a newbie.

“This—” she started, her voice cracking as her eyes began to swim with a sudden, overwhelming heat. She looked away from the Deep, blinking rapidly to keep the tears of a decade’s worth of ambition from spilling over. “You have no idea. This is the absolute pinnacle. To actually serve... to be here with the Seven. There’s just no higher a superperson can climb. It’s literally the ceiling of the world—”

“I told you, Starlight,” the Deep interrupted. His voice had taken on a strange, wobbly quality, underscored by the rhythmic, rustling friction of fabric. “You earned the view. You put in the hours, you did the pageants, you bled for the brand.” He chuckled, a wet, low sound that didn't harmonize with the "big brother" persona he’d been wearing for the last twenty minutes. “Now, there’s just one final hurdle. One last little cultural integration test. And based on your stats, I’m betting you’re a straight-A student.”

“Mm?” Annie’s brow furrowed in a flicker of mild, honey-sweet confusion. The smile didn't leave her face, though, as she turned.  

But then the sight hit her like a physical blow, a shaky, involuntary gasp tearing its way out of her throat. 

The Deep was standing there, bathed in the harsh theatrical glow of the overhead lights, his tactical trousers casually pooled around his ankles.

He immediately threw his hands up in a mocking, playful gesture of defense. “Whoa, hey—relax, relax,” he cooed, his tone dripping with a greasy, condescending assurance. 

“It’s just a bit of 'pole smoking' for the team, you know. Traditional values, remember? Initiation. Welcome to the big leagues.” He offered a small, nonchalant shrug, his face completely devoid of shame, as if he were simply asking her to file a piece of paperwork.

Annie recoiled as if the air in the room had suddenly turned to acid. She launched herself off the chair, her eyes stretching to their absolute limits, the whites vivid in the gloom. The heavy metal chair screeched across the polished marble behind her, a harsh, metallic scream that seemed to voice the sheer absurdity of the moment.

“Wh—what’s the matter with you?” she stammered, her voice trembling with a cocktail of scandalized fury and a desperate, clawing denial. This wasn't the script. This wasn't the mural. This was a nightmare wearing her idol’s face.

The Deep’s shrug was a masterpiece of casual indifference, his lips pursing as he weighed her reaction like a boring HR complaint. “Nothing beyond the fact that I’d like a blowjob and we seem to be hitting some fairly significant communication difficulties.”

Annie’s brow furrowed, her face a twisting map of a thousand high-voltage emotional shocks. The sheer, bizarre reality of it was trying to bypass her brain's circuits. 

“You can’t… you can’t possibly mean that!” she stammered, her head shaking in a frantic rhythm of disbelief. She was waiting for the punchline, for the hidden cameras pulling the prank, for someone to wake her up from this sudden, greasy pivot into a nightmare.

“Hey, what’s the hold-up?” A voice drifted in, clean and conversational, from the open threshold of the conference room.

Annie’s head snapped toward the sound, a sharp gasp of pure, religious relief tearing from her throat. 

“Translucent! A-Train!” she yelped, her voice cracking like a condemned woman seeking a pardon. “Oh, thank God you’re here.”

She spun back toward the Deep, pointing a trembling finger at him as if he were a glitch in the Matrix. “I don't know what's happened. I think… I think someone’s controlling him. He’s—he’s acting like some kind of duplicate, or a malfunctioning android. Like when Insaniac infiltrated the—”

The words died in her throat. Her retreat became a slow, stuttering crawl as Translucent’s form transformed from its prismatic reflection into his natural skin, revealing him from head to toe in a state of casual, unvarnished nudity.

Beside him, A-Train didn't even bother with the theatrics. He simply kicked his boots out of his tactical trousers, his grin wide and eerily chill. To them, this wasn't even a crime; it was a hazing ritual, a rookie orientation they’d performed so many times the script had gone stale.

The realization finally sank into the pit of Annie’s stomach like a lead weight. 

These men, the ones she believed held the golden torch of providence, were merely predators who had traded their souls for a Vought contract. Behind the 4k monitors and the golden busts, the temple was just a slaughterhouse.

“Oh God… you’re going to force yourselves on me,” Annie murmured, the words tasting like poison on her tongue. A single bead of sweat bloomed at her temple, tracking slowly down her pale skin. She kept backing away, her shoulders tight with a defensive tension that felt utterly useless against the physical gods in the room.

“Jesus Christ!” Translucent rolled his eyes, his tone dramatic and bored, as if he were already mentally checking out of a tedious meeting. “Nobody’s forcing anyone to do anything, kid. No.” He shook his head, planting his hands on his hips with his anatomy on full, arrogant display. “It’s all just a simple question of how badly you actually want to be in The Seven.” He offered a small, clinical shrug, as if the transaction were as mundane as a parking ticket.

Annie huffed, a sound of pure, vibrating disbelief as the shock finally soured into a cold, hard knot of rage. She crossed her arms tightly over her stomach, her throat constricting as the bitter reality slid down like shards of glass. “You mean I have to have sex with you to join the team?” 

The men exchanged a series of glances, a silent, telepathic consensus among veteran predators. A-Train eventually offered a sharp, unfazed shrug, his tone scraping with a restless, twitchy impatience. "Well, Bill Clinton might argue the definition with you, but, yes. Welcome to the orientation."

Annie shook her head, her teeth gritting in a rhythmic pulse of disappointment and frantic denial. 

"You’re the Seven. This is... this is disgusting. You bring justice to the world. How could you even stand there and demand this? You’re supposed to be Earth’s mightiest." Her eyes raked over the three brazen assholes, their entitlement as thick as the air in a locker room. 

The irony was a physical blow; she had spent her entire existence, every calorie counted, every muscle-ache endured, every prayer whispered in a dusty Iowa church, to reach this specific room. This was the summit she had climbed for twelve years, only to find the peak was a stagnant swamp.

Her mind reeled back to the flickering neon of the pageants, the little girls in Des Moines who viewed her as a secular saint, the relentless, bone-deep exhaustion of the training circuit, and the terrifying, ecstatic pressure of Donna’s dreams. This was the "Prophecy." This was the divine calling, shattered into a million plastic pieces in the blink of an eye.

But the mean-girl defense she’d forged in the pageant pits refused to let her collapse. She blinked slowly, looking away from their naked arrogance, struggling to reconcile these fleshy, pathetic creatures with the airbrushed gods on her bedroom posters. 

A single, hot tear escaped her eye, but she dashed it away with a snarl. "You know what?" she spat, her face contorting with a sudden, sharp disdain. "Go to hell. All of you."

She was already spinning on her heel, her internal compass pointing toward the exit, as the men scrambled to maintain their perimeter.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Where the hell do you think you’re going?" the Deep demanded, stumbling forward to cut her off. 

A-Train, faster than sight, snagged a remote from the table and clicked a button with a smug flick of his thumb. Behind them, the heavy, hydraulic doors began to slide shut with a final, tomb-like thud, sealing the four of them inside the pressurized gloom of the conference room.

Annie kept moving, her steps stomping and heavy with a desperate, righteous anger. But the Deep lunged forward to catch her in time, his fingers clamping onto her bicep with a proprietary squeeze. 

Before he could yank her back into the light of the table, a sudden, metallic hiss cut through the air. Something sharp and impossibly fast blurred past his face, a silver streak that barely grazed his jawline.

"Whoa!" the Deep flinched, his grip on Annie vanishing instantly as he staggered back. He clutched his face, his eyes darting frantically into the shadows of the room’s corners. "What the hell was that? Who's there?"

A-Train and Translucent stood paralyzed, their predatory swagger evaporating as their eyes tracked the silver blur that had just shrieked through the air. The projectile hadn't just passed them, it had buried itself with a sickening, electronic crunch directly into one of the monitors, the screen spiderwebbing into a mosaic of dead pixels and static.

The room plunged into a vacuum of silence. Every head turned toward the casualty on the wall. It was a tactical blade, slim and gleaming with a cold, surgical malice under the ambient glow of the surveillance feeds.

“Black Noir?” Translucent muttered, the name barely a ghost of a sound. He exchanged a quick, confused look with A-Train and the Deep, their collective bravado fading into something that looked suspiciously like schoolboy anxiety.

The atmospheric pressure in the room shifted instantly. A heavy, predatory stillness rolled out from the shadows, dragging every gaze, including Annie's, toward the unlit corner from which the steel had been spat.

Stepping out of the velvet dark like a ghost, appeared Black Noir. 

But the sight didn't bring the heroic rescue Annie’s frantic brain was praying for. Instead, it added a new, grotesque layer to the afternoon’s depravity. 

Noir had joined the club; his suit was undone, his trousers lowered to reveal a junk that looked less like a superhero and more like the adult content people only got to see on porn sites if you looked up BBC.

Annie’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline as she staggered back further, her boots scuffing the marble in a frantic, rhythmic retreat. The situation had spiraled into hitting a terminal velocity. This wasn't just a hazing anymore, it was a full blown descent into a Bosch-inspired fever dream. 

She threw a hand forward in a manic, defensive pose, her palms glowing with a faint, flickering golden light as she braced herself to fight, to scream, or to simply dissolve into the floor.

But before the three naked "heroes" could offer their two cents on the interruption, a voice, rich, resonant, and dripping with authority, tore through the filth of the room.

“What the fuck is going on here?”

Homelander stepped out from behind Noir’s broad, silent shoulder, emerging from the same lightless pocket where they had apparently been this entire time.

Annie remained rooted to the spot, her internal world collapsing in a silent, static-filled scream. This was the moment, the celestial alignment she had prayed for since she was a girl in pigtails, and it was unfolding in a room that now looked like unwashed locker rooms. The shock was so profound it felt structural, as if moving a single muscle would cause her entire skeleton to shatter.

And Homelander stood there, a vision of primary-colored perfection gone slightly to seed. He held one crimson glove in his sole gloved hand, his fingers idly twisting the reinforced fabric. His trousers were, mercifully, still fastened; but his hair, usually a lacquered helmet of Aryan defiance, was a disheveled, unruly mess. Most damningly, his lips were coated in a slick, telltale sheen that caught the overhead light with a greasy, unmistakable glisten. 

It was a lingering, biological autograph from Black Noir, his cum. 

With a gesture that was both shamelessly slow and utterly bored, he ran an ungloved thumb over his bottom lip, wiping away the evidence of his private, dark-corner liaison. His eyes swept the room with a cold, predatory irritation, clearly incensed that his late evening tryst had been interrupted by something as tedious as a group-grope.

His gaze eventually snagged on the Deep, traveling slowly down to the man's exposed anatomy with the kind of clinical disgust one might reserve for a particularly persistent mold growth. A grimace pulled at the corner of his mouth before he flicked his eyes back up to the Deep’s face.

“What?” he prompted, his shoulders rising in a theatrical, high-octane display of annoyance. “What is this?” He gestured imprecisely at the Deep’s dick before his hand traced a sharp, dismissive line toward the rest of the semi-clothed lineup—minus Noir, who was already mutely hoisting his trousers in the background.

The three men scrambled. It was a frantic, uncoordinated symphony of zippers and fancy belt buckles as A-Train, Deep, and Translucent fought to reclaim their dignity.

“Uhh—Homelander, hey… we didn't know you’d be in here.” the Deep stammered, offering a nervous, wobbling chuckle as he fumbled with his button. He looked up, trying to hold the leader’s gaze, which was a volatile cocktail of post-coital languor and a desire to commit mass murder. 

Deep’s eyes flickered awkwardly toward the silent Noir and back to Homelander, his face a mask of desperate, feigned ignorance. He was playing the part where he definitely hadn't just interrupted his boss giving a blowjob to his other veteran team member.

A-Train and Translucent were mirror images of the same pathetic performance, their expressions wiped clean of predatory intent and replaced with a wide-eyed, "we saw nothing" blankness. 

Not a single one of them bothered to acknowledge Annie, who stood in the center of the room like a forgotten prop, her presence entirely eclipsed by the sudden, suffocating weight of the leader's fury and the lingering, heavy scent of the team's collective horny hormones.

Homelander merely blinked at the trio, his expression flat and dangerous. He didn’t spare a single watt of his cinematic attention for Annie; she was just background radiation in a room that suddenly felt too small for his ego. His jaw tightened by visible, rhythmic increments, the muscle pulsing beneath his skin as he rolled his eyes and made a sharp, dismissive flick of his wrist. The gesture looked like he was shooing away a persistent housefly.

“Just—get the fuck out of here. All of you,” he said at last, his voice clipped and freezing, his blue eyes as cold as a morgue slab.

Annie finally found her voice, the sound emerging in a loud, unpleasant spike of hysteria. “Homelander, thank God! They tried to—they were going to—”

Homelander smacked his lips with a wet, noisy pop, the sound cutting through her sentence like a gunshot. His hand coiled into a tight, vibrating fist mid-air, his composure fraying at the edges. He closed his eyes briefly, his face turning away as if the mere sight of her was a physical migraine he couldn't quite shake. 

“NOT. Another. Word,” he growled through gritted teeth, the threat of sudden, catastrophic violence vibrating in the sub-bass of his tone.

“Yes, sir, Homelander. Absolutely,” the Deep blurted, the words tumbling out in a frantic, sycophantic rush. He spun around to signal Translucent, only to realize that both the invisible man and A-Train were already mid-retreat, their dignity trailing behind them like litter. 

One of them had managed to slap the door controls in their haste, the heavy, glossy grey slabs sliding open to reveal the hallway. 

“Hey! Wait for me!” the Deep hissed under his breath, scrambling after them with chaotic, shuffling steps like he had just narrowly avoided a firing squad.

Annie felt her heartbeat begin to stabilize, the frantic drum in her chest slowing to a dull thud. In her mind, the narrative was already rewriting itself: the hero had arrived. The King had dispersed the wolves. Thanks to the sheer shock, she conveniently ignored the fact that Homelander seemed less concerned with the attempted gang assault and more inconvenienced by the interruption of his private, monochromatic blow-fest with Noir. 

Her hands finally unclenched from her stomach, falling limp at her sides as she turned away from the retreating cowards and toward the two titans remaining in the room.

“Sir, thank you so much. I didn't know how I was going to—”

“Shut the fuck up. Get out!” Homelander spat, the words landing like a physical slap. He didn't even look at her; his tone was flat, bored, and utterly uninterested in her gratitude. 

He pivoted on his heels, stalking back toward the head of the table, his throne. On the way, he flicked a brief, entitled glance at Noir, a flicker of something dark and lingering passing between them. “You too. Fuck off.”

Unlike Annie, Noir didn't require a second invitation or a dramatic monologue. He didn't even bother acknowledging the new recruit’s existence. From the top of his silent, pitch black mask to his boots, he remained an impenetrable question mark. He simply glided toward the exit, brushing past Annie with a shadow-like clinical indifference, leaving her standing alone in the cooling wake of her shattered illusions.

But Annie remained rooted to the polished marble, her breath coming in shallow, uneven hitches as she tried to map the wreckage of her expectations. Her throat felt like it had been lined with dry cloth, a lump of pure initiation paralysis making it impossible to swallow. 

It really was him. The American messiah. The one and only. She had played this reunion on a loop in her head for twelve years—the heroic rescue in Pennsylvania, the firm grip of his arm, the promise that she would do "great things in life."

Who would’ve thought? she wondered, her brain sparking with a frantic, short-circuited logic. The hero of her childhood fanfiction had just materialized out of a dark corner, slick with the biological debris of a silent assassin, and she still couldn't find the strength to be anything but awestruck.

Homelander had already reclaimed his throne, draped in a weary, lethal elegance. The red and white cape spilling over the handle of the chair like a fallen flag. He set his unworn glove on the obsidian table with a soft thud. Using his gloved hand, the one that had remained untouched by Black Noir’s dick, he brushed the stray golden locks back from his temple. 

His blue eyes fluttered shut, his posture collapsing into a deep, arrogant manspread that claimed every inch of the room’s oxygen. He tilted his head back, releasing a long, rattling exhale that sounded like a pressure valve finally giving way.

“Unless you have a sudden, burning desire to go back to the corn belt and marry whatsizname... get the fuck out,” he said at last. His voice had dropped an octave, the rude flavor of his rage replaced by a heavy, exhausted gravity. It wasn't explicitly cruel, just the weary, restrained agitation of a god who had reached his limit for mortal nonsense on a Wednesday afternoon.

Annie blinked, her head bobbing in a series of frantic, bird-like nods. “Yes—I, uh—I should... of course.” She realized mid-sentence that words were only making the air in the room more expensive, so she abandoned the attempt entirely. 

She pivoted and scrambled toward the exit, her boots clicking a frantic rhythm against the marble as she fled the inner sanctum.

In her mind, the excuses were already forming, coating the trauma in a protective layer of hero-worship. The man was clearly having a terrible day. He’d been violated by the disruption, humiliated by the sheer, perverted incompetence of his subordinates. And yet, for the second time in her life, he had appeared out of the smoke to drag her back from the abyss. Never mind the context; never mind the slick lips or the dark corners. In Annie’s world, Homelander was still the only light that mattered, and tonight, he’d kept the darkness from swallowing her whole, again. She couldn't have been more grateful.

But as much as she tried to anchor herself to that frantic, life-raft of gratitude, the reality of the hallway felt like a fever dream. Her steps were unruly, a stuttering percussion against the marble floor as she hunted for her own penthouse, desperate to seal the airlock against the bizarreness of the last thirty minutes. 

The thing was, Homelander wasn't just a leader; he was the face of the very faith she’d been sold since birth. He was the celebrity equivalent of a Messiah, the man she’d spent her teenage years romanticizing in anonymous fan forums and late-night fantasies. She’d carried a torch for him that could have powered a small city, and now... he was apparently a practitioner of the very "deviancy" her ministries preached against? Homosexuality. 

The cognitive dissonance was a physical migraine. Hadn't he dated Queen Maeve for years? The tabloids had been a non-stop loop of their touchy-feely intimacy back then. Was the God of America's heart interested in both women and... men? Who would’ve thought, indeed?

Eventually, her boots dragged to a halt in front of the door to her penthouse on the same Floor 99, the oxygen-thin summit of the Tower where the gods slept. She stood there for a long, heavy moment, her silhouette a slumped, defeated shape against the fancy walls. 

She reached up with a trembling hand, wiping at her cheeks, only now realizing that her mascara had left dark, uneven streaks down her face. She hadn't even felt the tears falling; they had been a silent casualty of the panic.

With a final, shuddering sigh, she reached into the golden pouch at her hip, her fingers brushing against the fabric of her suit. She pulled out the keycard and pressed it to the scanner. The door gave a soft, electronic click, a polite, clinical sound that granted her access to her new life. 

Annie stepped into the dark of her new home, the weight of the newness pressing down on her shoulders. 

Maybe the old warning wasn't a cliché, after all: Never meet your heroes.

Chapter Text

One might argue Homelander was the luckiest man on the planet, standing on a tier of global recognition otherwise occupied only by Soldier Boy and Michael Jackson. You could trek to the most remote, unmapped corner of the globe, flash a grainy photo of any of those three, and get a nod of instant, reverent recognition. 

But Homelander was different; he wasn't just a face on a bedroom poster or a voice on a podcast. He was branded as the living embodiment of goodness, generosity, and a humility so aggressive it felt divine. He possessed the raw, terrifying capacity to reduce the tectonic plates to dust within twenty-four hours, yet he humbled himself to pull kittens from trees and wave at parades.

The world didn't just admire him, they viewed him as a psychological crutch. His name was a mantra for the broken, a source of warmth for the desolate, and a North Star for every wide-eyed kid dreaming of being super. 

Beyond the wholesome image, Homelander was also the ultimate deterrent of war, the nuclear option with a winning smile. While the supe population was still caught in the bureaucratic red tape of military sanctioning, the American defense system slept soundly knowing they still had Homelander in the first place, in spite of Vought holding the leash of the most powerful creature in existence. He was America’s face, a star-spangled security blanket for a terrified species.

On paper, it was the kind of resume that would get an entire civilization fast-tracked through the pearly gates. But the reality was a curated, glittering lie. “Homelander” was nothing more than an ambitious corporate IP, a fictional character played with sociopathic accuracy by a man named John Gillman.

John wasn't delivered in a hospital or birthed into a family; he was synthesized in a sub-six laboratory, ripping out of the womb of a nameless, shivering addict with hair the color of bonemeal and awful habits Vought had likely subsidized for the genetic material. 

He was christened John by Dr. Jonah Vogelbaum, then Chief Scientific Officer of then Vought America. Vogelbaum viewed the boy less as a child and more as a high stakes science project. 

John’s childhood was a sequence of thoroughly sterilized white rooms and sensory deprivation tanks, a vacuum of affection where his psyche was engineered through trauma and his body was subjected to remorseless, surgical testing. He wasn't necessarily raised, he was manufactured.

There was once a ghost of a sweet child in that white room. He had been gleeful, possessing a natural, sunny charm that seemed out of place in a bunker. But as the years bled into a cycle of invasive experiments and hollow silence, the light in John’s eyes died away. His smiles began to fray into a mask of perpetual terror, a frantic, wide-eyed state that eventually stabilized into the cold, gray marrow of absolute numbness.

In that void of human contact, his sense of self fractured. To survive the solitude, his mind populated the silence with ghosts, multiple psyches that set up shop behind his eyes. He lived in a state of internal clamor, a private courtroom where he was simultaneously the judge, the jury, and the accused. He spent his hours scolding himself, accusing his own heart of treason, and bullying his spirit until it was as hard and unyielding as the reinforced steel of his walls.

Yet, a stubborn, infantile part of him remained soft. It was a sensitive, weeping wound of a psyche that yearned for a parent, for a touch that didn't involve a syringe, or just a sliver of the warmth he saw in the storybooks they used for his cognitive testing. 

He hated this side of him. He viewed it as a parasite, a weakness that threatened to drown him. This self-loathing eventually radiated outward, blooming into a silent, simmering hatred for the people he actually liked at the lab. He envied the lab techs and the doctors, admiring their humanity even as he despised them for their clinical detachment. No matter how much he internally begged for a sign of affection, he was only ever met with the cold, unblinking eye of a clipboard person.

By the time the hormonal storm of puberty hit, the lab had introduced two fresh faced interns from New York, Bradley and Susan. They were young, ambitious, and utterly oblivious to the god-child watching them from the shadows. A month into their night shifts, the sterile, joyless air of the facility began to spark with a desperate, clumsy romantic tension.

One evening, thinking they were the only living souls in the compartment, they seized the opportunity for an all-nighter that had nothing to do with data entry. What they had failed to grasp was that while John was locked behind a six-feet of lead shielded casing, he was never truly away. His super-hearing turned the entire floor into a sounding board.

John didn't just hear them that night, he felt the atmospheric shift, the spike in the electromagnetic field, and the frantic, rhythmic vibrations of their bodies. He caught every wet sound, every hitched breath, and every frantic heartbeat as if he were sitting right beside them in the dark. It was a surreal, sensory overload, a symphony of a world he wasn't allowed to touch. 

He lacked the visual vocabulary to understand the mechanics of the act of sex, but the raw, animal heat of it felt like a transmission from another galaxy.

And so began his first true obsession. Every evening, he waited in the airless silence of his cell for the laboratory to empty, his ears straining for the specific, rhythmic signature of those two interns. He rooted for their union with a fervor more intense than any parent could muster; not out of love, but out of a desperate, starving need for the data of their intimacy. 

And the couple never disappointed. They fell into the habit of frequent, frantic sex sessions, their bond thickening in the late night hours while John harvested the sounds of their passion in the dark.

John grew to loathe the nights he was consigned to the one particular white room behind the massive, crimson door. Once that seal hissed shut, it swallowed all noise and drained the world of color. The sensory deprivation had always been a special kind of torture, but now it felt like a forced detox from the only addiction that made his pulse race. He had become a connoisseur of their auditory theater, a ghost haunting the acoustics of a relationship he could never join.

As his physical power began to outpace the facility’s capacity to contain him, and his emotional core froze into a solid, unyielding block, Vogelbaum intensified the calibration periods. The stays in the white void stretched from hours into agonizing weeks.

It was during these lightless stretches that the lack of sensation became a violent itch he couldn't scratch. To the growing catalog of his psychological fractures, he added a hyper-fixated, carnal hunger. 

The vacuum of the room forced his mind to loop the sounds of Bradley and Susan on a permanent playback. He would pleasure himself in the sterile dark, building a vivid, imaginary architecture of what their bodies must look like, what the heat must feel like. He made a silent, sacred vow to himself: the moment he stepped out of this cage for good, this would be his first act as a free man.

Eventually, the internship cycle ended. Bradley and Susan packed their bags and moved to higher paying corporate suites in the upper reaches of Vought, leaving the bunker behind without a second thought. 

John was devastated in a way that defied clinical explanation. The loss of his only tether to the world of touch triggered a catastrophic breach in his restraint. He didn't cry, he simply lashed out. He liquidated seven lab employees that afternoon, their lives ending in wet, frantic bursts of red that finally provided a brief splash of color to his gray world.

In the aftermath, the regime changed. The tests grew riskier, the pain more acute, and his patience vanished. To rebuild his shattered psyche into something marketable, Vought began hand-feeding him a curated diet of obedience and legacy. He spent thousands of hours devouring documentaries on Soldier Boy and carefully edited reels of past presidents. They pumped him full of scripts about leadership, divine protection, and moral clarity. They were painstakingly crafting that ‘Ambitious Idea’, the star-spangled monster that would eventually become Homelander.

When John reached the milestone of eighteen years, Dr. Vogelbaum and the cold, calculating hand of Stan Edgar finally deemed their weapon ready for its sheath. It had taken nearly two decades of systematic dehumanization, stripping away the boy to make room for the icon, to polish the ambitious idea into a marketable reality.

The day of his public unveiling was a tectonic shift. Stepping onto that stage, John was hit with a tidal wave of sensory input: the strobe-light flicker of a thousand cameras, the mixed stench of high end perfume, and the frantic, rhythmic thrum of a crowd’s adoration. It was an oceanic weight of sound and light that should have crushed him, but the conditioning held. 

He navigated the snarky, shark-like questions of the press with a practiced, honeyed optimism, veering every inquiry toward the light. And, exactly as the script dictated, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the man who would later become his shadow: Black Noir.

The partnership between him and Noir began in a friction-heat of resentment. John, now fully submerged in the Homelander persona, felt the green sting of jealousy almost immediately. Everywhere they went, including his own birth rite event, the gravitational pull of the room shifted toward Noir. The silent veteran was an established legend, a survivor of Payback, and the living memory of an era before the Seven. 

Homelander loathed being the second most interesting man in the room; he hated that Noir’s silence held more weight than his own rehearsed speeches.

That hatred lasted exactly until his first mission went up in flames.

Sent to rescue hostages at a chemical production facility, the God of America discovered that his powers were far less surgical than the training simulations had suggested. In a blur of panicked strength and unregulated heat vision, he didn't save any of the captives, he sliced them clean. He stood in the wreckage of his own incompetence, surrounded by the charred, chemical scented remains of the people he was supposed to champion. 

When Black Noir emerged from the smoke, John’s first instinct was to erase the witness.

He lunged for Noir, a cornered animal ready to tear the throat out of his rival. But Noir didn't fight back; he didn't even flinch. He simply stepped into John's mess and began to kill any surviving witnesses within the factory. It was then John realized that Noir wasn't his competition, he was his janitor. He was the one Vought sent to manage the collateral damage that the history books would never be allowed to record. 

It was the first time John looked at Noir and saw something other than a rival.

Together, they wove a story of heroic failure out of the gore. They fabricated a narrative of a desperate captor with a dead man’s switch; a story where Homelander had heroically thrown his own invulnerable body over the blast, only for the chemical vents to turn the room into a furnace despite his best efforts. 

And the cameras drank in his grief-stricken performance, the reporters nodding with tearful reverence as he delivered the script Noir had ghost-written in the blood of the factory workers. When they thanked him for his "valiant effort," a cold, electric thrill surged through John’s marrow. That night the lab rat finally died. 

He realized that as Homelander, the truth was whatever he said it was. He was the most powerful creature on the planet, an apex predator with a publicist, and he believed, with the naive arrogance of a newborn god, that he was finally free from the cage.

But the leash hadn't been removed, it had just been replaced with corporate charm. His childhood had been woven by scientists in lab coats, and his adulthood was a narrative spun by the Vought machine. He wasn't even a man, he was a stock price. The world gulped down the myth of his divinity like holy water.

Then there was Madelyn Stillwell. As the Senior VP of Hero Management and Stan Edgar’s primary instrument of control, she became the sun around which his fractured psyche orbited. She was a master of the ego stroke, feeding his hunger for validation with a steady diet of praise and the promise of legacy. She was kind in the way a handler is kind to a high strung thoroughbred, layering her professional guidance with a calculated, shimmering flirtation.

For Homelander, a narcissistic megalomaniac harboring a bottomless well of parental resentment and a hyper-fixated sexual appetite, Madelyn was a lethal addiction. 

When he finally leaned in to kiss her one day, desperate to bridge the gap between "asset" and "son" and "lover," she parried him like a corporate lawyer. Her rejection was masked in a polite, clinical smile as she cited the Conflict of Interest policy in their employment contracts. 

Apparently the policy barred a corporate Vought employee from intermingling with their “assets”. It was a firm boundary, a no designed to keep him hungry, yet she never truly stopped the flirtatious performance.

She continued to tease him, to trail her fingers along his cape and whisper promises into his ear, only to pull back the moment he reached for her. It was a psychological masterpiece: a toxic cocktail of maternal warmth and siren-like seduction. It was the perfect leash to keep the world's most dangerous man tethered to a desk, perpetually begging for a scrap of affection she had no intention of ever giving him.

The strategy worked out tremendously for Madelyn and Stan Edgar, but Homelander was a pressurized vessel of violent, impulsive, and predatory urges. He was a god built for conquest, and the corporate blue balls Madelyn provided needed a release valve; something visceral, something he didn’t have to beg for.

So, he turned to the only living being he truly trusted, his shadow, Black Noir. 

It started with an unexpected kiss, a sudden, unprepared burst of courage on John’s part. He finally did what he’d been dying to do: he reached up and peeled back the dark mask, seeing Noir’s face clearly for the first time without the distorting filter of his X-ray vision.

The sight was a brutal map of Vought’s history; battered, scorched, and healed into a collection of raised, sightless scars that crowded one side of Noir’s face. But the man beneath the damage was undeniably striking, with a dark, rich complexion and a physique that looked like it had been carved out of heavy timber. 

Noir remained frozen at first, a stunned statue processing the uninvited intimacy of the kiss and the exposure of his ruined features. Then, with a slow, unprecedented moment of making a tactical decision, he decided he liked it.

There was no denying the raw, pheromonal pull of the man standing before him. Homelander was a towering specimen of the typical Aryan perfection: gold-leaf hair, eyes the color of a shallow sea, and a fresh, rippling physique that buzzed with youthful, hormonal energy. By any objective standard, the man was a masterpiece; though there was a lingering, predatory chill if you stared too long at his smile. It was a vampire-like smile with pointy canines out, menacing in its very artificiality.

So Noir leaned into the friction anyway, returning the kiss with a silent, heavy intensity. Thus began the longest-running "fuck buddy" arrangement in the Tower's history, a carnal pact buried beneath what Homelander affectionately branded as a "best friendship."

But Noir remained a ghost, his voice a casualty of his final, catastrophic encounter with Soldier Boy a long time ago; though that was a blood soaked story for another day. He was part of a duo now, the foundational brick of what would soon become the Seven. 

Behind the impenetrable matte black of his suit, Noir’s thoughts remained his own; he never confirmed a feeling to Homelander, never denied a whim. He was simply the lethal, silent shadow in the corner who humored Homelander’s appetites. He wasn't cruel, but he wasn't romantically available either.

It was a bizarre, lopsided friendship: one blonde perpetually complaining about the world to the only person he genuinely admired and trusted, and the other man, a perpetual mute listening in absolute silence; mostly because he had no choice.

With time, Homelander’s sense of free will expanded, his carnal hunger festered into something toxic and all-consuming. It poisoned his system, a constant, low frequency energy that made him visualize the violent conquest of anyone he found remotely attractive, regardless of what was between their legs. 

The sexual encounters were almost always hollow, just casual, frantic hook-ups that left him feeling more isolated than he’d been in the lab. 

It was exhausting to realize that every person he touched was either vibrating with terror or was glassy eyed with fanatical devotion. They weren't fucking a man; they were fucking a brand, a holy relic celebrity in a cape, and the realization left him starving for a connection that wasn't a transaction.

By year three of his public life, Homelander's obsession with needing to feel something, to be loved for the monster beneath the mask, had dragged him headfirst into a lifestyle of unrestrained hedonism.

Now thirty-eight, Homelander had matured into a living national monument. He was the gold standard of divinity, the constant, blasphemous comparison to Jesus himself. He filled out that regal blue suit with an intimidating, shelf-like chest, the golden eagles on his shoulders and belt catching the light like talons. His cape, a heavy, marketable variant of the American flag, trailed behind him like a blood stained history book. The world had bought the lie; they bowed to the idea of him.

But the real Homelander despised every second of the performance. When the cameras were capped and the Vought handlers were out of sight, the "Ambitious Idea" dissolved. He spent his private hours either buried under a tangled fuckpile of Vought-approved bodies, or systematically bullying his team members and anyone unfortunate enough to inhabit his personal space. 

His comfort world had shrunk down to a few familiar faces: Madelyn, Noir, or Maeve.

He was fond of them, in his own fucked-up way. He and Queen Maeve had navigated their own maze of intimacy, a frequent and athletic arrangement that provided a brief respite from the boredom. 

But Maeve was a fortress. She remained emotionally distant, her sardonic humor serving as a barbed wire fence that kept him at arm's length. She’d always been a snob, carrying herself with an ancient, regal air despite her humble roots in some dust-bowl farming town in California.

Eventually, the air between them soured. Homelander watched, with a mix of admiration and mounting resentment, as Maeve began to drift. She grew increasingly smug and detached, her sharp, cynical tongue making it clear she was no longer interested in playing the part of his consort. She was moving into a different orbit, leaving him alone in the dark with a silent ninja and a corporate mommy.

So, in every sense of the word, his dynamics with both Maeve and Madelyn were a complex mess of resentment and unresolved hunger. But Noir remained the anchor, the one fixed point in a world made of shifting sand. He was his person, the only living soul Homelander knew would remain standing when the sky inevitably fell.

Conversely, his feelings for the rest of his team members fluctuated between mild annoyance and fierce disgust. 

Jack from Jupiter and Mister Marathon had been unceremoniously put out to pasture by Vought, replaced by a fresh crop of mediocrity: A-Train, Translucent, and the Deep. Three mindless puppets in place of two, none of them possessing a single spark of wisdom or utility that Homelander found worth acknowledging.

It was a statistical miracle that Vought’s scouting department had managed to fish three such profound dimwits out of the supe gene pool. 

To be fair, none of them were powerful enough to even breathe the same recycled air as Homelander, let alone sit at the same table. The only common ground they shared was a lethal, bottomless need for the next dopamine spike, a nihilistic, hedonistic addiction to Vought sponsored sexual euphoria.

Homelander was still very much tethered to the corporation, yes, but he was a leash-straining menace who had long since learned how to rebel tactfully. But despite his internal protests, he’d eventually scrawled his signature on every recruitment file Vought threw his way, his apathy finally outweighing his standards.

This current week at Seven Tower was supposed to be a milestone. They had reached a rare, unanimous agreement on the newest acquisition: Starlight. She was the shiny new replacement for Lamplighter, whose career had finally been crushed under the weight of his own chronic incompetence.

Homelander had initially planned a very specific, very personal welcome for the girl. He intended to be there the moment she stepped through the doors, to inspect the new product and "taste" the merchandise before anyone else could claim a piece. In his mind, it was a king’s entitlement. 

But the corporate grind had intervened; a higher priority assignment had whisked him away to sit through a tedious meeting with a local Mayor, trapped between the watchful eyes of Madelyn Stillwell and Stan Edgar.

So with Homelander sidelined by the mayor's meeting, Vought had tapped the Deep to handle Starlight’s official launch event. It was a tactical error. The Deep and his fellow idiots, A-Train and Translucent, had interpreted the leader's absence as a silent permission slip to sample the new product before it was officially inventoried. 

But following a series of unrealized, unfortunate events, the schedule shifted. Homelander had retreated to the conference room with Black Noir, seeking a quick, physical respite from the day's boredom. He'd had his relief, and now it was Noir's turn, he'd decided out of affection. 

The blow session was well underway when it was derailed by the high-pitched, frantic drama erupting between the new girl and the Moronic Trio.

Apparently, the boys had made their move, with the Deep leading the charge of predatory entitlement, only for the recruit to object with a shrill, hysterical resistance. Their voices had carried through the vents, pitching higher and higher until Homelander, furious and interrupted, finally barged out to break their little tableau despite Noir's first attempt to break it. 

Fucking imbeciles, he thought later, the memory of their pathetic, scrambling faces fueling a fresh wave of contempt. He’d already had a spectacularly annoying day. Some casually evil truths had slipped past his teeth during the meeting with the mayor, the kind of unfiltered honesty that almost sent Vought’s stock price into a cardiac arrest. It had sat with Stan Edgar about as well as a thumb in the eye.

Predictably, the fallout was a marathon lecture from Stan and Madelyn. He’d been forced to sit there, a god in a chair, enduring a long, condescending sermon that rubbed salt into the raw, pulsating nerves of his arrogance. 

By the time he’d reached the conference room earlier, he was a pressurized tank of rage looking for a release valve, an outlet to calm the hell down before he leveled a city block. And this was the result: half his team being perpetually good for nothing and interrupting his only moment of peace.

It was a genuine wonder to him that he hadn't laser-chopped the bunch of them years ago. In his mind, every second he spent interacting with them without turning their brains into a slurry of cooked gray matter was his own personal version of being polite. It was the ultimate act of restraint for a man who was tired of playing the hero.

But it wasn’t as if Homelander lacked self-awareness. He was acutely, painfully aware of the monster behind the blue suit. 

He knew he could have handled the conference room fallout like a true captain, the righteous leader Vought’s employee handbook demanded, but the simple truth was that he didn't care. Whatever depraved, bottomless pits his teammates dug for themselves in their off-hours was nothing but white noise in a void. 

He knew he wasn't good. He knew he was absolutely, catastrophically evil when the mood struck him. And he liked it.

It wasn't like he could help it, anyway. He was a man-made horror story, a biological weapon with a pulse, and he finally gave himself permission to lean into the putrefaction. After almost two decades of being a lab-grown curiosity, he felt entitled to every unchecked impulse and every nihilistic whim that crossed his mind. 

He had served his time in the white rooms; so the world was now his compensation. And, in the dark corners of his cracked psyche, he still owed a special debt of gratitude to Bradley and Susan for providing the auditory blueprint for his favorite brand of kink.

Now, with the corporate drama of the week still stewing and the stinging memory of Edgar’s lecture fresh in his mind, Homelander was slated to officially introduce the new recruit, Starlight, to the rest of the team.

It was a delicious little train wreck, a pure, unadulterated theater for a God continually lasering people in his fantasies.

——

Present Day

It was roughly twenty minutes before the scheduled meeting. Homelander preferred to be the first presence in the conference room, not out of some noble sense of punctuality, but because he delighted in the silent, mental ledger he kept of who was late. He enjoyed the power of the head-start, the ability to judge the others the moment they crossed the threshold into his domain.

The morning light bled through the towering glass walls, offering that explicit, high altitude view that only the Seven were privileged to witness. Today, the sky had traded its pale blue for something more temperamental; the clouds had grayed and thickened, coiling into layers of heavy, slate colored fluff. 

Homelander stood facing the glass, hands locked behind his back beneath the heavy drape of his cape. His posture was immaculate, shoulders broad enough to carry the weight of a nation, chin cocked at that precise angle of casual smugness. 

He had been tracing the movement of the storm for god knew how long. There were rare, quiet moments when he found the view mesmerizing; it possessed a calming, anaesthetic effect, watching the gray masses drift until they completely swallowed the city below. For a few seconds, he could almost pretend the world didn't exist at all.

Just as the first collision of clouds triggered a distant, silent flash of lightning, Homelander heard her, footsteps approaching down the hall. It was rhythmic, heavy, and unmistakable. He knew it was Maeve before she even cleared the doors.

Her boots clacked against the polished floor as she entered, the sound echoing in the vacuum of the room. She slowed as she reached the table, her presence cutting through the calm silence.

“Homelander,” she said simply. Her voice was the sonic equivalent of lukewarm coffee, casual, distant, and utterly drained of the warmth they had once shared. 

She didn’t bother sitting; instead, she leaned against the edge of the sleek table, bracing herself with a weary grace. Her eyes immediately drifted to the empty chair that had been added to the configuration.

“New girl joining us today?” Maeve asked, her gaze shifting to the back of his golden head.

Homelander, whose back had been a wall of red and white stillness, finally moved. He turned with a slow, liquid grace, his eyes locking onto her with the objective detachment of a buyer inspecting a luxury car. He didn’t speak immediately; he favored the silence, using it to peel her apart. 

His gaze dragged from the peak of Maeve’s headpiece down the lines of her suit, a costume that left little to the imagination, tracing the sharp plains of her collarbones, the hard curve of her biceps, and the deep, strategic valley of her cleavage. He cataloged every inch of her legs, down to the glaze of her boots.

Once he was satisfied that Vought’s premiere warrior goddess was sufficiently dolled-up for the cameras, a thin, satisfied smile carved its way across his face. His eyes finally flicked up to meet hers, blue and bottomless.

“Morning,” he said, hands still locked behind him. The grin was predatory, a flash of white teeth that didn't reach his eyes. “You smell nice today. No whiskey?”

Maeve scoffed, a dry, raspy sound that spoke of decades of tolerance. She crossed her arms over her stomach, a defensive reflex she likely didn't even realize she was performing. “Yeah, well… Samantha will be here soon. I need a fucking cigarette right now—and a whiskey neat.” She even pointed a sharp finger at him, emphasizing her desperation for a vice to take the edge off the morning.

Homelander chuckled, closing the distance between them. His steps were slow and intentional, invading her personal space with an ease of owning the air she breathed. The smile shifted, softening into something almost playful, though the underlying menace never truly evaporated.

“What is it, anyway? Smells like something floral,” he murmured, slowing until he was a mere few inches from her. He hovered there, his presence a physical weight, his eyes boring into her face as if searching for a crack in the granite.

Maeve didn’t flinch, her gaze steady despite the suffocating proximity. She wasn’t afraid of Homelander in the way the interns were; she didn't fear a sudden snap of her neck or a heat vision lobotomy in the middle of a Thursday. 

But she was intimately aware of the geography of his madness. The man was unhinged in every sense of the word, a ticking clock with no hands. So, for the sake of her own sanity, and the vast, staggering wealth that fueled her spoiled, cynical lifestyle, Maeve played the game. If being nice to the big blonde bastard was the tax she had to pay for her penthouse and her privacy, she would do it in a heartbeat.

But Homelander possessed absolutely no concept of boundaries, and even if he did, he viewed them as suggestions for the mud people. He leaned in further, the movement smooth and unhurried, his nose tracing the line of her jaw until he was buried in the curve of her neck. He inhaled audibly, a deep, lingering draw of breath that cataloged the floral notes of her new perfume. 

As the air hissed between his teeth, a map of goosebumps erupted across Maeve’s skin, a primal, somatic protest of sheer discomfort that her mind couldn't override. She remained a statue. She stayed rooted, her breathing shallow and cautious, her eyes tracking his every micro-movement like a soldier watching a live grenade roll across the floor.

His gloved hand rose, the leather dragging slowly against the grain of her skin. His fingers grazed her jawline, drifted down the column of her throat, and eventually came to a rest against the hard, metallic edge of her corset. He lingered there, his thumb tracing the boundary of the suit, his eyes hunting. 

He was a scavenger for fear, looking for that specific sliver of terror he craved. Usually, Maeve was a walking fort, her resting bitch face an impenetrable shield of coldness, but Homelander didn't need her face to tell him the truth. 

He could hear the sudden, frantic spike in her heartbeat, a rhythmic staccato that betrayed the woman behind the warrior. A knowing, crooked smirk warped his features. 

“You know,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, terrifyingly intimate register. He tilted his head until they were breathing the same air, barely an inch of space left between their lips. “If you weren’t so drop-dead gorgeous and such a total bitch, you’d have been dead by now.”

Maeve let out a soft, dry scoff, her eyes already rolling toward the ceiling in a practiced display of boredom.

“Fuck off, John,” she said, her arms finally uncrossing. She placed a flat palm against his ribbed, patriotic stomach and gave him a gentle, firm shove. It wasn’t a move of aggression, but one of weary familiarity, the kind of casual dismissal born of a thousand similar encounters.

Homelander didn’t take offense; if anything, the rejection seemed to charm him. He chuckled, a sound of genuine, dark amusement, and allowed himself to be moved. 

“You know, we should fuck again sometime,” he said, shrugging with a nonchalance that made the pervy suggestion sound like a lunch invitation. He began pivoting away, strolling toward the head of the table with the easy gait of a king. “I miss us,” he called back over his shoulder, his eyes catching hers one last time with a flash of hollow sincerity. “I do. Really.”

Maeve merely smirked, the expression a tired, cynical twitch of her lips. She didn't dignify the invitation with an answer; instead, she hooked a finger into the back of her chair, pulled it out with a screech of metal on marble, and sank into the seat. 

The conversation was already dead to her, buried under a thousand other hollow interactions.

Almost on cue, the doors hissed open to admit Samantha. She was the team’s dedicated shadow, the intern tasked with the high-wire act of delivering morning coffees, protein loaded munches, or the illegal drugs required to keep the Seven functional.

She pushed a heavy chrome meal trolley into the room, the casters rolling against the floor. It was laden with the curated breakfast orders of the world’s most powerful people.

“Good morning, Homelander. Queen Maeve,” Samantha chirped, her grin wide and desperate with hope. She was unceasingly caught in that state of being mildly nervous and completely awestruck, a deer in the headlights look that had become her permanent face at Vought.

Maeve gave her a sharp, masculine flick of the chin, a minimalist greeting that said I see you, now keep moving.

Homelander, however, didn't offer so much as a blink. He was occupied with the ritual of seating himself, a deliberate process of draping his heavy, fancy cape through the specialized gap in the chair's handlebar so it wouldn't bunch. 

Once the fabric was perfectly aligned, he rested his forearms on the handles and leaned back, his cold, crystalline stare tracking Samantha’s movements in total silence. 

But Samantha was a professional optimist. She’d been at Vought for months and still hadn't let the corporate rot dampen her excitement. Since Maeve was already seated, she started there, unloading the necessities: a crystal decanter amber-thick with whiskey, a heavy glass ashtray, a new lighter, and a fresh, unopened pack of cigarettes.

“Thanks,” Maeve muttered flatly, her eyes already tracking the decanter as if it were a life raft.

As the intern scurried around the table, placing the rest of the orders in their designated spots, the rest of the team began to file in. 

The yawning space of the conference room acted as an amplifier, catching the rhythmic echo of their approaching footsteps. Black Noir entered first, a silent shadow that seemed to absorb the morning light. Then came the others: A-Train, vibrating with restless energy; the Deep, cheeky and weightless; and Translucent, fully visible and dressed in his overalls suit. 

“Homelander. Queen Maeve.” The Moronic Trio offered a ragged chorus of greetings, their voices overlapping in a desperate bid for acknowledgment as they scraped their chairs across the floor.

But the environment in the room noticeably thickened when Starlight finally appeared. She trailed several long, agonizing seconds behind the men, lingering in the doorway as if she were stepping into a lion’s den, which, in every sense that mattered, she was.

Maeve didn't spare any of them a single glance. Her attention was focused entirely on the surgical extraction of a cigarette from its pack, treating everyone else as if they were nothing more than furniture. By the time the first plume of acrid smoke drifted from her lips, Starlight had finally crossed the threshold. 

Trailing a few paces behind her like a nervous, high-strung shadow was Ashley Barrett, the Director of Talent Relations. Ashley walked with a frantic, clipped energy, the physical embodiment of Vought’s corporate anxiety.

And throughout it all, Homelander simply watched. He sat in a state of predatory patience, that unsettling glint never quite fading from his eyes. He was always watching, always internally nitpicking, waiting for the slightest tremor in a voice or a stray hair to justify a "correction." It was the only sport that still gave him a rush.

On the surface, they were a gallery of gods, though. Every supe was vacuum-sealed into a Vought engineered suit, trimmed, styled, and polished to  excellence. They looked perfect, or as perfect as they could be, given the staggering level of idiocy Homelander knew resided beneath the suits.

Finally, he broke the silence with a loud, theatrical exhale. He leaned forward, planting his forearms on the metal table with a heavy thud, his gaze locking onto the new girl like a laser guidance system.

“Starlight!” he said at last, his voice shifting with terrifying abruptness into a charming, conversational lilt.

Annie flinched. It was a small, sharp movement, an instinctive reaction to her name being spoken by the man on the posters. She immediately straightened her spine, a polite, starstruck smile twitching at the corners of her lips, even as her eyes betrayed a lingering, frantic uncertainty.

“Homelander,” she managed, her voice small against the vastness of the room.

Homelander’s blue eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly as he tracked the jittery movement of her gaze. He noticed the way she avoided the rest of the table like it was made of hot coals. She wouldn't look at the others, and she certainly wouldn't look at him. 

It was obvious; she was internally spiraling with the localized trauma of sharing a room with the same collection of bastards who had tried to dismantle her dignity a couple nights prior. 

The fact that Homelander and Noir had been preoccupied with their own sexual distractions just a few feet away during her ordeal was a detail he filed under "irrelevant." He truly couldn't care less about the mechanics of her initiation; he only cared about competence, and sex appeal.

“Well, since you're here now—” Homelander started, his voice pivoting into that smooth, polished baritone that had sold a billion lunchboxes. He eased into his charming persona, his grin widening with a burst of manufactured corporate excitement.

He pushed off from his seat, rising to his full, intimidating height and sweeping his arms out in a grand, theatrical gesture toward Annie. “The first item on the agenda today is, obviously, welcoming our new member: Starlight. She’ll be serving in place of Lamplighter.”

His eyes swept the table, the Great American Angel face on full display for the benefit of the room. “I’m sure you’ve each met her individually over the last couple of days, but this is her first appearance in an official meeting.” His head tilted toward her again, his expression softening into something that looked almost like affection. “Starlight, would you like to say a few words by the way of introducing yourself?” he prompted, tossing her a light, playful wink. 

For a fleeting, transient moment, it virtually looked like genuine encouragement.

But Annie was paralyzed. She looked completely dumbfounded, as if the very concept of her own name had been scrubbed from her brain all of a sudden. Her eyes darted around in a frantic, awkward rhythm, eventually dragging herself up from her seat.

“Oh…” was the only sound that escaped her throat. Her gaze roamed over the rest of the room, looking for a harbor and finding only sharks. 

The Deep, Translucent, and A-Train weren't even pretending to be professional; they were smirking at her with a sickening lack of shame, their eyes glittering with the memory of her vulnerability.

The only mercy at the table was Queen Maeve, who was entirely, blissfully checked out. She sat with her eyes closed and her face turned away from the table, a thin trail of smoke rising from her cigarette as she occupied a private, whiskey-soaked universe of her own.

“I… uh… I…” Annie stammered. She was trapped in the agonizing crossroads of being mortified that she couldn't find her words and being white-hot with fury that the Megadouche Trio was chuckling at her, clearly finding her struggle to be the best entertainment they'd had all morning.

“Hey,” Homelander interrupted, his brows knitting together with a clinical accuracy that mimicked genuine kindness. His voice dropped an octave, becoming the velvet wrapped reassurance of a father figure. “It’s okay. Don't be intimidated. You're among friends here.” 

He offered the assurance with a calm stability, his eyes briefly flicking to Ashley Barrett, who was vibrating in the background with wide, manic eyes and caffeine fueled excitement.

Eventually, Annie released a long, defeated sigh, her shoulders dropping an inch. “Well… I guess I just wanted to say how pro—” she paused, the word sticking in her throat as she looked at the faces around the table. “Proud I am to be here.”

“Shlp, shlp, shlp.”

The Deep didn't even try to hide it. He made a wet, rhythmic noise with his tongue, a crude and unmistakable pantomime of a blowjob. He leaned over, prompting Translucent for a high-five—a gesture the otherwise invisible man returned with a sharp clap and an unabashed laugh. 

The two of them snickered like prep school bullies, while A-Train sat right beside Annie, his side-glance sharp and mocking, a smirk playing on his lips as he watched her crumble.

Annie’s face contorted into a grimace, her jaw tightening so hard her teeth audibly gritted. The outrage was a physical heat in her chest, but she remained frozen, trapped by the gold plated shackles of her new life.

Homelander, for his part, acted as though the idiots didn't exist. He didn't scold them; he simply deleted them from his sensory field, his focus remaining entirely on the script.

“Thank you, Starlight. We’ll all do our best to help you settle in,” he said, his tone final. He’d squeezed the necessary sentiment out of her, and he was already bored. His eyes shifted to Translucent, pivoting the meeting with a cold efficiency. “I believe Translucent had a question he wanted to raise?”

Translucent shifted, his chuckles finally dimming, shaking off his lazy slouch and sitting upright. The smirk remained carved onto his features, but it had sharpened into something more transactional. He pulled a pair of glasses from a hidden pocket in his suit, sliding them onto his nose as he shuffled through the glossy Vought dossiers spread before him.

“Yep! A question of merchandising, actually,” he said, his voice taking on a whiny, litigious edge. He scanned the fine print, his finger tracing the numbers that actually mattered to him. “I’d like to know why Homelander, Queen Maeve, and Black Noir are on a full one percent of the merchandising tail each—compared to the rest of us sitting at point seven five.”

Homelander barked a sharp laugh; a sound that carried no warmth, only the mocking amusement of a god listening to a peasant complain about the price of dirt.

“Because we’re the Big Three.” He shrugged with a casual, toxic smugness, looking thoroughly pleased with the simple hierarchy of his world. “Look at the sales of our individually trademarked material next to yours, Translucent. If you still don't understand the distinction, maybe you should have Ashley explain the math to you in words with fewer syllables.”

Translucent’s brow furrowed, his expression buzzing with a corporate agitation that bordered on genuine offense. “I didn’t see the ‘Big Three’ mentioned anywhere in the Vought standard-form contract,” he countered, his eyes darting around the table in a desperate search for a crumb of solidarity from the others. “As a matter of fact, I’ve never heard that term used except in the most informal contexts—”

“Looks to me like Maeve’s got the ‘Big Two’ going on all on her lonesome here,” the Deep interrupted, his voice dripping with a greasy, unearned confidence. He punctuated the remark with a slow, nasty wink, his eyes shamelessly anchoring themselves to Maeve’s boobs.

The air in the room felt stagnant as Translucent and A-Train chortled in the background, clearly energized by the cheap, bottom-shelf humor. They were like hyenas emboldened by the presence of a lion, pushing the boundaries of professional conduct simply because they could.

Beside them, Annie’s eyes widened, a flash of pure, unfiltered shock crossing her face. She was a fresh recruit witnessing the open, casual degradation of the most powerful woman on the planet, and the realization that seniority offered no protection against the rot was a cold splash of water to her system.

But it was Maeve’s reaction that stole the show. She didn't snap. She didn't even look angry. She simply turned her head toward the Deep, her expression as flat as a grave marker, and exhaled a thick, concentrated plume of gray smoke directly into his face.

The Deep vanished behind a sudden, acrid cloud. He broke into a violent fit of coughing, his hands instinctively clawing at the air as he tried to swat the smoke away, his suave persona dissolving into a sputtering, watery-eyed mess. 

Translucent and A-Train didn't offer sympathy; they only laughed harder, their entertainment increasing in direct proportion to their teammate’s humiliation.

Homelander didn’t join in the laughter. Instead, he allowed a thin, brittle line of irritation to tighten his jaw, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes into the back of his skull. He wasn't going to dignify their bottom tier table drama by participating. He was the sun; he didn't care what the dust motes were doing in his light. 

With a flick of his hand, a dismissive, kingly gesture, he signaled for Ashley to take the floor.

“Ashley, just get on with the big stuff already,” he urged, his voice heavy with a sudden, lethal boredom. He sank back into his chair, his movements radiating a restless impatience.

“Thank you, Homelander!” Ashley chirped, her voice a high-frequency vibration of corporate sycophancy and eternal caffeine-induced jitters. 

She scurried to the foot of the table, positioning herself with a frantic energy. “Good morning, guys! It’s always just great to see the full family here at the Tower!” she squeaked, stressing the lie with a quick, performative clap. 

She snatched the remote from the marble surface and engaged the massive wall screen. The Vought logo dissolved into a fancy little digital presentation that bathed the room in a sterile, blue light. 

"Okay, everyone, eyes up! This is the big one," she prompted, her thumb clicking through the slides with rhythmic precision. “We’ve been in the cooking phase for the past year, but five weeks from now, we officially go live with Vought’s Light of the World Tour.” She turned her gaze toward the blonde devil at the head of the table, her eyes wide and pleading for his approval.

“Homelander, this is your masterpiece. We are talking twenty days, seven states, and zero breaks. We aren’t doing arenas—too cold, too impersonal,” she said, shrugging off the billion-dollar stadium circuit as if it were beneath them. “Vought is erecting custom 'Covenant Canvases', massive, state-of-the-art tent expos. Each site is a double day immersion. We’ve got roundtables, faith-based workshops, and actual theatrical plays performed by the junior ministry kids from Capes for Christ.”

She clicked to the next slide, the screen filled with architectural renders of glowing, cathedral-like tents. “Ezekiel is already on board to handle the afternoon concert blocks—very wholesome, very chart-topping. But the main event? That’s you, sir!” She gestured grandly at Homelander, her voice catching as if she were witnessing a miracle. “We’re marketing the 'Hand of God' sessions. You’ll be doing live baptisms, delivering the keynote word of the day, and showing these people that Vought isn't just a company—it’s a calling.”

She looked nearly moved to tears by her own monologue, or perhaps just the sheer, staggering scale of the projected profit margins. Ashley paused, her chest heaving slightly, her eyes searching the table for the expected adulation. “Any questions?”

Homelander simply shrugged, a slow, dismissive tilt of his shoulders. He couldn't have been less interested in the logistics of being a savior if he tried, but he wasn't about to turn down the revenue. Money was money, and adoration was the fuel that kept his machines running.

The rest of the table mirrored his apathy, the only skill they were competent at. 

Annie, however, sat in a daze of mounting confusion. She barely understood half of the corporate jargon being hurled across the room; this was her third day on the job, and she felt like she was trying to read a map written in a dead language while the world burned around her.

“Great!” Ashley clapped her palms once, the remote still gripped tight in her shaking hand. “And then we have A-Train’s upcoming movie shoots for next month—A-Train: Race to the End of the World, and—” She pointed a manicured finger at Maeve. “Queen Maeve, you’ll be teaming up with him for the second act. We’re looking for a significant demographic boost there.” She flashed a conspiratorial wink at A-Train, who looked more interested in his fingernails than the film. “And the Deep, we have the Ocean World expansion—”

Homelander’s lips smacked together; a wet, sharp sound that cut through her sentence. His hand shot up, palm flat, physically halting the flow of her words as his patience had finally, fully evaporated. He closed his eyes for a brief, pained second.

“Actually, Ashley—just email the stuff to everyone,” he said, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous monotone. “Run the individual pointers with us in private. Okay?”

Ashley’s mouth remained parted, frozen mid-syllable. She blinked, her brain scrambling to reset, before she managed a frantic, submissive nod. 

“Of course, sir. Absolutely.” She forced a wide, synthetic grin and fumbled with the remote, killing the screen and placing it back on the dark surface with a trembling hand. “That... that would be all for today, then.”

“Yeah?” Homelander’s grin returned, a sharp, sudden flash of canines that signaled he was finally getting what he wanted. He pushed off his chair with a burst of restless energy. “Great. Class dismissed!” He clapped his gloved palms together, the sound echoing like a gunshot through the yawning space, and began to saunter toward the exit with a predatory grace.

But just as his boots reached the threshold of the door, he stopped dead. His head tilted to the side as if he’d just caught a faint, nagging frequency in the air, a detail he’d nearly let slip through the cracks.

“Oh, right,” he muttered to himself, the sound barely a whisper as he pivoted back toward the room, his cape swirling around his calves like a shroud.

The rest of the team, who had already begun the ritual of disengaging; scraping chairs, checking phones, or reaching for their munchies, froze in mid-motion. They settled back into their seats with a collective, silent sigh, eyes tracking Homelander as he drifted back into the room. 

There was a thick, curious tension in the air. When the Captain had an afterthought, it usually involved someone losing their job or their dignity.

As he circled the metallic table, Homelander’s hand darted out with practiced grace, plucking a thick black permanent marker from a silver penholder. He didn't break his stride as he stepped toward the spot where the new girl sat.

Annie, who had spent the meeting trying to shrink into the upholstery, stiffened. The man of her childhood dreams, the face that had looked down from her bedroom wall in Des Moines, was closing the distance. Panic and awe warred in her chest. 

She began to push herself up, a reflexive move to show respect to her superior, but Homelander let out a soft, paternal chuckle. He waved a casual, gloved hand, gesturing for her to stay seated with a kind of forced warmth.

Once he reached her, he didn't hesitate. He uncapped the marker with a sharp pop and leaned over her, invading her personal space so completely she could smell the expensive, Vought-branded cologne off his skin. Before her brain could even process the intrusion, he pressed the felt tip against the white fabric of her suit, right at the collarbone.

With a steady, bored hand, he began tracing a line down her chest, carving a deep, aggressive 'V' into the material.

“Memo from Madelyn,” he explained, his voice conversational and flat. He continued the drawing, the marker dragging across the fabric with a rhythmic skritch. “New costume concept for you. Something a bit more... photogenic. More or less…” He gave a small, disinterested shrug mid-stroke, his blue eyes never leaving her chest as he mapped out the exposure. “Like this. Get the idea? You could put a zipper in the middle, you know. Accessibility. Talk to Ashley. Okay?”

He finished the vandalism and pulled back, clicking the cap back onto the marker with a satisfied snap. He gestured grandly at the black ink staining her pristine white-and-gold suit, as if he’d just gifted her a masterpiece.

Annie blinked stupidly, her brain buffering behind her eyes as the reality of the situation struggled to land.

It was another entry in the long, horrifying list of things that made no sense since she’d arrived in New York. She had grown up worshiping this man, and in the past seventy-two hours, she’d discovered he was likely homosexual or bi, a narcissist, and apparently, a part-time fashion designer with zero concept of consent. He hadn't asked for permission to touch her, let alone ruin a suit that cost more than her mother's house. He had simply taken what he wanted because he was the only thing in the room that mattered to him.

In that moment, a cold, leaden realization settled in the pit of Annie’s stomach. It was a slow motion car crash of her own idealism. Maybe Homelander, too, was an absolute jerk. Perhaps he wasn't as overtly depraved as the other three predators at the table, but he was fundamentally flawed; a hollowed-out version of the icon she had worshipped on her bedroom wall. The shimmering image of the man who had pulled her from the wreckage of that active shooting in Pennsylvania was dissolving, replaced by a man who had just treated her body like a whiteboard for his corporate whims.

But before she could even find the breath to protest the violation of her suit, the God of America was already gone. He had vanished through the doors, leaving her sitting there with a black ink stain over her heart. The rest of the Seven filed out after him in a blur of colored spandex and indifference, treating her presence as if she were a piece of the office furniture.

Out in the glossy hallway, Ashley Barrett’s heels clicked rapidly as she scrambled to close the gap between herself and Homelander’s billowing cape.

“Homelander!” she called out, her grin sheepish and brittle, the sweat of the mid-morning grind glistening on her brow. “Don’t forget to drop by the wardrobe. They've redesigned your boots.”

Homelander slowed his stride, turning only partially to acknowledge her. His face remained a mask of stoic boredom.

“Thanks,” he said with a curt, singular nod. He began to turn away, then paused, his voice dropping into a casual register that didn't quite hide the predatory undertone. “Uh, Ashley? Do me a favor and send the Deep’s schedule for the week to my private terminal.”

“Of course! Right away!” Ashley chirped, already backing away, waving a frantic, small goodbye as she retreated toward the elevators to tackle her next corporate fire.

Homelander didn’t wait for her to finish. He was already striding away. He had never liked Ashley enough to grant her more than a few seconds of his time anytime she interacted with him, but he appreciated her utility. Ashley was high-functioning, stupid; and most importantly, governable. She never questioned why he needed files that often fell outside his jurisdiction, like the minute-by-minute movements of his teammates.

He thought of the Deep’s behavior in the meeting; the crude gestures, the lack of discipline, the way he’d let Maeve embarrass him. The boy had been getting a little too comfortable, a little too out of sorts lately. And Homelander believed that a leader’s primary duty was to ensure his followers knew exactly where the hierarchy stood.

The fish kid was overdue for a good ol’ lesson. He’d been fucking with money. 

Chapter Text

The yellow taxi screeched to a halt against the curb, its tires biting into the asphalt directly in front of the monolithic Seven Tower. The driver, a young man, shifted in his seat to face Annie, his expression a mix of weary professional and wide eyed tourist.

“There you go, miss. Seven Tower, huh?” He let the name hang in the humidified air, weighted with a wishful reverence. That place was everyone's ultimate dream job, after all. 

Annie offered him a polite, practiced smile, one she’d perfected back in Des Moines for talent shows and church raffles. She began the ritual of plucking bills from her wallet. The fluorescent dash lights washed her face in a sickly green hue, highlighting the faint exhaustion she couldn't quite mask.

“So, what? You’re like... a corporate big-shot there or something?” The driver probed. There wasn't any malice in his voice; it was pure, innocent fascination, the kind of awe people felt when they were standing in the shadow of something they believed was greater than themselves.

Annie leaned forward, extending the cash. The smile remained pinned to her face, a brittle shield against the world’s expectations. “No, nothing that exciting. I’m just an intern, actually,” she said, her voice steady and clean.

It was a lie, but a necessary one. Admitting she was the Starlight, the newest constellation in Vought’s artificial sky, felt increasingly like confessing to a crime she hadn't yet committed. In the mere seventy-two hours since she’d set foot in New York, Annie had learned with startling clarity that being one of the Seven was not the divine calling she, or the rest of the worshipping world, imagined it to be. It felt more like being trapped in a gold plated human centipede machine. 

The driver flashed her a wider, toothy grin and gave a brisk nod, satisfied with her humble answer. He didn't press for more, much to her relief. 

Annie stepped out of the cab, the heavy, humid air of the New York night instantly clinging to her skin like a damp blanket.

Earlier that afternoon, the walls of the tower had begun to feel like they were closing in. She had found herself in dire, physical need of oxygen that hadn't been recycled through Vought’s HVAC system and a reprieve from the suffocating presence of her new "colleagues." 

She had been sitting in her penthouse, waiting for her first assignment that never came. Of course, it stood to reason that no new corporate hire, superhuman or otherwise, was handed the keys to the kingdom during their first week, let alone their third day. 

But it was more than just being the new girl. Even if she had possessed the burning desire to fly out and play the hero for the masses, the leash was pulled tight. The Seven weren't allowed so much as to sneeze in the direction of a crime scene without the explicit, triple-stamped approval of Security, Risk, and Crisis Management. The bureaucracy of "saving the world" was a maze designed to prioritize optics over lives.

And then, there was the matter of the suit.

Her stomach did a small, nauseous flip as she thought about the morning’s meeting. Homelander had effectively vandalized her uniform, using a permanent marker to draw a crude, plunging neckline directly onto her chest to illustrate his concept art for her rebranding. 

It had been her only pair that fit perfectly, the one that made her feel like the hero she’d spent her life trying to become. Her two older backup suits were now smaller, relics of a younger self, and utterly unwearable for a public appearance. She felt marked, branded by a man who saw her not as a coworker, but as a convenient canvas for his whims.

So, Annie had traded the suit altogether for the anonymity of civilian clothes: a pair of pale, high-waisted jeans, a multicolor crop top, and a denim jacket that felt more like Annie from Des Moines than Starlight of the Seven. The electric grit of the New York streets were far better than the aimless, ghost-like sauntering through the Tower’s fancy corridors doing nothing. It was her first time in the city, and she figured she might as well see the skyline before the corporate machine completely sucked the soul out of her.

It would be a flat out lie to claim she had simply swallowed the insults of the last few days and moved on. She hadn't. As she roamed through Manhattan’s sensory overload, her mind was a broken record, relentlessly replaying every humiliation that had transpired since her launch night.

Coming to terms with the reality of the Seven was like finding out your guardian angels were actually just high functioning sociopaths with multi-million dollar branding deals. Only seventy-two hours into her tenure at the Tower, and the Greatest Heroes in the World had already shown their true colors.

However, Donna had always insisted that Annie wasn't just born gifted; she had a knack for manifesting luck. As it turned out, that midwestern optimism actually bore fruit in the humid afternoon heat. Annie was standing on a crowded corner, hovering over a tray of local street food, when she spotted a middle-aged man with a desperate, sweating face dragging a screaming little girl toward a parked SUV. The scene simply didn’t feel normal. 

Annie didn’t hesitate, of course. She dropped the food and intercepted them, demanding an explanation with a firmness that felt more professional than anything she’d done at Vought so far. 

The man’s defense was predictable. He claimed he was the father, a tired parent dealing with a tantrum. But the child’s denial was immediate and bone chilling. She begged for help with a raw terror that no tantrum could mimic. Annie gave the man exactly sixty seconds to explain himself before she called the police, but he doubled down, spinning a frantic yarn about a domestic dispute and a wife who had lost her mind.

The interaction heated up until the scene practically buzzed with the man's escalating aggression. Annie didn't wait for him to swing, she tackled him with a clean, efficient force that reminded her why she’d spent all those years training at all. She bundled the hysterical man and the sobbing child into the car and drove them straight to the nearest police station herself.

When she handed them over to the desk sergeant, she finally used the name Starlight. It was the only time in three days the title felt like it carried any weight. Supes had government mandated immunity and the legal authority to arrest or neutralize threats on the spot, and for the first time in New York City, she was grateful for the red tape. She’d actually done something. She’d saved a life.

The officers at the station had basically tripped over themselves to thank her, a few veteran cops shaking her hand with a proud grip. There was a flurry of requests for autographs and a few fumbled smartphones aimed her way for photos, but she declined the pictures with a polite, firm shake of her head. Aside from the fact that her contract forbade unapproved digital likenesses, standing there in a denim jacket and thrift-store jeans didn't exactly scream ‘Vought International Icon’.

Still, as she’d scribbled Starlight on a few crumpled pieces of notebook paper, the hollow ache in her chest had begun to scab over. After three days of psychological waterboarding at the hands of the world's greatest narcissists, this was the win she needed. She convinced herself it was a sign, a divine wink from the Almighty. The Lord was still watching, even in a city that felt like it had been built on a graveyard of morals. 

Maybe she could be the outlier. Maybe she could be the one person in the Seven who didn't smell like a PR firm’s dumpster fire.

Buoyed by a sugar rush from a cherry slushie she’d grabbed on the way back, Annie caught a cab and returned to the Tower. And by the time the elevator chattered with a soft, expensive ding on the 99th floor, the crushing weight of the morning’s meeting had lifted, replaced by a light, airy mood she hadn’t felt since she’d left the Midwest.

Annie bypassed her quarters and headed straight for the unisex washroom, a term that felt absurdly clinical for what was essentially a marble and onyx cathedral dedicated to hygiene. The space was a yawning miracle of dusty browns and polished blacks, illuminated by recessed lighting that made everything look expensive and untouchable. 

On one side, a series of basins sat beneath a mirror so large it felt like a portal into a wealthier dimension. On the other, the toilet stalls stood like silent, armored sentinels. The place was scrubbed to such a sheen that a person could likely perform open heart surgery on the floor without catching a cold.

Annie stepped up to the mirror, her reflection looking a little more like the girl she recognized. She turned on a faucet, the water trilling with perfect, aerated pressure, and let out a long, tired sigh. She cupped her palms, catching the cool liquid and splashing it against her face. She did it again, and then a third time, letting the New York grime wash down the drain.

In the background, a stall door clicked open with a sharp, mechanical finality. 

Queen Maeve stepped out. The first thing she did was roll her shoulders, the audible pop of her joints echoing off the marble walls, before she began a slow, weary saunter toward the basins. She came to a halt about four feet from Annie, but instead of facing the water, she leaned her weight against the vanity, her back turned to the mirror with a posture of pure stoicism.

Once she found her balance, she reached into the hidden compartment of her forearm bracers, plucking out a pack of cigarettes with a practiced flick.

Annie had frozen mid-motion, the water still trilling into the basin. This was it, the moment she’d dreamed of since she was a little girl in Iowa. She was finally face to face and entirely alone with the woman who defined her entire concept of feminism and heroism. Scrambling to look presentable, she snatched a paper towel, killed the faucet, and pivoted to face her idol.

“Queen Maeve, hi!” Annie’s voice jumped an octave, a wide, genuine fangirl grin splitting her face. “We finally meet. I mean, I know we were in the meeting, but... wow. I can’t believe I’m actually seeing you in person. You’re so much more gorgeous than you are on TV.”

She tossed the damp paper towel toward the bin and reflexively wiped the remaining moisture from her palms onto her jeans, her heart hammering against her ribs. “By the way, I’ve watched every single one of your movies. And your memoir? I read it so many times I actually wore the spine out. I had to go out and buy a second copy, you know,” she added with a nervous, childish giggle that felt small in the immense space.

Maeve, however, remained a statue of stoic indifference. It was as if Annie were a hologram, a flicker of light and sound that didn't quite register in her reality. She pulled a cigarette from the pack and ignited a lighter, the flame reflecting briefly in her deadened eyes before she took a deep, dragging pull of smoke.

Annie’s grin wavered but didn't break. She took a quick, cautious glance around the room to confirm they were still alone, then took a conspiratorial, girlish step closer. Her tone dropped to a soft, respectful whisper. “I just have to say, ma’am... I really admire how you handled the Deep’s vulgar comments today. It was... inspiring.”

Maeve didn't offer a "thank you" or even a glance. She merely let out a small, dry scoff, a sound devoid of any humor. She stared at a blank point on the far wall, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke that began to drift between them, obscuring their reflections in the mirror and creating a gray, acrid veil between the veteran and the rookie.

Annie’s grin persisted, though it was beginning to look more like a desperate reflex than an expression of joy. “No, really,” she insisted, closing the gap by another single, tentative step while still respecting the invisible perimeter of Maeve’s personal space. “I was just amazed. How you managed to put him in his place without even dignifying him with a single word... it was incredible.”

This time Maeve released a slow, weary sigh, a fresh plume of smoke trailing out with the breath. Her eyes slid shut, her head dipping forward as if the sheer pressure of the new girl’s midwestern earnestness was a physical burden she couldn't quite carry.

“Looks like I’m going to have to use a word or two on you just to get some fucking peace,” Maeve rasped, her eyes remaining closed. Then they snapped open, dull and sharp all at once, as she finally deigned to look at the girl. “So, here are the two words you’re looking for: Fuck. Off.”

The grin on Annie’s face didn't just disappear, it eroded in agonizing, gradual decrements, like a sandcastle being reclaimed by a cold tide. It wasn't just the blunt force rudeness of it; it was the psychological sting of adding Queen Maeve, the ultimate blueprint for female heroism, to the mental tally of "pricks" Annie had been compiling since her arrival. 

Without a word, Annie gave a singular, stiff nod and pivoted on her heel, leaving Maeve to rot in her own grey cloud of nicotine and apathy.

The walk back to her penthouse was a blur of high end carpet and crushing isolation. She struggled against the hot, stinging prickle of tears, her throat tightening as she spiraled through a desperate internal audit. She searched her memory for some cosmic sin, some spiritual debt she was being forced to pay back with interest. What could she have possibly done to deserve a workplace that felt like a circle of hell designed by a PR firm?

Then, the memories of her pageant years began to surface, unbidden and cold. She saw herself back in Des Moines, standing under the hot stage lights with Donna whispering ideas in her ear. She remembered the girl she used to be: the one who would casually drop a devastating rumor about a competitor’s ‘reputation’ just to ensure the crown stayed on her own head. Back then, it had felt like strategy. Donna had framed it as being ruthless in a difficult world, a necessary survival tactic for the winners' circle.

Annie had never let herself see the wreckage she’d left behind; she’d just kept smiling for the judges and the cameras. But now, standing on the receiving end of that same icy cruelty, and from people she had once worshipped, the realization hit her like a physical blow. 

The world wasn't a fair place where the good won, it was a theater of the absurd where the cruelest actors got the best billing.

The Seven were the ultimate proof that you could be a monster and still be a god. And in that moment, the bittersweet truth settled in: she wasn't just a victim of their world. In her own small, ambitious way, she had been a citizen of it all along.

By the time she’d returned to her penthouse, Annie had reached a grim spiritual conclusion.

This was karma, plain and simple. She was finally being served the bill for every pageant crown she’d snatched through backroom gossip. The universe was balancing the scales, ensuring that her big win, the golden dream of joining the Seven, felt as empty and bitter as it should.

The following couple of days did little to distract her from the existential rot. Her schedule was a grueling marathon of Vought’s onboarding bureaucracy, a series of eventless tasks designed to turn a human being into a brand asset. 

There were sunrise photoshoots where she had to hold a static, saint-like smile for three hours while a lighting technician complained about the lack of glow in her skin. There were HR orientations with Ashley Barrett’s presence, who always vibrated with a manic energy as she walked Annie through Vought’s internal databases and the proprietary software that tracked everything from their social media engagement to their resting heart rates.

As tedious as it was, the busywork acted as a sensory mute. It kept her running, ensuring she was too occupied with password resets and biometric scans to dwell on the fact that her childhood idols were actually just a collection of expensive nightmares.

Then came the weekend, and with it, the Shuttle Day. It was time for the Seven’s alternate-week migration to their orbital headquarters, the Seven Station.

The commute was three hours of Vought basically flexing its bank account. It started with a forty-minute sprint down the Atlantic in a private jet that smelled aggressively of vintage Italian leather. They touched down in the middle of the Vought Florida Complex, ten thousand acres of high-tech concrete and humid swamp where federal laws and FAA regulations were treated like polite suggestions allowed from a distance.

The transition from the base to space was a consistent blur of frantic activity. Annie spent a localized eternity in a hangar the size of a cathedral, undergoing suit-pressurization checks and safety protocols. The actual flight to the station was the shortest, most violent segment of the trip; a ten-minute kick to the chest as the boosters waged a loud, concussive war against gravity.

Finally, the roar died into a pressurized hum. Annie found herself drifting in the shuttle's cabin for the final ten minutes, her body feeling weightless and untethered. She watched the blue, glowing curve of the Earth through a reinforced porthole while the docking computers purred through their silent calculations. 

It was a surreal, soundless transition, moving from the humid, predatory heat of Vought’s private soil to the cold, airless vacuum of space.

Shortly after take off, Annie realized that the shuttle’s passenger list was missing one god-sized name, Homelander. Every other member of the Seven was strapped into their high tensile seats, surrounded by a swarm of the usual corporate shadows and handlers. It was established protocol that, regardless of the day on the calendar, a strategy meeting was held the moment the team touched down at the station to mark the shift in rotation.

Swayed by a moment of naive curiosity, Annie leaned over to Ashley and asked if Homelander was staying grounded for the week. The look Ashley gave her was a cocktail of pity and professional exasperation. 

As it turned out, the man who could outrun sound didn't exactly need to wait for a countdown and a booster rocket. Homelander simply flew. In fact, he had departed for the heavens hours before the rest of the team had even finished their morning lattes.

Annie felt the heat of a blush crawl up her neck. The stupidity of the question lingered in the cabin like a bad smell; of course, Homelander didn't need a shuttle. It was the kind of common sense reality everyone should have swallowed along with their first glass of milk.

Minutes later, the shuttle docked.

Seen through the reinforced porthole, the Seven Station was a far cry from the sleek, futuristic silver needle Annie had imagined. Up close, it looked more like a sprawling, orbital oil rig, a brutalist nightmare of scarred titanium and exposed conduits. 

It was a massive ring dominated by a glowing yellow-star ‘7’ that burned with a cold, perpetual light against the blackness of the void. 

Solar arrays stretched out from the hull like skeletal, sun-bleached wings, cluttered with spikes of long range surveillance sensors. There was no elegance in the exterior, no architectural poetry; it was a clunky, heavy-set fortress of geometry built to withstand both the vacuum of space and the prying eyes of the planet below.

However, the moment the airlocks hissed shut and the inner pressure doors slid open, the industrial grime of the exterior evaporated. Annie stepped out onto a carpet so thick and plush it seemed to swallow the very sound of her footsteps. She was stepping into a world of brushed silver and white marble, breathing in a sterile, clinical scent of expensive ozone.

The transition was a physical jolt to the system. The interior was a masterpiece of Vought funded excess, featuring wraparound floor to ceiling viewports that framed the curvature of the Earth as if the planet were nothing more than a high priced piece of lobby art. The utilitarian metal of the hull was expertly hidden behind soundproofed mahogany paneling and soft, recessed lighting. 

It had created an atmosphere of eerie quiet, a god-like serenity. It was mesmerizing and terrifying at the same time. Annie drifted along behind the group, her head on a swivel as she tried to reconcile the exterior of the station with the palatial interior. Every surface seemed to glaze with a silent aesthetics of billions of dollars at work.

Ashley, trailing just behind with her usual frantic energy, slowed her pace. She slung an arm around Annie’s shoulder, a gesture of corporate intimacy that felt about as natural as a plastic plant. 

“Fancy, right?” she prompted, her eyes searching Annie’s for the appropriate level of gratitude.

Annie flashed a wide, genuine grin, nodding as she took in a particularly sleek stretch of brushed chrome. “Yeah... I mean, it’s incredible. It looks like a completely different world inside compared to the outside.” She let out a small, breathless chuckle.

“Well, you’d better get used to it. You’re going to fit right in, Starlight,” Ashley said, giving her a firm, proprietary pat on the back. “Your new suit is waiting in your chamber. We’ve had the entire suite renovated to align with your brand identity—very celestial, very you.” She gestured toward a glowing digital schematic embedded in the wall then. 

“The map will lead you there. We have the strategy meeting in twenty minutes. Cool?”

“Yeah, yeah. Of course. Thanks a lot, Ashley,” Annie replied, her focus already drifting to the glowing lines of the map. She offered a polite smile over her shoulder as she stepped closer to the screen to memorize the byzantine layout of the ring.

“You bet!” Ashley chirped, her voice echoing down the hall as she hurried off to put out some other fire. 

Within seconds, Annie was the last soul in the corridor. The rest of the Seven and their retinue of handlers had already vanished into the depths of the station, leaving her alone with the eerie hum of the life support systems.

Following the digital breadcrumbs, Annie eventually found herself standing before a door marked with her new, stylized logo. A thin beam of red light swept across her face; a second later, the door hissed open, inviting her into the space.

It was a high-altitude fever dream designed by a minimalist with a god complex. Everything was ivory white and brushed gold, gleaming under ambient lights. A sprawling studio layout where the wine bottles in the kitchenette probably cost more than her first car. In the far corner, a lush king-sized bed sat like a monument, and in the center, a golden brown sofa pristinely organized. 

But the crowning glory was the outer wall; a massive, seamless viewport of reinforced glass that offered an unobstructed, terrifyingly beautiful view of the Earth hanging in the blackness. It was surreal enough to make her dizzy.

Annie stood at the threshold for a long beat, just breathing in the scent of new upholstery and filtered air. When the awe finally subsided into a manageable emotion, she stepped inside. Her eyes swept the room, taking in every expensive detail until they settled on the bed.

Resting on the gleaming white duvet was a high-end golden garment bag and, beside it, a sturdy cardboard box. Both were emblazoned with the new Starlight logo, Vought’s final, polished stamp of ownership.

Her brow knit as she hovered over the bed, a fleeting spark of optimism igniting in her chest. For a split second, she allowed herself to hope for something dignified, something that felt like a promotion. She moved toward the packages with a sharp rush of excitement, her fingers fumbling with the golden zipper of the garment bag.

The excitement flatlined almost immediately as she pulled the material free.

Annie found herself staring at a glistening, one-piece garment that looked nothing like a uniform. It was more of a fancy lingerie from a boutique adult shop. It was a bodysuit made of her brand colors, ivory and gold. 

It gleamed with a predatory luster under the room’s ambient lights. Gone was the modest skirt. Gone was the cape that made her feel like she belonged in a legend. Gone was the hip pouch; Vought apparently decided that a female hero had no need for a pocket when she could simply provide aesthetic value instead.

The accessories were just as blatant: a thin golden belt that served no purpose other than to emphasize her waist, opera length gloves that swallowed her arms up to the bicep, and thigh high boots with heels so tall, a suicidal person could jump from them.

Homelander’s "design notes" had been followed to the letter. There, right in the center, was the zipper he’d suggested; a cold, metallic line that could be pulled up to a modest high neck or plunged down to a depth that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

Annie didn't even realize she was scowling at the heap of fabric until her reflection scowled back from the viewport. 

She walked over to the mirrored wall, holding the suit against her frame. The sight triggered an immediate, visceral cringe. It wasn't just that it was revealing, it felt like a betrayal of every Sunday school lesson and every shred of self-respect she’d managed to maintain. But the reality of her situation settled in sooner than later. She was a multi-million dollar investment, and investments didn't get to argue about the packaging.

So she showered quickly, the water feeling colder than usual, and suited up. She applied a layer of makeup because you simply couldn't wear an ensemble this aggressive with a bare, honest face. It required a certain level of artificiality just to make the wearer presentable.

By the time she’d finished wrestling with the tall boots and the silk lined gloves, the digital clock on the wall informed her she was already two minutes late. She left her signature white headband on the vanity as it looked ridiculous paired with the new "photogenic" Annie, and hurried toward the door.

Every step through the silver corridors felt like a walk to the gallows. Her skin crawled with the anticipation of the Moronic Trio and their inevitable commentary. She could already hear the snickers, could already feel the oily, lingering gaze of the Deep tracing the lines of her skin Vought had so carefully exposed.

The moment she crossed the threshold of the orbital conference room, she was hit by a wave of expensive fragrance; a mix of sandalwood, citrus, and the faint, metallic tang of the station’s life support. The room was a mirror of the Tower’s boardroom, reimagined in a cold, celestial palette of silver, blue, and white. 

Every seat was occupied, and every head turned. Annie kept her eyes fixed on her empty chair, forcing herself to walk through the thick, sudden silence. She ignored the way the cold air of the room felt against the uncovered stretches of her own skin.

Homelander sat at the apex of the long table, his silhouette framed by the infinite blackness of the viewport behind him. 

The man looked like a bored deity presiding over a mediocre sacrifice. His elbows rested on the tabletop, chin resting against the bridge of his locked knuckles, while his eyes remained frozen in a state of cold, impenetrable stoicism.

Around the periphery, the usual suspects were already in peak form. A-Train, Translucent, and the Deep didn't even bother to mask their gawking as Annie navigated the room. They were a huddle of high school bullies in billion-dollar suits, trading hushed remarks that dissolved into wet chuckles and predatory smirks the moment she drew near.

"Well, look at that. Now you can be hot and cold at the same time, newbie," the Deep called out, his voice greasy with a confidence he hadn't earned. He tossed a wink her way, his eyes dragging over the ivory fabric of her new bodysuit.

Annie didn't give him the satisfaction of a blush. Instead, she fixed him with a hard, unwavering scowl, her glare remaining locked on his face until she dropped into her designated chair next to A-Train. The leather of the seat felt freezing against the exposed skin of her thighs.

Meanwhile, Homelander blinked once with agonizing slowness, his gaze sliding toward Maeve. 

She was slumped in the seat to his immediate right, swirling a finger of amber whiskey in a crystal glass. She looked like she was mentally calculating how many more minutes of this she could survive before her liver gave out.

Finding no entertainment there, Homelander’s eyes drifted toward the furthest, dimmest corner of the room. That was where Eli sat. As Madelyn Stillwell’s second assistant, Eli was a permanent fixture of the orbital base, hired specifically to act as the Seven’s administrative shadow. 

On paper, his job was to log meeting minutes, observe the team’s dynamics, and ensure the flow of data back to the New York office remained uninterrupted.

But in reality, Eli was the corporate equivalent of a wiretap. He was an inside spy, a harmless looking suit hired to sniff out compliance breaches and errors before they could embarrass the brand. He was the leash that kept the heroes tethered to the reality of their contracts without ever having to say a word. 

In his mid-thirties, with impeccably groomed brown hair and wire rimmed glasses, Eli sat as quiet and still as a mannequin. He was a master of being invisible in plain sight, never speaking unless he was directly interrogated, a human recording device tucked away in the shadows of their private boardroom.

And Homelander knew better than to treat Eli as part of the furniture. He had already reached his quota of patronizing lectures from Madelyn and Stan this week, and he had no desire to provide them with fresh ammunition via another incident report. These boys were getting sloppy, particularly the Deep. 

The fish whisperer had become far too comfortable lately, tossing out locker room remarks. He’d forgotten, or simply stopped caring, that a Vought auditor was sitting ten feet away.

According to Homelander’s internal estimation, this shift in the hierarchy was a direct result of Lamplighter’s very fiery exit and Starlight’s subsequent arrival. The Deep clearly felt that since he was no longer the designated rookie, he’d been promoted to the role of senior hazing officer, granting him a license for unrestrained sleaziness.

It irritated Homelander beyond comprehension. 

The fact that the gill-boy actually believed he could indulge in such cheap antics during work hours was a direct insult to the Captain’s leadership. It was a lapse in discipline, a crack in the glass, and Homelander privately blamed himself for being too lenient. He had let the leash go slack, and now the mutts were barking in the house.

He finally let out a long, bored sigh, ready to initiate the afternoon’s circus. But just as he parted his lips to speak, the murmur of the room was shattered. 

Ashley Barrett burst through the door, her tablet clutched against her abdomen and her pencil heels striking the floor like rhythmic gunshots.

“Uh—excuse me, guys. Hey, sorry to interrupt—” Ashley waved a frantic hand, her face a frenetic manifesto of corporate urgency. “We have a situation.”

She addressed Homelander first, her voice trembling with the weight of a looming PR disaster, before her eyes skittered across the table, and landed on Annie like a heat seeking missile. Her finger pointed instinctively at the girl in the ivory bodysuit.

“Starlight! Did you beat up a middle-aged white dude and call him a pedophile back in New York?”

The accusation was so casual, yet delivered with such abruptness, that Annie’s brain seemed to stall. She blinked, her spine straightening against the cold leather of her chair. She stole a brief, panicked glance at Homelander; he remained a statue, but his eyes were alive, ping-ponging between the two women with a sudden, predatory interest.

“I—I didn’t beat him up,” Annie stammered eventually, her voice sounding small in the vast, silver room. “Why? What’s going—”

“Are you insane?” Ashley spat, cutting her off, the word dripping with a look of incredulity usually reserved for people who set fire to orphanages. 

She backpedaled into the center of the room, her accusatory finger hovering in the air like a loaded weapon. “Do you have even the slightest inkling of what you’ve done? There is a video circulating the internet right now where Starlight of the Seven is seen tackling a white man who was just trying to buy his daughter a milkshake. Do you have any idea what that does to your brand? To our brand?”

Annie’s mouth worked silently for a moment, the air in her lungs seemingly replaced by sand. The sheer velocity of the lie left her reeling. She looked around the table, her eyes wide and searching for a single shred of logic in the room. “But—but that wasn't his daughter. I asked her! I asked the kid directly, and she told me it wasn’t her dad. You could literally just call the police and ask them—”

Ashley didn't let her finish. She cut her off with a groan so loud it bordered on a theatrical wail, one palm dragging slowly over her face in a choreographed display of panic and exhaustion. 

When her hand finally dropped, revealing eyes that were wild with corporate bloodlust, she looked toward Homelander first. It was a silent, frantic appeal, as if she were a schoolteacher reporting a particularly troublesome brat to the principal.

Homelander merely shifted his weight. His chin lifted from his knuckles as he leaned back into the depths of his chair, watching the unfolding train wreck with a hollow, detached fascination. He looked like he was watching a foreign film without subtitles; vaguely amused, but largely unbothered.

Eventually, Ashley released a sigh that rattled her entire frame. She adjusted the tablet in her hand, her fingers flying across the screen with practiced, manic precision until she located the file she wanted. Once the digital document loaded, she marched over to Annie and slammed the tablet onto the table with a sharp clack.

“The police report.” Ashley announced, a sardonic grin spreading across her face until it looked painfully tight. “As it turns out, the man really was the girl's father. The kid is just a spoiled little brat—much like you.” She punctuated the insult by raking her gaze over Annie from the top of her head down to the tips of her new, gold plated belt, her expression thick with patronizing judgment.

A hard, twisted frown creased Annie’s brow as she swallowed against a dry throat. “Excuse me?” she whispered, the offense stinging worse than the suit’s revealing cut now.

Ashley nodded, her eyes wide with a manic corporate disappointment. She looked moments away from an aneurysm. 

“Yes. You heard me,” she snapped, her thumb flickering across the tablet to pull up a TikTok reel that was already looping into infinity. “And guess what? The internet is a very small, very vengeful place. Someone commented, That’s Annie January. I went to high school with her. She was bulimic and a total cunt to other girls who weren’t like her.”

Annie blinked stupidly, unsure what to say. 

Ashley didn't stop, though. She scrolled down with a predatory relish, reading the next highlighted atrocity aloud. “Oh, look at this one: I was on the pageant circuit with her. She managed to stay skinny by throwing up after meals. I heard it a few times.”

Annie froze entirely this time, her eyes as wide as they could be. It felt as if her very skeleton had turned to ice, her heart hammering a frantic, uneven rhythm against her ribs. She was suddenly, terrifyingly exposed, and it had nothing to do with the skimpy gold bodysuit.

Ashley leaned in until she was well within Annie’s personal space, her voice a serrated whisper-shout. “Bulimic, Starlight? And calling a struggling dad a pedophile? Really? Do you have any concept of what that does to the brand? You are supposed to sell hope and sunshine, not fucking eating disorders and false accusations.”

In the background, the peanut gallery was in full swing. The Deep and Translucent leaned toward each other, their sneers audible over the buzz of the station’s life support.

“Not so holy after all, huh?”

“Probably even got some vitamin D up her ass behind the stage to keep the glow.”

And A-Train was half-covering his mouth, smirking beside Annie.

They were all so caught up in their own juvenile cruelty that they failed to notice Homelander. The man wasn't looking at the tablet or the ladies; he was watching them, his jaw tightening as he observed their complete lack of professional decorum. The drama between the publicist and the rookie was secondary to the fact that his team was acting like a pack of low rent hyenas in his presence.

Annie blinked, her eyes darting around the room as she looked for a single face that wasn't twisted in mockery or rage. “I—That’s not fair—” she stammered, the words feeling like trash in her mouth.

“Fair?” Ashley barked a laugh that was dangerously close to a sob. “Fair left the room the second you decided you’d look hot going off-script, assaulting an older man for literally no logical reason. And you know what the best part is? Management doesn’t blame you. Oh no.” Her grin widened, never quite reaching her eyes. “They blame me. Because apparently, I’m the Director of Talent Relations, and my talent is out here wasted after brats like you.”

“Alright—that’s enough.”

Homelander’s voice sliced through the corporate screeching like a razor. He pushed off from his chair with a slow, intended kinetic energy, his hands finding his hips in a classic, heroic silhouette.

A tiny, rhythmic nerve twitched at the corner of his temple, and though his words were directed at the women, his eyes remained fixed on the Deep with a cold, predatory focus.

“Starlight. What is this about?” he demanded. 

Annie hesitated, her gaze darting nervously between Ashley’s manic vibration and Homelander’s terrifying stillness. “Sir—I didn’t... I didn’t realize it would backfire,” she stammered. Her hands shot up in a reflex of pure self-defense, her palms open and pleading. “The man was dragging the girl toward his vehicle. I only approached to investigate. I was being careful. But then the girl—she told me he wasn't her dad. She begged me to save her.”

“Riiiiight... she begged you,” Ashley echoed, her voice dripping with mock belief. She rolled her eyes so hard it looked painful, a sneer of pure corporate spite curling her lip.

Homelander clicked his tongue, a sharp, agitated sound that echoed off the silver walls. His eyes fluttered shut for a brief second as he raised a single gloved finger, pointing it directly at Ashley’s nose.

“Shhh,” he hissed. It was a soft sound, but it carried the weight of a falling guillotine. He opened his eyes and finally pivoted his entire frame toward the women. “Let her finish,” he ordered, his expression dead serious all of a sudden. 

It wasn't that he possessed a shred of genuine empathy for Starlight’s plight. He didn’t particularly care if she’d tackled a saint or a serial killer. But there were certain foundational courtesies he expected for every member of the Seven. It was a matter of branding, of course, but also a matter of ego. At the end of the day, he was the sun around which this entire grotesque solar system orbited. Any stain on a teammate was a direct smudge on his own reflection.

More importantly, he harbored a visceral distaste for watching the corporate zombies speak down to the gods. Humans were meant to be the audience, the mud people, not the critics; and they certainly weren't allowed to snap at the talent unless Homelander was in the mood for a bit of cruel entertainment. And this wasn't one of those moments. His patience was scraping the bottom of the barrel, worn thin by the Moronic Trio’s incessant, low brow snickering in the background.

The disdainful smile vanished from Ashley’s face as if it had been wiped away by a cloth. Her posture shifted instantly from aggressive to submissive, her shoulders hunching as she began to nod with frantic, bird-like intensity. She stole a side glance at Starlight, her eyes now clouded with the immediate, cold terror of a woman who had forgotten exactly whose room she was standing in.

Annie swallowed hard, her head moving in a slow, rhythmic oscillation between the frantic publicist and the stationary god. As Homelander offered a flick of his wrist, a bored, go-ahead gesture, she found her voice again.

“I arrested him, borrowed his vehicle, and drove them straight to the police station," Annie explained, her brow furrowing as she mentally retraced the events of that afternoon, searching for the moment the heroism turned into a liability. She looked up at Homelander, her face a canvas of desperate sincerity. “Sir—I really didn’t think the child was lying. She was terrified, and I just wanted to help. I am so very sorry.”

Homelander simply shook his head, a long, theatrical exhale escaping his lips. He began to pace a short, tight circuit behind his seat without any immediate verbal response. 

The silence in the room became a living thing, heavy and pressurized, as the rest of the team sat like waxworks, awaiting the verdict from the only person whose opinion carried the weight of law.

“See, Starlight,” he said at last, his tone shifting into something terrifyingly relaxed and conversational. He stopped his pacing and turned to her with a weary patience.

“The problem isn’t whether or not the man was actually her dad. Nobody cares. Really.” He waved a hand vaguely toward the ceiling, as if the concept of truth was a bothersome gnat he’d just swatted into the void. “The problem is that you were captured on camera.”

Annie blinked, the realization hitting her like a bucket of ice water. The moral core of the intervention, the potential kidnapping, the child’s safety, the actual justice, was irrelevant. It was a non-factor. The topic was so far beneath the Seven’s altitude that it didn't even register.

Homelander pointed a finger at her. It wasn’t a gesture of accusation, but rather one of paternal, corporate wisdom. “Always look for the cameras first. Make sure you aren’t being recorded. Especially—” he gestured lazily at the tablet, hinting at her civilian clothed memory, his eyes tracing the gold lines of her new, skimpy bodysuit for emphasis, “—if you’re going out in what I’m assuming was your secret identity?”

The irony was thick enough to choke on. He was standing in a billion-dollar space station, wearing a flag as a cape, lecturing her on the tactical necessity of being a better liar.

But overshadowing that fact, a subtle, involuntary smile twitched at the corners of Annie’s lips at the mention of a secret identity. She’d always figured that was a trope reserved for comic books and big budget reboots. Back in Des Moines, the line between Annie January and Starlight was so thin it was basically translucent; everyone from her dentist to the checkout girl at the grocery store knew exactly who she was. 

She nodded, the juvenile smile surfacing despite her best efforts to play the professional. It was a small, hopelessly naive expression that felt wildly out of place in a room built for gods.

An immediate smirk appeared on Homelander’s face, seemingly charmed by the sheer depth of her simplicity. It was almost endearing, in the way a golden retriever failing to catch a ball is endearing. To be fair, this was his first genuine reaction of the day, a spark of actual amusement elicited by a Goody Two Shoes stunt that hadn't even involved a body count. 

At least it's not another sex scandal, he mused privately, his eyes casting a brief, disgusted shadow over the rest of the table.

He turned his gaze back to Ashley. The smirk remained, though it sharpened by degrees until it resembled the look of a predator. "Ashley, find a way to spin this. Give them a different narrative, or just come up with a distraction. You know the drill. The usual garbage," he said, fanning a hand dismissively.

Vought had successfully navigated enough of these digital circuses to fill a library. He wasn't about to let a poorly filmed rescue occupy the entirety of a strategic meeting. In his world, this was a minor clerical error. The only things the public should truly be discussing were his own upcoming tour and the divine perfection of his own image. Everything else was just background noise.

Ashley’s head bobbed up and down with a frantic rhythm. "Great idea, sir! Brilliant!" she chirped, the sound of corporate sycophancy dripping from the ceiling.

Homelander let out a heavy, world-weary sigh, rolling his eyes at the blatant buttering before turning his focus back to the new girl. His tone shifted, sliding into a version of himself that was almost fatherly; charming, yet underpinned by a stern, unyielding authority.

"And Starlight," he said, his voice dropping into a register of practiced warmth. "Look, this is your first time. I get it—you have that burning desire to be a hero. But you’re in the Seven now. We do things differently up here. Stick to the narrative. No more side quests without my explicit approval. Clear?"

Annie nodded immediately, the weight of his gaze heavy on her shoulders. "Yes, Homelander. Thank you so much. It won't happen again."

Her smile has finally broken free of its restraints, blooming across her face with a glow that outshone her branding. A surge of genuine gratitude washed over her; his intervention had been measured, authoritative, and most importantly, it had shielded her from Ashley’s shrieking vitriol.

Perhaps Homelander wasn’t entirely the monster she initially assumed. Perhaps he was simply the only adult in a room full of petulant jerks. He wasn't like the rest of them, he was the captain they needed, a complex, weathered version of the hero she’d idolized since she was a girl in pigtails. He was human, flawed, and a little tired, but in that moment, he felt like the only anchor she had in the room.

Meanwhile, Homelander pivoted toward the rest of the table, his arms locking behind his back beneath his cape. The paternal warmth evaporated, replaced by a sharp, immediate irritation.

“Now, can we fucking start the meeting already?” he urged, the twitch in his temple returning. He looked genuinely offended that his afternoon had been derailed by such minuscule corporate theater.

“Yes! Absolutely!” Ashley chirped, her persona snapping back into a state of frantic, high gloss charm.

“Good.” Homelander made a dismissive, fluttering gesture with his hand; a theatrical, almost flamboyant wave that signaled the end of her relevance. “You can fuck off now, Ashley. I’ve had quite enough of your face for one day.”

He sank back into his leather throne, utterly nonchalant. He didn't care if he was being rude; he was simply stating a structural fact of the universe.

Funnily enough, Ashley didn’t even look offended. She didn’t even look surprised. She merely scrambled to her feet, clutched her tablet to her chest like a life preserver, and shuffled out of the room with the panicked speed of a rabbit escaping a combine harvester. 

The moment she cleared the threshold, Black Noir performed the silent courtesy of pressing the remote, hissing the heavy pressure doors shut. The man had been a phantom throughout the entire exchange, an eerie, silent question mark in the corner. He hadn’t breathed a word or shifted an inch, playing his role as the Seven’s resident enigma with his usual, unsettling perfection.

Homelander spared him a brief, almost fond glance, the kind one might give a loyal Doberman. 

“Let’s start with you today, Noir,” he said, his voice regaining its command. “I’m sick to death of hearing stories of incompetence. Come on, give us something good.”

——

After the meeting concluded, Translucent and A-Train vanished together, likely destined for a movie night that would involve more high grade narcotics than actual cinema. Vought’s logistical machine was scheduled to deliver a fresh shuttle of elite escorts tomorrow morning, so the boys were effectively in a state of forced celibacy until then; unless, of course, they finally decided to skip the middleman and fuck each other.

Maeve, already halfway through her first bottle of the evening, moved with a heavy, rhythmic grace toward her quarters. Her itinerary for the weekend was predictably bleak: drowning herself in expensive whiskey and eighties classic flicks until the world stopped spinning. She’d probably supplement the binge with enough weed to numb a rhinoceros. Her backup plan for tomorrow involved the scheduled orgy, though she’d sooner leap into the vacuum of space than touch her teammates. She preferred the professional batches, the pretty groupies and symmetrical boys routinely ferried up from Earth like fresh produce for their uninterrupted entertainment.

Then there was Black Noir. He drifted away from the group like a shadow detached from its source, his mind likely already occupied by the complex 

fingering of a new piano piece he’d discovered. Noir was the station's singular anomaly; he never indulged in the petty, skin-deep distractions that consumed the younger members. He was a creature of meticulous competence, a silent monolith who completed every Vought approved assignment with flawlessness. 

He didn't care for the office politics or the locker room talk. His only real extracurricular involvement was as Homelander’s private pressure valve. He was the one who listened to the Captain’s blistering venting sessions and, more often than not, the one who handled the Captain’s more physical needs. They were a duo of convenience and dark familiarity, never particularly caring who held the dominant hand or were the top during sex. It was a fluid, silent arrangement, a switching of roles that served as the only honest interaction in the void that was their existence.

And Annie, god bless her naive and rural soul, had drifted out of the conference room with a shell-shocked grace, like she'd just survived a high speed collision with reality. As a matter of fact, she was the first one to hit the corridor, her mind a knotted mess of celestial wonder and corporate bile. 

She was too new to the god lifestyle to even fathom how to spend a weekend in orbit. The concept of a ‘shuttle of escorts’ was a planet away from her Iowa upbringing. This was her first time in the vacuum of space, yet the infinite stars felt secondary to the digital firestorm currently incinerating her reputation back in New York.

By the time the door to her chambers hissed shut, she had collapsed onto the couch, the plush fabric mocking her internal agitation. The silence of the room was heavy, pressing against her ears as she replayed the meeting’s greatest hits.

What really stuck in her throat, sharp and bitter like an unripe lemon, was the fact that she’d been dragged across the coals by Ashley Barrett for the crime of giving a damn.

Sure, maybe the man really was the father. Maybe the girl was a world-class liar in a sundress. But in the moment, with the screaming and the dragging, it had all the hallmarks of a predator in the wild. The child had radiated a terror so thick you could taste it, and for Annie, that was the only mandate she needed. Intervening wasn't a choice, it was a reflex. She had prioritized a child’s safety over a stranger’s dignity, and in any world that made sense, that would be a win.

But Vought didn't live in a world that made sense, they lived in a world of appearance and reputation.

To Ashley, and by extension, the conglomerate; the actual safety of the minor was a footnote. The real catastrophe was the eighteen-year-old with a smartphone and a TikTok account who had captured the scuffle. It wasn't even as if she’d used lethal force; she’d merely tackled the man to keep his escalating temper from becoming a physical threat.

The unfairness of it all felt like a physical weight. Since when did the court of public opinion override a superhero’s intuition? Who cared if the internet was confused? This was a matter of law, of protection, of the Job. They should be answering to the police, not to a comment section filled with trolls and anonymous spite. 

But then again, the cold, clinical reality of the viral clip wasn't something she could just wish away. Ashley, as much as it pained Annie to admit, had a point. 

The comments section had become a digital autopsy of her past, and those stinging remarks about bulimia and being a cunt were particularly sensitive because they were true. Whether or not those years of pageant driven desperation were behind her didn't matter to the algorithm; the damage was a permanent part of the data stream now. And Homelander, in his infinite, terrifying wisdom, had already filed it away under "Usual Garbage."

It was the pattern of it all that really stung. Just when she thought she’d clawed back a single scrap of dignity, a genuine moment of heroism in a city made of soulless people and lies, it had been inverted into a viral catastrophe. Her world had performed a full 360-degree rotation, leaving her dizzy and stranded in a lifetime she didn't recognize.

Annie released a deep, rattling sigh, shaking her head as if she could physically dislodge the gloom clinging to her brain. She peeled the long, golden gloves off her arms one by one, tossing them aside like discarded skin, and allowed herself to slump back into a comfortable, undignified sprawl.

Maybe the solution was just to succumb to the modern ritual of doomscrolling for an hour before raiding the fridge. If the fridge lacked the necessary sustenance for a cosmic pity party, she could always check out the dining hall.

With that grounding, almost human thought, Annie reached for her phone, only to find her hand grasping at empty air. A subtle frown creased her face as she sat up, her head swiveling as she scanned every crevice of the couch and the polished surface of the coffee table. The device was nowhere to be found.

She stood up fully, performing a frantic, geometric search of the immediate area. Nothing. Then, the realization hit her with a dull panic: the new suit. Vought had stripped away the utility pouch in favor of a more streamlined look. She’d been carrying the phone in her hand like a commoner, and she must have set it down on that massive mahogany table during the meeting.

“Oh…” she murmured to the empty, ivory room. 

So a little reluctant groan, a few tired sighs, and a long decision paralysis later, she eventually left her chamber to retrieve the digital leash she’d left behind.

The corridors were unnervingly quiet. In the artificial timezone of the station, it was currently leaning into the early evening hours of New York City, though time felt like a loose concept when you were suspended in space. 

A subtle, sharp shiver traced its way down Annie’s spine, spurred by the aggressive bite of the central air conditioning. The new suit, with its strategic lack of fabric, was doing absolutely nothing to mitigate the chill. Having discarded her gloves, she felt even more exposed, a growing pileup of her minor miseries.

Her internal monologue was a steady tally of negatives as she approached the conference room. But as she neared the threshold, the rhythm of her footsteps faltered. 

To her surprise, the heavy pressure doors hadn't fully sealed; they were caught in a state of almost closed, leaving a narrow, vertical crack between the two titanium panels. It was a rare lapse in the station's seamless automation, a glitch in the fortress.

For reasons she couldn't quite articulate, Annie didn't reach for the biometric scanner. Instead, she found herself drifting toward that sliver of open space, her brows pulling in curiosity as she peered through the gap.

The room was still occupied. Homelander hadn't moved from the head of the table, his silhouette framed against the cold brilliance of the Earth below. 

The Deep was standing a few paces away, his back to the door, his posture unusually rigid. It was clear the two hadn't left since the meeting’s adjournment. The environment inside the room didn't just feel cold, it felt a bit tense. 

Annie leaned in closer, her heartbeat thudding against her ribs, as she strained to catch the low, vibrating frequency of a conversation that was never meant for her ears.

Inside the room, the Deep was mid performance, giving a play-by-play of his recent activities with the Ocean World campaign. His arms flailed with a useless, frantic energy, an attempt to broadcast a brand of alpha male suave that he clearly believed he possessed.

“...Yeah, so, there’s that. The Ocean World update,” he said, letting out a nervous, high pitched chuckle. He rubbed the back of his neck, his gaze skittering everywhere, the mahogany, the viewports, the monitors, anywhere except Homelander’s actual eyes. 

Homelander, in the meantime, yanked off the velcro of his gloves, pulling each one off his hands with ritualistic silence. 

“But—you know, sir...” The Deep paused, casting a theatrical glance around the empty room before taking a few steps closer. His tone dropped into something he likely thought sounded grim and substantial. “If you have some more time, could I discuss the poor living conditions of the dolphins at the park? I have some... friends down there who are really suffering—”

“Deep,” Homelander interrupted. The word didn't even sound like a name, it sounded like a heavy door slamming shut. He had a bored, static pout plastered on his face, his eyes so cold and unmoving that it was impossible to tell when he had last bothered to blink. “Sit down.” He pointed a single, now ungloved finger at the Deep’s designated chair. 

“Right. Sure,” the Deep replied, his grin stretching wide. He was a jittery mess of sheepish, restless energy as he scurried to his seat. He settled in, trying to maintain a casually smug, conversational demeanor as if they were just two bros talking shop.

And the moment the Deep was anchored in his chair, a wide, luminous grin had spread across Homelander’s face. It wasn't the American Hero smile seen on lunchboxes and billboards. It was a predatory display of dental perfection, flashing sharp canines at the fish whisperer with a terrifying, mechanical coldness.

The silence that followed was dense enough to drown in it. It stretched for a long, agonizing minute, the grin never wavering, never reaching Homelander's eyes. 

The longer the moment dragged on, the more the air seemed to vanish from the room, leaving the Deep to twitch under the weight of a gaze that felt like an autopsy.

The Deep, for his part, was finally beginning to register that something was fundamentally wrong. The blonde bastard was eyeing him with a clinical intensity, as if he were peeling layers away from the Deep’s invisible guard wall simply by staring at him. It was becoming painfully obvious that the Ocean World campaign was the furthest thing from Homelander’s mind. That had been the appetizer; the main course was clearly something more personal, and far more lethal.

He tried to maintain his ‘cool guy’ facade, casting brief, twitchy flashes of an awkward smile at his captain. His eyes darted around like trapped birds, never quite committing to the man across the table. Eventually, his own squirming became too noticeable to ignore even for him. 

He shifted in the expensive leather seat, the material creaking in the silence, and cleared his throat to say something, anything, to break the suffocating pressure of that stare.

“So… uh, how’s—what… is there anything else I can do for you, Homelander?” Deep stuttered, the smile faltering on his face. He began to blink rapidly, at the frequency of staring into a flashbang.

In response, Homelander’s grin evolved. It turned crooked at the corner, a little hook of a smile. He finally broke the laser-focus of his gaze, leaning back into the depths of his chair with a deep, performative exhalation that sounded like a tire losing air.

“I don't know, Deep,” Homelander said, offering a small, airy shrug that was entirely too casual for the tension in the room. “Yeah, I guess… yeah, maybe you can help me understand if… I don't know, maybe I’m stupid. Am I stupid, Deep?”

He asked the question with a breezy, conversational lilt, as if he were asking about the dinner menu rather than seeking an opinion on his own intellect from the man recognized as the dumbest creature in the room by Vought. 

“What?” The Deep barked out a scoff, the sound brittle and desperate. He waved a hand as if swatting away the very idea of Homelander being anything less than a genius. “No! No, you’re not stupid. You’re smart—you’re very smart. In fact, you’re the smartest… right?”

He ended the sentence on a high, rising note, his voice cracking slightly as he sought Homelander’s own validation to confirm the compliment he’d just frantically offered.

Homelander’s smirk deepened, a short, wet sound of sheer dismissal escaping his throat as he finally rose from his seat. His movements were gradual; the slow unfurling of a predator that knew its prey had nowhere to run. He looked like he was trying to solve a particularly annoying math problem, his expression a mask of mock confusion as if he simply couldn't comprehend why the variables in the room weren't adding up.

“Do you think Vought is stupid, Deep?” he asked, his voice airy and light as he began to saunter toward the Deep’s end of the table.

The Deep’s spine snapped to attention, his posture becoming as rigid as a board. His eyes were finally, fatally locked on Homelander, tracking every inch of the Captain’s approach with a cautious look. 

“Yes—N... no? I mean, no. Definitely not,” he stammered, his brain clearly misfiring under the tension.

“Mm.” Homelander nodded, his hands unlocking from behind his back as he slowed to a stop directly behind the Deep’s chair.

He took a moment to just stand there, thoroughly reveling in the symphony of the Deep’s panic. He could hear it: the frantic, disconnected rhythm of a heart that had spiked to 140 beats per minute. It was a delicious sound. 

Slowly, with a horrifying tenderness, Homelander raised his hands and placed them on the Deep’s shoulders. His fingers curled over the trap muscles, his grip tightening against the bone with a steady, mechanical force.

Beads of cold sweat began to blossom across the Deep’s forehead, shimmering under the harsh blue light of the room. His muscles stiffened into granite the moment he felt that weight, but he didn't move an inch. He didn't even dare to blink, his eyes straining downward to watch Homelander’s knuckles as they turned a stark, bloodless white.

“Then tell me this,” Homelander said, his voice dropping into a conversational, almost intimate register. “What possible reason—what razor-sharp fish instinct made you think that what you’ve been doing in these meetings lately isn't going straight into Stan Edgar’s ears?”

The grip tightened by another incremental degree, the sound of the Deep’s suit material groaning under the strain echoing in the silent room.

The Deep caved instantaneously, his bravado evaporating without dignity. To nobody's surprise, he shifted immediately into a state of utmost, groveling politeness.

“I—I don’t understand, sir,” he stammered, his voice thin and reedy.

“No?” Homelander prompted. He lowered his face until it was parallel with the Deep’s, their profiles nearly touching in a distorted parody of intimacy. “Then let me give you a refresher course.”

The grip tightened. It was no longer just pressure, it was a calibrated, bone deep agony that made the Deep’s vision swim with white sparks. “What was that pathetic display supposed to be, huh? The stupid fucking slurping sounds, the comments about what’s going up Starlight’s ass, about Maeve's tits—what was that, huh?”

The Deep let out a muffled grunt, his jaw muscles bulging as his shoulder bones began to creak under the strain. “I—I was just kidding, I swear! It didn’t mean anything!” he whimpered, the sound of a beaten dog. “I’m... I’m so sorry. It’ll never happen again. I swear on my life.”

The crushing pressure stopped the millisecond the apology left his lips. 

Homelander remained frozen for a heartbeat, his eyes unblinking and mere inches from the Deep’s face, savoring the raw, unfiltered terror he had injected into the idiot’s nervous system.

After a few more seconds of a scrutinizing, soul-stripping stare, Homelander finally loosened his hold. He straightened his spine with a rhythmic grace and stepped around the chair to stand face to face with the seated man.

One hand dropped away from the Deep's shoulder, but the other remained. It didn't retreat; instead, it drifted upward, the ungloved fingers grazing the Deep’s neck with a light, clinical touch, as if Homelander were mentally calculating whether the fish-guy’s throat would fit perfectly within his single, closing fist.

By now, the Deep was essentially shuddering with chemical panic. His stress hormones were flooding his system so aggressively he actually reeked of them; a sharp, metallic scent of sweat and fear that filled the space between them. His heart hammered violently against his ribs, as if it was trying to escape his chest before the rest of him was pulverized. Beneath Homelander’s warm palm, his right jugular throbbed like a trapped animal, yet he still managed to maintain eye contact with his ‘leader’, swallowing dryly in a state of absolute, paralyzed horror.

Behind the crack in the door, Annie felt the air in the corridor grow thin. She watched with curious wonder, mildly satisfied that it was happening to that asshole. 

Inside, Homelander finally released a deep, rattling exhale, his expression settling into a complimentary blend of predatory focus and a perverted, skin-crawling smirk. 

“Those were the official meetings of the Seven,” he said. His voice had dropped into a register so low and intimate it was basically a caress, a kind of tone a butcher might use to soothe a cow before the bolt gun. “Which means playtime is over. Right?”

The Deep gave a microscopic nod, his body frozen in a state of perpetual, Darwinian terror; as if any sudden movement, any stray twitch of a muscle, would be the catalyst for his immediate deconstruction. “Right. Right—no more razzing. No more pranks.,” he croaked, the lie tasting like copper in his mouth.

Homelander’s smirk deepened further, genuinely amused this time, even offering a flash of something that resembled affection; a twisted, predatory fatherly pride that was infinitely more terrifying than his rage. He liked them broken. They were much more manageable when they were weeping inside.

“You need to understand something,” Homelander continued, his voice barely a ghost of a whisper. “Any incident with any member of this team... it’s an inkblot on my name. My legacy. And Eli? He’s not our friend, Deep. He’s a fucking vulture. Don't give him a reason to circle.”

“Yes, sir,” the Deep whispered back, nodding with a frantic conviction. His eyes were wide, glazed with the desperate need to survive the next thirty seconds.

The smirk finally blossomed into a wide, luminous, and utterly hollow grin on Homelander’s face. “Good,” he said. He didn't pull his hand away. 

Instead, his thumb began to lustfully graze the sensitive skin on the Deep’s neck, a slow, rhythmic stroke that served as a final, tactile reminder of exactly who owned his pulse. “Then I trust we never have to have this conversation again.”

“Never!” the Deep echoed, his voice a pathetic, low chime of total submission.

In the shadows of the corridor, Annie remained frozen, her mind a frantic switchboard of conflicting signals, at this point. On one hand, there was a dark, sharp spark of satisfaction; a sense of poetic justice that felt like a cold drink on a hot day. The Deep, the man who had treated her like a piece of meat from the moment she’d arrived, was finally being dismantled.

But the method of the dismantling was what curdled her blood. The encounter wasn't loud. There was no screaming, no crashing furniture. It was eerily, surgically calm. That was the horror of it.

The man who had just played the part of the weary, protective mentor an hour ago, the hero who had brushed off her mistakes and shielded her from Ashley’s corporate venom, had vanished. In his place sat something terrifying and cold. Annie’s perception of Homelander had kind of performed a sickening tilt. He wasn't just a captain who was "humanly flawed"; he was a master of masks, a man who could defend a rookie and psychologically castrate another in the same afternoon without breaking a sweat.

Yet, the true climax of the nightmare was still unfolding. As Annie watched through the crack, Homelander strolled back to the head of the table like a king returning to a throne. 

He lowered himself into the leather, settling in with a sigh of casual comfort while the Deep remained anchored to the spot, his nervous system clearly firing blanks. Then, with a casual crook of his finger, Homelander gestured for the Deep to approach. The movement was small, domestic, and utterly nonchalant.

“Now come here and suck my cock,” Homelander said, his voice as flat and ordinary as if he were ordering a coffee. “I need a release.”

He rested his arms on the handles, leaning back into the expensive upholstery and manspreading with a shameless, effortless dominance.

An involuntary, sudden gasp escaped Annie’s throat. She slammed her hand over her mouth instantly, the sound stifled by her palm, but in her head, it sounded like a gunshot. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic animal trying to claw its way out of her chest as the reality of the Seven, the true Seven, finally laid itself bare.

Naturally, the Deep was stunned, or at least as stunned as a man with his particular history of poor life choices could be. But after a few seconds of mental buffering, the man didn't even bother to offer a token of resistance.

He scrambled to his feet with a pathetic sound and rushed over to Homelander, dropping to his knees with an experienced ease of having long traded his dignity for a paycheck.

Homelander’s grin split wide, flashing those predatory canines as he watched the King of the Seven Seas cower at his feet. “Good boy,” he purred, the sound thick with a terrifying, patronizing warmth as the Deep reached out to undo the belt.

Outside the door, Annie didn't stick around for the feature presentation. She was already nauseous, the contents of her stomach threatening a rapid exit. She straightened her posture and fled; well, as quietly as one can run when their world is currently performing a high speed structural collapse.

What the fuck just happened? The question looped in her brain like a broken record as she sprinted back toward the safety of her quarters.

Was it justice? Was it some sort of cosmic, twisted karma? Was Homelander actually performing a psychological, and physical, demolition of the man who had tried to extort her just a week ago? The parallels were nauseating. The Deep had tried to force her into this exact position, and now he was the one on the floor, obeying the exact same brand of predatory logic.

It was horrible, vile, and yet... undeniably satisfying. It was a bittersweet cocktail of divine retribution served in a silver-lined hellscape. This place was a factory for fast, filthy karma. But the main takeaway, the lesson that was currently being carved into Annie’s brain with a blowtorch, was that she had fundamentally miscalculated the monster at the head of the table.

She’d spent the last week realizing Homelander wasn’t all good and divine. She’d spent the last hour realizing he was something far worse. He wasn't just a bad person, he was dangerous. Unpredictable in a way that should make you anxious in his company. 

He was still very much the mightiest being on the planet, and that was precisely why he was the ultimate threat. He used his power like a blunt instrument to shape the world into whatever grotesque vision Vought or his own whims demanded. And Annie, for all her glowing light and Iowa charm, was just another piece of furniture in his room.

The pressure door hissed shut, sealing Annie into the sterile vacuum of her chamber. She stood there for a long moment, heaving for air that felt too diluted to breathe, her eyes wide with frantic, unblinking shock.

Then, the second wave of the nightmare hit her.

Her phone. The device was still sitting on that polished mahogany table, a silent witness to the hedonism and monstrosity currently unfolding just a few corridors away. It was probably vibrating with a news alert or a text from her mother, or Supersonic, right next to where the Deep was currently being mouthraped.

“Ugh… fuck.” Annie groaned under her breath, the curse feeling small and inadequate against the bleakness of the situation. She squeezed her eyes shut, her mind briefly playing a masochistic game of what if. Could she go back? Could she wait for the "session" to end and slip in like a ghost?

She stood in the center of the room, caught in a desperate loop of contemplation, her fingers twitching against her thighs. But then she pictured that door opening, pictured Homelander’s blue eyes locking onto her with that terrifying, predatory warmth, knowing exactly what she’d seen.

“Fuck it. Fuck it,” she muttered to herself, the words a manic prayer for self-preservation. She shook her head violently, as if she could rattle the image of the Deep on his knees right out of her skull, and turned her back on the door.

The phone could stay there until the sun burned out. 

Chapter Text

The gym on Seven Station was built to serve more as an aeronautics laboratory repurposed for high impact violence than as an actual fitness suite. It had that clinical, electric smell of a hospital's laser ward, a scent so clean it felt like it was scrubbing Annie's lungs raw. In place of the usual plastic and chrome found in a suburban health club, the equipment was made of matte black reinforced tungsten and carbon steel. The weights sat on magnetic-lock racks, bolted directly to the station’s reinforced spine. 

Rumors had it every time Queen Maeve dropped a plate, the entire orbital floor groaned. A deep, metallic shudder that routinely reminded everyone on the station once upon a time that they were one clumsy god away from a hull breach. For the humans, it was a workplace accident waiting to happen. So after multiple nagging complaints from HR, apparently Maeve had stopped coming to the gym altogether. 

But there was something fascinating about the gym for Annie. There were no rhythmic clanging plates to be heard; the resistance machines operated on silent, high tension hydraulic pistons.

Annie was currently a blur atop the treadmill; a massive, bolted-down slab of industrial rubber and steel. It shrieked with a high pitched whine, like a jet turbine, as it struggled to accommodate her pace. She had gladly switched into her workout clothes in place of that Vought mandated lingerie, opting for fitness leggings and a tank top.

The air in the room was kept at a sharp fifty degrees to counteract the staggering thermal output of a Supe's metabolism, yet the scent of scorched rubber still hung faint and bitter in the recycled oxygen, a testament to the friction she was generating.

Annie’s eyes were bloodshot and heavy, the result of a total lack of sleep since witnessing that hideous display between the Deep and Homelander. While she had successfully retrieved her phone the following morning, she had since maintained a strict embargo on her social media apps. The internet was currently busy dissecting her past like a high school biology class, and she had no desire to watch her life be peeled back for the world’s amusement.

And while the general public likely imagined the Seven were currently up here engaged in some technotopian, fancy savior business from orbit, the reality was, as usual, far more pathetic. Since that strategy meeting after arrival, Annie had spent four days in this floating fortress, and she hadn't encountered a single member of the team in the corridors over the weekend. 

Instead, she was met only by the occasional Vought employee scurrying past with a clipboard and a look of continual desperation. Even the dining hall remained a ghost town whenever she ventured out for a meal. 

Apparently, these global icons were asocial mental cases, preferring to rot in their private suites and feed whatever neuroses they’d indulged in that week. Annie did, however, endure the muffled thumping of bass heavy music on both weekend nights, the vibrations bleeding through the station's reinforced bulkheads. She could only assume the usual suspects were knee deep in some private, hedonistic recreation. 

Aside from the noise, Annie’s primary mission had been the utmost avoidance of Ashley Barrett. Whenever their paths did cross in the hallways, Ashley would cast her a look of sharp accusation, immediately masked by a charm-offensive grin. 

And Annie had stopped even attempting to feign a reciprocal smile; the energy required to mirror that level of corporate theater was simply beyond her current reserves.

It hadn't taken long for her to realize that she desperately needed a hobby to survive the vacuum of space. The reality of the station was a stark, boring contrast to the terrestrial myth that the Seven spent their orbital weeks in a frantic, 24-hour cycle of global salvation. 

It was a morbidly stagnant environment. She was faced with a binary choice: find a way to occupy her mind or succumb to the creeping claustrophobia of being trapped in a high-tech tin can with a collection of perverted narcissists. There was no escape hatch for the soul up here. They were all breathing the same recycled oxygen, and the only mercy was the unspoken agreement to see as little of one another as humanly possible.

She had reached out to Donna last night. But before that, her thumb hovered over the call button with the desperate hope that she could finally strip away the glamour and tell her mother how rotting the core of this apple truly was. She wanted, needed, Donna to tell her to quit, to pack her bags and come back to the relative sanity of Des Moines. 

But the moment her mother answered, she was met with a tidal wave of manic maternal pride.

Donna was a frantic bundle of excitement, barely pausing for breath as she described the thrill of hosting viewing parties for the reruns of Annie’s launch event. She’d spent the better part of the hour boasting about how her daughter was currently sitting on the right hand of God in the Seven, while her bridge club rival’s daughter had only been accepted into a residency at Cedars-Sinai. 

In Donna’s world, saving lives in a hospital was a polite, participation trophy achievement compared to the celestial glory of her daughter, Starlight.

That conversation had only succeeded in shoving a new set of heavy burdens onto Annie’s shoulders. The expectations now felt like a debt she wasn't sure she could ever repay. She had quietly folded her truth back into her pocket, realizing she couldn't possibly shatter her mother’s delusions.

How could she? How do you even begin that sentence? How do you tell the woman who raised you on superhero lunchboxes that you were nearly sexually assaulted on your first night in the big leagues? That the man the world compared to a modern day messiah was actually an expert in depravity? That the grand, cinematic rescues they watched on the news were likely choreographed down to the last grateful tear by a team of underpaid marketing interns? 

It wasn't just a disappointment, it was a realization that her entire life’s ambition had been a carefully curated, billion-dollar sham.

And frankly, Annie hadn't been able to think about much else, anyway. She had spent the last few days replaying the same loop of events every time her brain was active, which, unfortunately, was all the time. 

Sleep was a lost cause, mostly due to a paralyzing fear that someone might decide to bypass her door locks, coupled with the crushing anxiety of watching the internet perform a live autopsy on her reputation. All because she’d dared to do a little good-hearted, unscripted intervention back in New York. 

It felt like a perpetual, waking nightmare with an expensive view of the planet. 

So, resorting to the gym seemed like the only logical move. If she couldn’t turn her brain off, she could at least try to tire out the rest of her. It was a desperate attempt to release the muscle tension that had become a permanent resident in her body since her first day with the Seven.

But even as she pounded the treadmill, her thoughts continued to churn, grinding over the same few worries like gears in a broken machine.

Her mental doom loop only snapped when Black Noir drifted into the gym. Annie didn’t stop running; the treadmill’s jet engine whine wouldn't let her stop that abruptly anyway, but her eyes tracked him as he moved toward the cable crossover machine. 

He didn't bother with a warm up or a polite stretch; he just went straight to work, moving with a mechanical, silent efficiency.

Annie kept stealing glances, fascinated in a morbid way. The man apparently never removed the suit. Not for off duty hours, and certainly not for the gym. These people treated their suits like primary skin, as if their civilian selves had simply been pruned away to make room for the branding. It was weird in every possible sense of the word.

The relative quiet was punctured a moment later by Ashley, who burst in with her signature manic energy. She had her tablet clutched to her chest, her eyes darting around until they locked onto Annie.

“Starlight! Oh, thank God you’re here,” Ashley squeaked, her voice hitting a frequency that made Annie’s teeth ache. She performed a little theatrical gesture of relief and strolled over to the treadmill.

Annie fought back the immediate, reflexive urge to roll her eyes. Even before Ashley opened her mouth, Annie’s brain had already checked out, hit with a sudden, profound exhaustion. But she kept the implosion on the inside, maintaining a neutral mask while the treadmill continued its indifferent mechanical whir.

“Guess what?” Ashley chirped, slowing her pace beside the machine. She leaned one arm against the console, her grin wide and frenetic. “That incident back in New York? The girl’s mom just came forward and made a statement.”

Annie let out a heavy sigh, her shoulders dropping. “Listen, Ashley, I’m really sorry about all this, I didn’t mean to—”

“Tsk, tsk. Let me finish,” Ashley interrupted, flicking a hand through the air in a sharp, dismissive wave. She leaned in close, her expression shifting into a conspiratorial mask. Her voice dropped to a low, zealous register as if she was about to share a state secret with Annie. 

“Turns out, the mom has full custody of the girl. The dad? He’s got a history of arrests for domestic abuse. He really was kidnapping the kid to extort money from the mother,” she explained, her hands gesturing wildly in a state of pure corporate exhilaration. “The mom saw that video on YouTube and came forward to thank you personally and clarify the narrative. She could not have been more effusive if we’d paid her—which, for the record, we didn’t have to.”

Annie blinked, the mechanical rhythm of her feet faltering. She reached out and pressed the stop button on the console, the treadmill slowing until it groaned to a halt. For the first time in days, the doom cloud hanging over her head actually cracked, letting in a sliver of genuine relief. “That’s… that’s good, right?”

Ashley squealed, throwing her hands in the air with a Redbull induced heart attack kind of energy.

“It is fan-tastic! You’re polling through the roof!” Her grin stretched to its limit, “You’ve got a massive boost with men—for the ass-kicking, obviously. But the women, they’re obsessed with the empowerment angle. You’re up 16 points with females aged eighteen to forty-nine, even in those liberal retreat jurisdictions like New York and San Francisco.”

She was clearly thrilled; her problematic superhero had been successfully processed through the Vought machine and turned into a weaponized marketing strategy.

Annie’s lips quivered, a fragile, grateful grin finally breaking through the exhaustion. For a second, her eyes shimmered with actual tears as she wiped a cocktail of sweat and relief from her forehead. “I—I don’t even know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything, you just have to enjoy it,” Ashley cooed, her voice a lethal dose of saccharine. “This is so good for you. And it’s wonderful for us, because this is a partnership, after all.” She swept her hand around them, gesturing to the multi million dollar machinery around them as a stand-in for the entire Vought empire.

“But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This was the little boost you needed for a more public facing role in the Seven. The board didn't even wait for breakfast. They cast their votes this morning for your next placement.” Ashley clapped her palms together, letting out another high pitched squeal as she hovered there, waiting for Annie to mirror her performative thrill.

Annie’s brow arched. She cast a brief, wary glance over Ashley’s shoulder at Black Noir, who was still silently dismantling the cable machine, before looking back at the redhead.

“Okay?” she said, the ghost of her relieved smile still lingering, though it felt more precarious by the second. “What is it?”

“You’re joining Homelander on the Light of the World tour as a representative of Capes for Christ!” Ashley announced, her arms flung wide as if she were unveiling a new model of car.

The smile faltered on Annie’s face. Her brow twitched as the implications of the words settled into her stomach like a lead sinker. 

“What?” she managed, her voice flat with incredulity. “But... I’m too new for a full blown tour. Especially one with Homelander.”

“Exactly!” Ashley chirped, entirely unfazed by the sudden drop in the room's temperature. “Think mentor and mentee. The true believers unite to preach the Word of the Lord.” She used her thumbs and forefingers to frame an invisible cinema screen, her tablet dangling precariously from her grip. “The public is going to inhale it. The Captain of the Seven and the youngest member of the team, side by side, carrying the torch that paves the way. It’s branding heaven, Starlight. Pure, sanctified gold.”

“Right…” Annie muttered, her voice barely rising above the mechanical clicks of the gym equipment. The last traces of her smile had dissolved into a look of sheer, suppressed panic. “But I don’t really think I want to do it.”

Ashley froze, her head tilting with a theatrical confusion. “What? Why not?” she asked, her tone carrying a sharp edge of offense, as if Starlight had just spat on a Vought balance sheet.

Annie shrugged, finally stepping off the treadmill. Her legs felt heavy. “It’s just… I’m not really sure my faith is in the right place right now. In fact, I’m not even sure if I… believe in a God anymore. And then there's this new suit. There’s no way I should be wearing that on a religious expo tour. It’s a bit much, don’t you think?”

Ashley let out a bark of a laugh, a sharp, relieved sound that echoed off the reinforced tungsten walls.

“Oh… honey. Who said you actually need faith to do the tour? As long as they keep signing the paychecks, you believe in whatever the teleprompter tells you to believe in, right?” She offered a conspiratorial wink, cackling at her own pragmatism. “As for the suit, don't worry your pretty little head. We’re reverting to the old suit for the tour. Wardrobe is already on it. It’s a bit more ‘family friendly,’ you know? Less skin, more salvation. I’ll get out of your hair now. You’ll be properly briefed after lunch. Talk soon!”

Before Annie could mount a defense or find a plausible trapdoor to drop through, Ashley had already blown a faux goodbye kiss from a safe distance and was stalking toward the exit, likely off to perform emergency surgery on someone else’s failing Q-rating now that Starlight was sorted.

Annie remained standing there, rooted to the spot, feeling a profound and itchy sense of discomfort. The idea of the tour didn't just feel wrong, it felt like a choreographed blasphemy.

Her headspace regarding religion had become an entangled, cynical mess lately. Between the extortion, the corporate gaslighting, and the orbital vanity, the concept of a benevolent Creator had begun to feel like just another manmade safety cushion; a comforting lie designed to keep the masses from noticing the monsters in the sky. And now, she was being paired with the head monster himself.

If this had happened two weeks ago, Annie would have been floating on cloud nine, convinced that sharing a stage with Homelander was a divine promotion. But those scales had since long been ripped off her eyes. She was terrified of the man now. He hadn't turned his heat vision on her yet, but in this world, "not yet" felt like a very temporary status. Being trapped on a tour bus with a megalomaniac psychopath who knew exactly how to break people was the ultimate nightmare scenario.

Now Left with a mental inventory far more cluttered than when she’d arrived, Annie exhaled a sigh of total defeat. She shook her head, probably to check if her brain was still attached, and turned to resume her jog. The movement, however, was stalled as her gaze snagged on Noir. 

He had migrated to the lat pulldown machine, moving with a rhythmic, silent exactitude that was almost hypnotic.

Against her better judgment, and she had plenty of it screaming at her to just keep walking, Annie approached him anyway. 

She was hunting for some semblance of normalcy, a crumb of standard human interaction from the one member of the team who seemed mercifully disinterested in the station's endless office politics.

“Black Noir,” Annie said, keeping it simple. She forced a polite smile, though it felt like a costume piece she’d forgotten to take off. “I don’t think we’ve properly met.”

Noir, the team’s resident human question mark, actually paused. He turned his head toward her, but that was the extent of the courtesy. He just stared. 

Annie wasn’t even sure if "staring" was the right word, given that she was essentially talking to a black void. She couldn't see his eyes, couldn't hear his breath, and certainly couldn't find a pulse on whatever was happening behind that reinforced fabric. 

Then, with the same haunting silence, he pivoted his masked face back to the machine and resumed his pulldowns as if she were just another piece of gym equipment.

Annie stood there, blinking with a sudden, stupid sense of rejection. She found herself wondering if the man was even biologically capable of hearing, or if he just filtered out anything that didn't involve a mission briefing. 

Realizing that was probably all the response she would get from him, she gave herself a single, sharp nod and pivoted to head back to her treadmill.

But the universe wasn't done with her yet.

Just as she turned, the gym doors hissed open again and Homelander strolled in. He was in full regalia, the red and white of his cape billowing behind him with an aerodynamic grace.

Annie froze a few steps away from Noir, her heart doing a panicked frantic dance against her ribs all of a sudden. Technically, this was the first time she’d seen any of the gods since her accidental front row seat to live porno at the conference room. Seeing him now, in the light, felt like standing too close to a nuclear reactor that had just offered her a smile.

“Starlight!” Homelander greeted, his voice booming with that signature, manufactured warmth. 

He offered a smug flick of his chin the moment his eyes locked onto her, his grin unrestrained and dangerously charming. He even performed a brazen, slow once-over, his eyes scanning her workout clothes with an odd clinical hunger. “What are you doing here?”

Annie felt the full weight of his gaze, a sensation like being viewed through a high powered rifle scope. Despite the instinctive urge to recoil, she managed to haul a synthetic, polite smile onto her face. 

“Morning, Homelander. Just... getting some miles in, I guess.” She gestured toward the treadmill in the back, which was still cooling down from its turbine pitched workout.

“Huh...” Homelander let out a low chuckle, looking genuinely amused. He spared the treadmill a single, dismissive glance before refocusing on her, coming to a halt just a few feet away. 

He planted his hands on his hips, a pose lifted straight from a silver age comic book. “Cool. That would make you the only other person in the Seven with enough discipline to use this facility. Before you arrived, it was just Noir’s silent sanctuary, as you can see.” He tossed a wave toward the background, where Noir continued his mechanical, joyless pulldowns.

Annie amplified her interested expression, widening her smile for the sake of survival level courtesy.

“So... uh—are you joining us today?” she asked, her hand sweeping the air to indicate the surrounding machines. She fought to keep her voice casual, projecting the image of a naive teammate rather than someone who had witnessed him dismantle a man’s dignity in a conference room just seventy-two hours prior.

Homelander sputtered a laugh, overtly friendly in that way that made you want to step back a bit. He dismissed the very concept of physical effort with a lazy wave of his hand. 

“No, no. I don’t need to work out. I love the idea of it, sure, but the biological reality is that I’m already at the finish line.” He tossed a wink her way, as if sharing a charming little secret between gods. He turned his head toward Noir for a fraction of a second, hands still firmly on his hips, before his attention snapped back to her. “Oh, hey, Starlight. I believe you’ve heard about the tour?”

“Yeah,” Annie nodded, her pulse quickening despite her best efforts to remain friendly. “Ashley was just in here. She gave me the news.”

“Good! Great.” Homelander stepped into her personal space this time, his movement effortless and predatory. 

He landed a light, supposedly encouraging pat on her back, his eyes performing another efficient, unblinking scan of her frame. His hand didn't immediately retreat. Instead, it lingered on her back, an unnecessary proprietary touch that was his brand. He smacked his lips with a faint sound and exhaled, his face splitting into a wide, menacing grin that he clearly intended to pass for excitement.

“I’m really looking forward to working with you—partner,” he purred.

Before pulling away, his fingers gave a light, unholy squeeze against Annie's back, making deliberate contact with the exposed skin just below her crop top. The touch was brief, calculated, and entirely too intimate. Then, as quickly as he’d invaded her space, he stepped back and pivoted to face the silent Black Noir, leaving Annie standing in the chilled air with a fresh layer of cold sweat.

Annie’s spine had gone rigid the second Homelander’s fingers made contact with her skin. The squeeze wasn't enough to bruise, but it carried a repulsive, predatory weight. The man clearly viewed the world as his personal collection of action figures, and Annie had just been moved to the front of the shelf.

She didn't linger to see what came next. With a careful, measured pace meant to mask the fact that her fight or flight response was screaming "flight," she retreated to the treadmill. She began to gather her scattered belongings; the water bottle, the towel, the phone and whatnot.

Meanwhile, Homelander had drifted over to stand directly in Noir’s line of sight. He remained in that smug, permanent hero pose, hands on his hips, watching the silent figure struggle against the weight machine. 

A flirtatious little smirk pulled at his lips. With his X-ray vision dialed in, he wasn't just watching the suit, he was eyeing the way Noir’s muscles strained and fired under the pressure, observing the internal mechanics with a terrifying, clinical interest.

For a long moment, he said nothing, simply admiring the view like a connoisseur in a private gallery. By the time he actually spoke, the sheer thrill of his own power had manifested in a visible, shameless physical reaction, a boner Annie was fortunately spared from seeing as he kept his back turned to her.

“Madelyn wants to see me tonight,” Homelander said at last, his voice thick with a self-satisfied purr. “She wants to run pointers on the tour. Make sure the 'Light of the World' doesn't accidentally blind the rubes. So… naturally, I’ll be in New York.” He gave a small, casual shrug, as if traveling across the planet for a late night meeting was as mundane as checking the mail. “Do you wanna come?”

Noir finally slowed the rhythm of his pulldowns. His head cocked slightly to the side; a brisk, eerie movement. After a brief, heavy silence that would have made anyone else squirm, he offered a slow shake of his head.

Homelander laughed, a light, airy sound that suggested the rejection was both expected and charming. 

“Okay, well—I’ll see you tomorrow then, I guess?” He glanced back over his shoulder, his eyes briefly locking onto Starlight one last time as she finished stuffing her gear into her bag. 

Noir gave a final, stoic nod and resumed his mechanical labor, disappearing back into his world of silent resistance.

“Oh, no, no,” Homelander interjected, his hand shooting out to seize the lat bar mid descent. He brought Noir’s entire workout to a dead stop with a display of casual, unyielding strength. “I didn’t come here to ask you out on a date, man. I came to fetch you. Madelyn wants us to look into some stalker incidents at her duplex. We’re doing the satellite surveillance deep-dive.”

Noir let out a low, defeated exhale, his gloved fingers finally releasing their grip on the steel. He rose from the seat with a mechanical fluidness, offering Homelander a single, obedient nod before pivoting on his heels to fall in line.

Homelander’s grin widened by a fraction, his expression shifting into something almost, terrifyingly, affectionate; as if a boy had just successfully retrieved his favorite toy from the bin.

By some cruel stroke of comedic timing, Annie had finished packing her gear just as the two men began their exit. The result was a spectacularly awkward formation: the three of them walking side by side toward the reinforced doors, a trio that looked like a promotional poster for a movie no one in their right mind would ever want to watch.

Annie managed a final, polite twitch of her lips, before parting ways at the first corridor junction. 

As she walked off, she found herself letting out a dry, incredulous chuckle at the sheer absurdity of the dynamic she’d just witnessed. For all his god complex depravity and possible murderous whims, the Captain of the Seven was clearly, hopelessly in love with Black Noir. Or, at the very least, he was obsessed with the only thing in the universe that didn't talk back to him.

As for Noir, only God knew what was happening behind that silent, fabric void. And even God was likely keeping his distance.

——

Noir sat at the analytics console, his fingers dancing across the keys with a frantic, percussive speed as he tore through layers of satellite surveillance data, retrieving encrypted packets of information from the server.

Crouched beside him, Homelander was a study in vulturous patience. He had one hand draped over the backrest of Noir’s chair and the other braced against the workstation, leaning in so close that their shoulders nearly brushed. The strobe-like flicker of the monitors, skittering through thermal maps, cast a shifting, neon kaleidoscope across the blue of his eyes. 

Every so often, his focus would deviate from the data, his gaze sliding sideways to study the profile of Noir’s mask with a lingering, unsettling intensity.

They had been submerged in this total silence for over three minutes, the only audible texture being the faint, rhythmic pulse of the life support machinery keeping the compartment from becoming a vacuum.

Past the rows of workstations, curved in five sweeping arcs like a high-tech amphitheater, the transparent bulkhead opened up into a panoramic view of the void. In the middle of all that blackness sat the Earth; a swirling, blue and white dust mote that looked entirely too small to contain the massive egos currently hovering above it.

Eventually, the novelty of the silence soured into irritation. Homelander’s patience, never a particularly deep well, finally ran dry. He smacked his lips, an impatient sound, and pulled back, straightening his spine with a sharp, tectonic crack. He shifted his weight, planting both hands on his hips in a posture of immediate, demanding authority.

“Any luck?” he prompted, his voice cutting through the mechanical hush.

Noir remained wordless. After a few more seconds of agonizingly slow progress, his fingers finally tapered off the keyboard. He looked up at Homelander, his masked face remaining the same impenetrable enigma it had been for decades. Noir was the only person among them who could say everything while saying absolutely nothing, a feat of non-verbal communication that usually left everyone else in the Seven feeling like they were talking to a wall.

Except, of course, for those miraculous moments where his intentions were expressed physically. And this was one of those moments. 

Noir pivoted the chair slightly, and his arm shot out speedily, like a striking cobra. His hand landed firmly on Homelander's ass, slipping beneath the heavy fabric of the cape in one swift, decisive motion.

Homelander flinched, the sheer audacity of the contact stunning him into a rare moment of genuine surprise. He recovered almost instantly, a short, breathless laugh escaping his lips. He looked down at the point of contact, watching Noir’s gloved fingers disappear into the blue regalia, an amused eyebrow inching toward his hairline.

“What?” he demanded, a knowing smirk beginning to spread across his face, his ego visibly expanding at the attention.

Noir didn’t offer a verbal rebuttal, as usual. He simply maintained the contact, his grip tightening with an assertive squeeze that brooked no argument.

Well, in the complex subtext of their relationship, no words were actually required. Homelander had already translated the gesture like reading a teleprompter: It's going to be a while. Let's fuck.

The smirk on Homelander’s face began to grow, taking a sharp, hungry edge. “I think that’s a great idea, man.”

Noir offered a single, curt nod of agreement. He withdrew his hand from the patriotic upholstery of Homelander's ass and rose to his full, equally imposing height. They stood chest to chest, faces mere inches apart, close enough to share the same pressurized air, yet not quite close enough to bridge the electric tension buzzing between them.

Homelander’s smirk softened by a degree into a look of genuine, albeit warped, fondness. It wasn't a soft expression in any traditional sense, it was the look of an apex predator admiring the only other creature in the hierarchy that didn't bore him. 

He didn't bother holding the silent gaze for long, though. He leaned in, burying his face near the curve of Noir’s mask and inhaling deeply, as if trying to scent the man through the thick fabric. At the same time, his hand wandered downward, navigating the armor until his fingers found their mark at Noir’s crotch.

The moment he located the burgeoning heat beneath the suit, Homelander’s grip tightened on the semi-boner. He began to rub with a slow, intent pressure, eliciting a sharp, instinctive grunt from the back of Noir’s throat, one of the few sounds the man ever allowed himself to make.

For a moment, Noir remained as still as a mannequin, a passive participant letting Homelander spark the fuse. But the second the reaction became undeniable with a now throbbing boner, the passivity vanished. Noir’s hands shot out like industrial pistons, seizing Homelander’s ribs in a merciless, bone crushing grip. 

With one explosive, vertical heave, he hoisted the leader of the Seven into the air and slammed him down onto the workstation.

The reinforced marble surface didn't just crack, it surrendered, shattering into a web of jagged white fissures as Homelander’s weight made a violent impact with a dull, heavy thud that rattled the nearby monitors.

Homelander lay there for a second, genuinely stunned, blinking as he tried to process being tossed around like a ragdoll. He propped himself up on his elbows among the scraggy pieces of the desk, his eyes locked on Noir, searching that blank mask for a motive.

The shadow man just stood there, arms loose at his sides, looking completely casual despite having just wrecked a piece of high-end Vought hardware. Without saying a word, his hand shot out and started undoing Homelander’s belt, followed quickly by the zipper.

The confused look on Homelander’s face started to melt away, replaced by a subtle, impressed grin. He'd just realized that he wasn't just amused, he was actually into it. A soft, dry chuckle escaped his lips as Noir pulled his pants down.

“Okay then,” Homelander teased, his voice a mix of playfulness and twisted affection. “I guess we’re doing this now.”

——

The Seven Station dining hall was an overengineered opulence with an uninterrupted view of the western hemisphere. Annie had claimed a small, peripheral table near the edge of the room, hunching her shoulders in a desperate attempt to shrink out of the sightlines of her coworkers. She was currently focused on a piece of stuffed chicken, dissecting the protein with a surgical focus.

Her phone sat propped against a glass of water, the screen displaying a dense, multi-page itinerary for the upcoming tour. Ashley had sent the file an hour ago with a subject line in all caps, demanding that Annie memorize the contents down to the genetic level. 

According to the schedule, a grueling series of rehearsals and “brand alignment workshops" would begin as soon as they rotated back to the Seven Tower, a full month of prep work before the actual expo even kicked off.

Annie worked in a mechanical loop: she’d shovel a spoonful of chicken into her mouth, scan three more bullet points on the schedule, and return to her meat dissection. 

Over in the corner, Queen Maeve leaned against a chrome pillar like she was waiting for a bus she knew was never coming. She was currently breaking about a dozen high altitude fire codes, nursing a cigarette while the smoke disappeared into the overhead vents. She didn't even look up, just stared out the viewport at the clouds, probably waiting for the kitchen staff to finish whatever expensive, artisanal lunch was supposed to make her feel better about her life.

At a central table, the atmosphere was significantly less stoic. The Deep and A-Train were huddled together, leaning in with a frantic, giggling energy. They were currently shredding the reputation of the director who was helming A-Train’s latest vanity project ‘A-Train: Race to the End of the World’, the same guy who had directed the Deep’s box-office disaster last year.

“I’m telling you, dude’s a total jerkoff,” A-Train hissed, puncturing the air with a sharp, high pitched snicker, like a sneaker squeaking on a gym floor. “He just sits in the director's chair and asks me for more ‘soul.’ Meanwhile, his assistant is the one actually framing the shots and, you know, doing the work.”

“Totally,” the Deep whispered back, his face locked in a malicious, high school clique grin. “Last year, he spent three hours trying to explain how I should ‘emote like a dolphin.’ The guy’s a brainless hack, bro. Just a sweaty shirt with a megaphone. And I heard he’s banging his assistant’s assistant. Like, that’s just sad.”

The two of them devolved into a fit of hushed, synchronized giggling, bonding over the perceived incompetence of the world around them.

Annie didn't hear a syllable of the gossip. She had successfully barricaded herself behind a mental wall, tuning out the petty character assassinations and the drifting scent of Maeve’s tobacco. For a few brief, shimmering moments, she was just a girl in orbit, eating her overpriced chicken and pretending that the high functioning sociopaths a few tables down were a problem for a different department.

That fragile peace cracked when Translucent appeared, skidding to a halt in front of her table with a dramatic urgency, as if watching a fuse burn down. 

“Why the hell are you still here?!” he demanded, his hands shooting up in a gesture of pure exasperation, as if Starlight’s presence at a lunch table was a personal insult to the space-time continuum.

Annie’s chewing slowed to a grinding halt. She looked up, her eyebrows knitting into a mask of genuine confusion. “I’m sorry?” she muffled, the words fighting their way past a half chewed chunk of meat.

Translucent huffed, shaking his head with a theatrical display of disbelief. He crossed his arms over his chest, leaning back as if he couldn't even stand to look at her lack of initiative. “Ashley didn’t tell you? The fucking Fourteen is back!”

“What?” Annie nearly choked, a stray piece of lettuce making a bid for her windpipe. She coughed, frantically swallowing her bite before grabbing a napkin to dab her mouth. Her frown deepened into a look of mounting dread. “The Fourteen? You—you mean that sadist cult of—”

“YES!” Translucent barked, cutting her off before the word serial killers could fully form. “The fucking sadist cult of B-listers.”

He didn't wait for an invitation, he snatched the chair across from her and dropped into it, planting his elbows on the table. He leaned forward, his face a sudden, grim landscape of concern. The usual smug bravado had been replaced by a look of stone cold seriousness. 

He lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, casting a glance around the room to ensure their top secret conversation wasn't being overheard by the satellites.

“Look,” he said, his eyes darting cautiously toward the other tables before locking back onto hers. “We got the intel that they’re infiltrating human society again. Someone flagged a ritual murder behind a dive bar in Chelsea late last night. Usually, Vought sends me in for deep-cover spying... for obvious reasons.” He gestured vaguely at his own visible, but clothed body. “But the brass wants to test your operational efficiency. They want to see if you're a Seven-tier asset or just a billboard. Apparently, they were impressed by how you handled that creep in New York, so they’re subbing you in for me. I assumed you were already halfway to the hangar.” 

He shrugged, letting out another frustrated huff, as if her being even five minutes late for a possible murder investigation was a catastrophic failure.

Annie blinked, the gravity of the intel had effectively killed her appetite. "Oh my god… should I go talk to Ashley? What do I do?" She abandoned her fork, reaching for her water glass and draining half of it in a panicked gulp. She was already halfway out of her chair, her brain flipping into high alert mode, ready to sprint toward Ashley’s office for a frantic debrief.

"Hang on," Translucent said, stopping her with a sharp wave of his hand. "I have the location. Let me forward it to you." He fished his phone out of his pocket with a practiced boredom. After a few seconds of aggressive tapping, Annie’s phone buzzed on the table. It was a pin for the dive bar in Chelsea, Manhattan, complete with a timestamp for her expected arrival. "There you go," he prompted, gesturing urgently for her to confirm the receipt.

As Annie squinted at the map, he leaned back in, his voice dropping into that gritty, conspiratorial register. 

"Listen, new girl, we gotta get our mole in there. Specifically, you." He jabbed a finger in her direction. "Don't go in the suit. We need you in your civvies, exactly like you were wearing last week. Once you're inside, head to the bar and ask for a 'Lesley Bean.' She’s the contact. You wait for her lead and you do exactly what she says. But, and this is important—if Lesley feels even slightly off, you ping me immediately. Got it?"

Annie nodded fast, her anxiety spiking into a frantic high. If she’d been given a few hours to prepare for her first official mission, she might have actually been excited. Instead, she felt like she’d been shoved onto a moving train. Still, the silver lining was not having to wear the Vought mandated one-piece. She stood up immediately, her half eaten lunch now a distant memory.

"Thanks," she said, her expression hardening into what she hoped looked like professional grit. "Anything else I need to know before I head out?"

"Mhm," Translucent murmured, though his focus had already drifted to the abandoned plate on the table. "Take the jet. See if Noir can drop you off since you haven't mastered the flight controls yet." He didn't even ask; he just grabbed her fork and plunged it into a piece of the chicken she’d spent the last ten minutes meticulously carving. 

He shoved it into his mouth, chewing with a shameless, open mouthed smack. "Well? Move it! Clock's ticking, Starlight." He gave her a dismissive, irritated shooing motion, his face twisted into a scowl of mock impatience.

"Right. Thank you! Seriously!" Annie chirped, giving a final, sharp nod. She didn't waste another second, weaving through the tables and heading for the exit with her phone clutched in a white-knuckled grip, her skin prickling with the sudden, terrifying rush of being useful.

Behind her, the second the dining hall doors hissed shut, the grave professional act evaporated. 

Translucent, still parked in Annie’s table, spun around to face A-Train and the Deep. A cheeky, ear to ear grin split his face, the look of a prank-happy frat boy.

“And... she’s off!” he called out, his voice dripping with self congratulatory glee.

A-Train flashed a thumbs-up from across the aisle, his previous irritation replaced by a look of pure, malicious entertainment. “Nicely done, my man. Flawless.”

The three of them dissolved into a synchronized fit of laughter, A-Train and the Deep leaning across the table to give a celebratory high five. The sound echoed off the walls, the same energy of guys who put itching powder in your locker for the hell of it.

From her lonely corner, Maeve watched the display with a look of profound, detached boredom. 

She couldn't hear the specifics of the conversation over the hum of the station’s ventilation, but she didn’t need to. She’d seen this movie before, and she knew the Moronic Trio well enough to know they weren't exactly discussing world peace.

She took a slow drag of her cigarette, her eyes tracking the spot where Annie had disappeared. Part of her felt the faint, annoying tug of a conscience, but she quickly smothered it. It wasn't her business. Besides, the new kid needed to learn. If a stupid prank is what it took to rewire Starlight's naive, pretty girl brain, then so be it. 

Better to learn the Seven’s rules through a humiliating prank than by getting a hole burned through her chest by Homelander.

——

Later that night, the conference room served as a makeshift lounge for the most expensive egos in the solar system. There wasn't a briefing or a corporate intervention. It was just the usual orbit induced lethargy. 

When there were ribbons to cut or scripted saves to perform back on the surface, they’d shuttle back and forth in the Vought jets, usually chauffeured by a pilot who’d signed enough NDAs to wallpaper a mansion. Aside from Noir and Translucent, who actually bothered to learn the controls, the rest of the team treated piloting like a blue-collar chore that was beneath their pay grade. And Homelander simply didn’t need to concern himself with the means of commuting. Flying had been an everlasting flaunt for him.

But then there were the dead weeks like this one. Every month or so, the schedule would dry up, leaving the majority of the Seven marooned in the space station. They were forced to socialize with one another like prisoners in a luxury cage, mostly because fraternizing with the Vought support staff was strictly prohibited. Not that a Supe would ever face consequences for it, because in the Vought ecosystem, the ‘talent’ was untouchable. The only one who would lose their job, or their life, was the human.

However, even Vought’s HR department had its limits. Replacing a highly trained orbital technician every time a Supe had a bad day was a logistical nightmare that even an 8th grader could see was bad for the bottom line. It turns out that "don't fuck or kill the help" was one of the few corporate mandates that actually stuck, purely for the sake of efficiency.

So, once the hedonistic urges were satisfied, the sexual appetites satiated, the hangovers managed, and when the shuttles returned to Earth with escorts who were either physically shattered or psychologically spent, the heroes were forced to fulfill that nagging, inconvenient human need for social validation. They didn't have any hobbies or passions. They were just filthy rich, biologically superior specimens who had long since forgotten how to be anything else.

Maeve had been babysitting the same glass of whiskey for the last fifteen minutes, treating the amber liquid like a Rorschach test. She hadn't actually taken a sip yet, she was too busy swirling the liquid, watching the light fracture into symmetrical, kaleidoscopic patterns against the crystal. Her eyes were hypnotized by that tiny, spinning universe of expensive booze, but her ears were currently an instrument of a slow motion torture.

The Moronic Trio; A-Train, Translucent, and the Deep, had spent the better part of an hour huddled together, vibrating with a constant, low frequency snickering that occasionally spiked into loud, braying fits of laughter. It was like they had never really stopped since that lunch hour.

Watching them was like watching a group of middle school bullies who had somehow skipped all phases of life and stumbled straight into godhood. Their energy was a toxic cocktail of childishness and casual cruelty, and frankly, it was making Maeve’s skin crawl. 

The only reason she hadn't retreated to her quarters was that she was waiting on Noir. The silent bastard had been tasked with dropping Starlight off for her imaginary mission, and Maeve had been forced to jump through an absurd number of hoops to ensure he’d make a little detour for her on the return trip.

She’d practically had to bribe him with a Buster Beaver bolster, Vought’s premium brand of "I’m sorry you’re a soulless assassin" comfort, and then, just to be safe, she’d nudged Homelander into repeating the request. Because, for all his lethal efficiency, Noir was a loyal, robotic motherfucker who only truly moved when the Captain pulled the strings. Even then, the only confirmation she’d received was that trademark, empty-void stare.

Eventually, the high pitched tittering from the center of the room hit a frequency that threatened to shatter her glass. Maeve closed her eyes, letting out a long, weary exhale. She downed the whiskey in one aggressive swig, felt the burn hit her throat, and pivoted toward the trio.

“What’s up?” she asked, her voice flat and dripping with a lethal dose of apathy. “You guys seem exceptionally entertained tonight. Don't tell me Deep finally learned how to read.”

Translucent shrugged with a kind of casual, unearned confidence. He turned toward Maeve, his laughter finally tapering off into a smug, self-satisfied wheeze. 

“Look, all I’m saying is if she’s too dense to realize we don't go 'undercover’... I mean, we’re the fucking Seven, not fucking Donny Brasco.” He let out a sharp chuckle at his own wit.

On his other side, the rest of the brain trust joined in. They were all huddled in a single row like a row of crows on a power line, ignoring the assigned seating and the meticulously placed nameplates—except, of course, for Homelander’s chair. That remained an empty throne of fancy leather that no one was suicidal enough to touch.

Maeve’s frown deepened, her patience for their cryptic bullshit already at its limit. “I have no fucking clue what you’re on about,” she said, gesturing lazily at the three of them with her empty glass. Her voice was a perfect vacuum of boredom.

“Wait, you didn't tell her?” The Deep chimed in, looking genuinely shocked. He figured that after the bonding experience of their last weekend at the orgy, which he personally viewed as a stellar exercise in corporate team building, they were all on a first-name basis with each other's secrets.

A-Train just smirked, too drained by his own ego to put in the effort of an explanation. He flicked his chin toward Translucent. “You tell her. You’re the one who sold the performance.”

Translucent barked a dry, triumphant laugh, pivoting his entire body toward Maeve to ensure he had her full, miserable attention. 

“Okay, so I convinced you-know-who that the Fourteen are back.” He couldn’t stop the grin, that sharp, oily little expression that made you want to wash your eyes after looking at him. “We told her they’re infiltrating human society—in Chelsea. We have to get a mole into their organization, so if she'll change into her civvies and go to a certain bar at a certain time, she'll meet a secret contact who'll tell her what to do. The name of the contact is—” He paused for dramatic effect, his eyes darting back to his partners in crime for the punchline.

A-Train and the Deep immediately burst into a fresh round of undignified snickering.

Translucent’s grin widened until it looked painful. “—we tell her ‘Lesley Bean.’”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Maeve muttered, her head dropping back as she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. She turned her face away, her expression a mask of weary, unsurprised disappointment. The joke was so bottom-shelf, so aggressively stupid, it was almost impressive.

The trio erupted into a fresh chorus of synchronized wheezing, as if this were the apex of entertainment in their otherwise mundane, godly existences. It was a pathetic display—grown men with the power of small nuclear warheads giggling like middle schoolers. But in the warped ecosystem of Homelander’s Seven, this was considered a major victory. They were each twisted in their own unique way, and this was how they bonded.

Translucent, never one to let a performance go to waste, launched into an encore. He pitched his voice into a mocking, high pitched imitation of Annie’s earnest lilt. “Uh, excuse me? Hi! I’m looking for a Les Bean? Hello? Is there a Les Bean here? I have a very important mission!”

The laughter bounced off the reinforced walls of the conference room, a shrill, grating sound that filled the vacuum of the space station.

Maeve just sat there, her head shaking in a slow, rhythmic motion of disgust. She wasn’t amused by either the pranksters or the pranked. She held the Moronic Trio in contempt for their low rent idiocy, and she felt a dull, secondary irritation at Starlight for being naive enough to walk straight into such a blatantly obvious prank.

Eventually, the noise floor became unbearable. Maeve snapped her fingers, a sharp, percussive crack that cut through the hysteria like a gunshot.

“Snap the fuck out of it,” she commanded, her voice cutting through the residual giggles. “What actually happened? Give me the rest.” She was curious now, though her interest was born of a weary need for the full picture rather than the vampiric glee the others were feeding on.

Translucent sucked in a long, shaky breath, acting as if he’d just run a marathon of mirth. “Okay, okay. So she walks into this hardcore dyke bar and starts asking around for old ‘Les.’ And, eventually someone takes offense and thinks the pageant queen is mocking them and takes a swing. Boom. Starlight panics—one million candle power right to the retinas.” He started narrating with his hands, painting the chaotic scene in the air. “Blind rug-munchers running around screaming like banshees while Starlight realizes she’d just incinerated the social life of a Chelsea dive bar.”

A-Train couldn’t help himself, jumping in to add his own lackluster impression of Annie’s inevitable realization. “Um… excuse me, Translucent? I don’t think you gave me the right bar?” He flapped his hands in a mocking gesture of distress, his voice a grating caricature.

The room devolved into another fit of high decibel laughter, louder and more frantic than the last.

Maeve rolled her eyes again, the gesture practically a workout at this point. She looked at the three of them, her gaze cold and insightful. 

“Just leave her the fuck alone,” she said. It wasn't a plea for sympathy, more like a warning. “She’s strong. You just don’t realize it yet. One of these days, she’s going to stop being the joke, you know.”

“I think it's better than ‘Mike Hunt’, at any rate.” The Deep added, chuckling at the memory of his own stale material.

A-Train practically bolted upright in his seat, the slouch of a bored god replaced by the sudden, twitchy inspiration of a prank obsessed frat boy. “Man, we should definitely try that one next! It’s a classic for a reason.”

Translucent’s smirk widened, basking in this rare, fleeting moment of brotherhood. It was an odd dynamic, they all fundamentally despised one another and would have happily shoved each other into the sun to shave five points off a bad Q-rating, but they found common ground in the shared pursuit of being absolute pricks.

“Shit, why not?” Translucent said with an impressed shrug. “She's been dumb enough to fall for just about everything else!”

“No, she hasn't, you pricks,” Maeve spat. Her voice remained flat and unimpressed. She wasn’t really standing up for Starlight, more like predicting a foreseeable car crash. “Just don’t come crying to me for a character reference when she decides to fry your balls.”

Before the Moronic Trio could muster a rebuttal, the room’s air was hijacked by a single, resonant piano note. 

Black Noir had taken his place at the grand piano in the far corner, his gloved finger depressing a key with surgical intent. This was the orbital station’s version of a natural bonding: the morons would act like morons, Maeve would drown her resentment in top-shelf scotch, and Noir would retreat into his weirdly sophisticated hobbies. Between the sketching and the sonatas, Noir was easily the most cultured silent assassin in Vought’s payroll.

Noir didn’t care about not interrupting the flow of their conversation. He played when he wanted to play. Unless Homelander was in the room, in which case Noir cared about the timing of his acoustics. Interestingly, Homelander never seemed to mind. He’d often sit in a silent, predatory trance, watching Noir’s fingers move over the keys with something that looked often like genuine admiration.

But in the Captain’s absence, Maeve was the one treating the music like a life raft. 

“Oh, thank fuck you’re back,” she called out, her voice cutting through the lingering snickers of the trio. “Tell me you brought my weed, Noir. You can hear the mental bankruptcy I’m dealing with here, right?”

Noir's fingers decelerated over the keys, the melody dying a quiet death as he stood and pivoted toward the table. 

He moved with that predatory, silent glide, pulling a small pouch from a pocket nestled right next to a combat blade. He came to a halt a respectful distance from Maeve’s chair, placed the pouch on the mahogany surface, and produced a notebook and pen. His movements were fluid yet unsettlingly mechanical.

He scribbled a few words in a sharp, efficient hand and held it up:

THANK YOU FOR BUSTER BEEVER.

Maeve’s mouth twitched into a genuine smirk, a rare sighting. 

"Well," she said, attempting to reclaim her usual look of detachment while her eyes brightened. She snagged the pouch and slid the zipper back. Inside sat a row of perfectly manicured, pre-rolled joints, little white soldiers ready to die for her peace of mind. "Thank you for the joints, Noir. Seriously."

Noir offered a solitary, stiff nod and retreated to the piano. He had barely settled back onto the bench to resume his recital when the double doors groaned under the weight of the atmospheric shift.

In walked Annie, looking like a storm contained in a human. 

She was absolutely furious. Her hair was a messy nest of blonde static, and her denim jacket had been shredded on the left side, hanging in pathetic blue fringes.

The "mission" had been a disaster in every sense of the word. Not only had she been the punchline of a cruel joke, but the ensuing bar brawl had ended with her reflexively flash-frying several civilians. 

She’d had to flee the bar like a common criminal before some TikTok obsessed bystander could record her heroic debut of blinding a dozen lesbians. To top it off, Ashley had been blowing up her phone for three hours about the missed tour briefing.

It had been the ace in immaturity from the veterans, and a bitter lesson in gullibility for the rookie. But as Annie scanned the room, her eyes landing on the snickering trio, it was clear that she was no longer having it.

Noir, bless his eccentric soul, had barely teased a melody from the keys when Annie finally spoke, her gaze cutting sideways toward the far corner of the room.

“Black Noir, could you please pause for a minute?” she asked. The politeness was a thin, brittle veneer stretched over a furnace of vindictive rage.

But Noir remained unbothered by the unfolding melodrama. He kept his fingers moving, committed to his private recital while the atmosphere in the room soured.

“Noir, stop!” Annie barked. 

In sympathetic resonance with her soaring blood pressure, the overhead lighting began to pulse. Every monitor on the walls and the circuitry behind the panels flickered in a frantic, stuttering rhythm.

That got a result. Noir froze, his gloved hands hovering inches above the keys now. His shoulders slumped with a quiet, pathetic aura, as if his only joy had been snatched away for the second time in an hour.

The Moronic Trio traded glances. They were clearly in agreement: the kid was fuming. Naturally, this only made the whole situation more hilarious to them.

“Take a breath, Starlight,” Translucent said, his smirk almost audible. “These little hiccups happen to the best of us. Part of the learning curve, really.”

“You are all complete douchebags,” Annie spat. The contempt in her voice was thick and bitter. “Next time you try a stunt like this with me...” Her jaw locked, her expression becoming something cold and dangerously sincere. “I will burn your fucking eyes out.”

“Whoa, easy there!” The Deep chimed in, recoiling as if she’d thrown a punch. “What’s with all this negative energy? We’re a team, right?” He threw his hands up, looking genuinely offended that their victim wasn't appreciative of the prank. “You aren't actually going to blind us. That’s just the adrenaline talking... right?”

Annie’s lip curled in a grimace as she fixed him with a stare. “Why don't you push me again and find out?”

“For the love of God, stop being so dramatic over a bit of fun,” Translucent drawled, offering a shrug that was supposed to be apologetic but landed closer to insulting. “Besides, keep dreaming about the retina-burning. Homelander would fling you out of the atmosphere before you even finished charging up.”

“Good,” Annie replied, her chin lifting as her irises began to glow with a predatory golden light. “At least then I’d be done with miserable losers like you.” She locked her arms across her chest, her posture utmost defiance.

“Good grief,” The Deep scoffed, waving a hand as if to shoo away her anger. “That is a lot of attitude for a lady, you know.” He shot a reflexive glance toward Maeve to gauge her reaction. “Sorry,” he muttered instantly, his spine straightening a bit as Maeve cast him a murderous glare while she sparked her joint.

Annie let out a dry, sharp laugh that held zero warmth. She rolled her eyes before pinning the Deep with a disdainful, mocking look. 

“Oh, I get it, Deep,” she said, a bitter, wide grin carving through her face. “Must be a lot for you to swallow.” She punctuated the insult with a slow, cruel wink. “Don't worry. Your little secret is perfectly safe with me.”

The Deep’s face went pale instantaneously, his expression a mask of pure horror as he bolted upright. “What? What are you even talking about? What secret?”

As the tension in the room reached a fever pitch, Maeve’s phone emitted a sharp, authoritative chime from the table. The sound went unheeded by the bickering bunch, but Maeve, exhaling a thick cloud of skunky smoke, reached for the device.

She swiped the screen, her eyes scanning the high priority alert blinking from the Vought central mainframe. 

The petty squabble at the table vanished into the background as the gravity of the text settled in. She didn't even hear whatever counter Starlight threw next.

The notification was blunt: ATTACK ON MADELYN STILLWELL. CURRENTLY IN ICU, FLOOR 10. REPORT TO EARTH BASE IMMEDIATELY.

“Guys. Look at me. Now.” Maeve’s hand shot upward, cutting through the tension as she waved away the lingering cloud of smoke. Her eyes remained glued to the glowing screen, her forehead folding into a frown of genuine concern.

To her immense surprise, the bickering actually ceased. The petty insults died in the air as every head pivoted toward her, a chaotic mixture of curiosity and residual heat still radiating from the group.

“We need to get to the Tower. Right fucking now,” Maeve commanded, already surging out of her seat with a sudden, sharp energy. She jammed her phone into the interior of her bracer and snatched the ashtray, though her focus was miles below them. “Someone attacked Stillwell. She’s in the ICU.”

“Wait, what?” Annie blurted out. The news hit her like a physical jolt, forcing her to abandon her defensive stance. For the first and likely only time in her career, she found herself perfectly in sync with the shock radiating off the rest of the room. “What do you mean someone attacked Ms. Stillwell?” Annie continued, her hands dropping to her hips as she tried to piece the timeline together. “Wasn't she supposed to be in a meeting with Homelander right now?”

The silence that followed was heavy and immediate. Every gaze in the room snapped toward her, faces turning a sickly shade of pale. While Noir’s mask remained as unreadable as ever, his physical reaction was telling. He'd clutched at his imaginary pearls in a sharp, worried gesture of alarm.

Maeve’s eyes widened then, going blank for a heartbeat as the implications of Starlight’s question rippled through her. She slowly turned to face the others, her gaze sweeping over the Moronic Trio in a shared, silent recognition of a nightmare they all understood but never named.

They exchanged glances that were thick with a specific kind of dread, a look that told Annie she was still the only one in the room who didn't fully grasp the magnitude of the monster they worked for. 

It was as if they possessed a map of Homelander's instability that she was only just beginning to sketch. The possibility that the attack hadn't been an outside force, but rather a meeting gone awry with Homelander in it, hung in the air like a foul odor.

The unspoken theory made Annie’s chest constrict, her heart hammering against her ribs. The fiery, righteous anger she’d been harboring against the trio evaporated instantly, replaced by a cold weight in the pit of her stomach.

“Well? We need to move!” Annie barked, her hands gesturing through the air to shove the room back into motion.

In a rare, unsettling display of solidarity, the team actually listened. 

The frozen tension broke as everyone scrambled toward the exit, a collective consensus born of pure, unfiltered fear. They moved with a frantic urgency that had nothing to do with saving a colleague and everything to do with managing a corporate catastrophe.

Annie and Maeve were the last ones, trailing behind the others. 

Maeve’s mind was already miles ahead, racing through the twisted maze of Homelander’s psyche. 

She knew his relationship with Madelyn was a toxic, incomprehensible knot of redirected mommy issues and predatory devotion. In his own fractured way, he loved her, though whether that meant he’d protect her or peel her skin off on a whim was always a coin toss. 

The odds of him being the culprit were technically lower than an outside hit, but with him, the probability of horror was never zero. He was a black hole in a cape; unpredictable, bottomless, and capable of swallowing everything without a moment’s notice.

Just as they reached the threshold of the door, Maeve slowed, turning to look at Annie. Her expression was unfittingly flat and casual.

“Don't speak to him when we get there,” she said. It was delivered with a casual, offhand tone, as if she were giving advice on how to avoid a puddle rather than warning her of the mad demigod. “In fact, don’t even look at him. Just be invisible.”

Annie felt a chill settle into her bones, the kind of cold that no amount of actual starlight could burn away. She didn’t ask for clarification, though. She didn’t need to. The look in Maeve’s eyes told her everything about the shark infested waters they were about to dive into.

She gave a single, curt nod, her jaw set tight. 

Together, they stepped out into the hall, following after the rest of the team. 

Chapter Text

The entire Seven Tower felt the impact as Homelander touched down on the rooftop. It was a controlled landing, technically speaking, though he had the aerodynamic finesse to land like a feather if he actually gave a damn. But finesse didn't massage his ego. He preferred the structural groan of steel and concrete beneath his feet; a heavy, vibrating announcement that the King was home. It was his signature move, a desperate, loud mouthed stunt meant to remind Vought that he was the only load-bearing pillar in the entire corporation. Specifically, he wanted Madelyn Stillwell to feel the floor shake under her expensive heels.

He straightened his posture, letting his arms fall to his sides. He took a long, performative draw of the New York air, tasting the smog and the distant scent of garbage, before venting a satisfied sigh. His eyes swept the horizon, absorbing the dull, rhythmic noise of the city a hundred floors below, a sound that usually felt like a lullaby to a god.

Once he felt sufficiently grounded in his own greatness, he began to walk. He locked his hands behind his back in that signature pose of smug regalia, his cape trailing behind him with practiced, heroic weight.

His destination was Madelyn’s office on Floor 99, just a single flight beneath the landing pad. Along the way, he was forced to endure the usual mid-level staff offering sycophantic greetings. He didn't actually see the employees, he just saw the fear and the respect they lathered over him like cheap perfume. 

Since it was past the official end of the workday, the halls were thinning out already, leaving only the dedicated careerists and the desperate to witness his stroll.

He knew exactly where she would be. Madelyn was a creature of habit, especially on Wednesdays and Thursdays when the corporate bureaucracy hit its peak. He had her entire schedule memorized down to the millisecond. Even during those mind numbing weeks in orbit, he’d spend his hours glued to the live surveillance feeds, watching her move from room to room. It was far more productive than listening to the Moronic Trio discuss their favorite brands of protein powder. 

He’d become especially obsessed with the tracking ever since Madelyn produced that baby, Teddy.

Ever since the brat arrived, Madelyn’s focus had been sliced down the middle. The kid had inherited fifty percent of her bandwidth, and Homelander hated every atom of the situation. He was genuinely, pathologically jealous of a creature that couldn't even support its own head, purely for the crime of stealing his scheduled adoration.

Worse than the theft of Madelyn’s time and attention was the noise. The kid was a breathing, leaky faucet of nonsensical babble and high pitched squeals that hit Homelander’s superhearing like a drill to the temple. It was a constant sensory assault. 

Whenever he suggested, with as much restraint as possible by him; that she quiet the thing down, Madelyn would just laugh. She’d give him that patronizing, "oh you silly boy" smile and explain that babies simply produce noise as a default setting.

He would respond with a surgically suppressed eye roll, but the resentment was already calcified. Before Teddy, he was the only baby in the building. He loved her, craved her, and harbored a cocktail of desires for her that would keep a team of Freudian analysts employed for a decade. It was messy, and dwelling on the tangled wires of their romance never brought him anything but a headache.

But tonight was different. Madelyn had been the one to request this meeting, and she’d sounded eager. Impatient, even. 

He convinced himself she was probably dying to see him, having finally realized that her lectures after the Mayor meeting incident last week had bruised his delicate ego. This was her surrender. She was going to apologize, pamper him, and get back to the vital business of stroking his god complex.

A smug smile spread across his face as he reached her door. Usually, he treated her threshold like an opinion, barging into her office whenever he felt like being the center of the universe. Madelyn had always indulged that entitlement, which only fueled his belief that her office was just another room in his house.

Tonight, however, he wanted to play the martyr. He needed to make her feel the weight of his displeasure. He wanted her to know he was hurt, so he could maximize the guilt-induced affection he was about to receive.

So, in a rare display of performative manners, he actually knocked. He stood there, waiting to be invited in like a commoner, purely to prove a point about how distant he was feeling. But when five seconds ticked by without a welcoming response, the mask slipped. 

He let out a sharp, impatient sigh and rolled his eyes at the empty hallway.

Homelander had a specific internal filing system for Madelyn’s silences. If she didn't answer his petulant knocking, it meant she was playing hard to get, the flirty setting. It was his favorite version of her: a little bit naughty, a lot bit submissive, and entirely focused on making him feel like the biggest boy in the room.

The prospect sent a genuine jolt of excitement through him, tugging his lips into a boyish grin. He abandoned the formal charade, twisted the knob, and glided inside. The door clicked shut with a heavy, expensive thud, sealing him in his favorite room in the tower. He scanned the space, radiating a "guess who's home" energy.

Madelyn was seated behind her desk, her high-backed executive chair pivoted away from him. She was playing the mystery card, keeping her back turned while she breathed in a slow, steady rhythm. She was relaxed. She was waiting.

Homelander let out an exaggerated, theatrical exhale, the sound of a god dropping his burdens at the door.

“So,” he drawled, pacing across the room with an effortless grace. He avoided the desk entirely and headed for the off-white sofa set across from it.

He snagged his cape with a flourish, arranging the heavy fabric to his side in a bizarre, semi majestic ritual of self-grooming. Once he was settled, he hiked one leg over the other knee and leaned back, occupying the space with his casual arrogance.

“I heard about Starlight joining the tour,” he said, tossing the sentence out like a lure.

Silence. The only response was the faint, rhythmic sound of a breath escaping her lips.

Homelander’s patience, never his strongest suit, began to fray at the edges. He found this specific kind of foreplay, the kind where he did all the heavy lifting, mildly irritating. He wanted his reward now.

“So, what’s she like?” he asked, pitching his voice up a notch, forcing a level of cool guy nonchalance. “She a good fuck? Please tell me you found some dirt in the background check. Everyone else on this team has a closet full of skeletons. Pretty sure the pageant queen has at least one dead body or a drug habit.” He gave a small, provocative shrug, practically begging Madelyn to snap at him, to show a flicker of jealousy, to tell him he was the only one who mattered.

Still nothing. Just the quiet, steady breathing of Madelyn who seemed to be ignoring the most powerful man on Earth, a cue for him to keep trying.

A soft, weary sigh escaped Homelander, half frustrated, half fond. But he leaned into the provocation, really selling the bad boy act. “Starlight knows what’s coming on the tour, right? Has anyone given her the orientation, or is it going to be a surprise?” He probed, the casualness in his voice so forced it was virtually sweating. 

The thought of his own impending cruelty hit him just right, and he let out a thin, sharp chuckle.

Of course, it was going to happen. Membership in the Seven wasn't just about the cape and the stock options; it was about the inevitable tax paid to the man at the top. One way or another, Homelander collected his dues from everyone on the team. The new girl was technically past due. So with the tour on the horizon, the timing was almost poetic. It wasn't a question of if he was going to fuck her, it was just a matter of checking the calendar for the when.

But the silence from the chair was starting to feel less like a game and more like a slight at this point. His patience was evaporating. He smacked his lips, a sharp sound of irritation, and vaulted off the couch in one fluid, predatory motion.

“Are you actually going to acknowledge my existence tonight, or am I just talking to the furniture?” he demanded. He was aiming for polite agitation, but the "god" part of his brain was already starting to itch for a tantrum.

Still, the chair didn't budge.

His restraint snapped like a dry twig. He stalked toward the desk, rounding the corner with the intent to snatch her attention by force. But the moment his gaze locked onto her, the air left his lungs. 

Homelander froze, his entire biological CPU hitting a fatal error. He blinked rapidly, certain that his retinas were glitching, waiting for the image to resolve into something that made sense.

Had Madelyn really… shot herself?

The reality of the scene took a few agonizing seconds to permeate his skull, and a ragged, involuntary gasp escaped him. His eyes darted across the room, finally registering the gore painted across the mahogany bookshelves; a fresh, wet abstract art of brain matter and corporate ambition. 

Based on the viscosity, she’d been shot maybe thirty, forty minutes ago. The star of the show was the Sig Sauer P238, a compact piece of weapon loosely held in her hand.

The sardonic humor suddenly died in his throat, suffocated by the unexpected, metallic stench of Madelyn's blood. Homelander stood there, the internal machinery of his mind grinding to a halt as he realized the silence wasn't a game—she had actually shot herself.

He realized then, again, that she was still breathing. It was a shallow, pathetic sound he should have pinpointed the second he landed on the roof, but his own ego had been a sensory shroud. Had he been so intoxicated by the prospect of an apology that he’d walked right past the scent of gunpowder? The world felt baseless, like a cheap set piece ready to collapse.

A frown etched itself deep into his face, his jaw locking so tight the bone nearly groaned. Tears began to prick at his vision, a rare and disgusting sign of weakness, but he didn't let them fall. 

Instead, he reached for the intercom with a hand that felt disconnected from his body. He barked an order for an emergency medical team, his voice an uneven rasp. 

The narrative was already rewriting itself in his mind: Madelyn hadn't done this. Someone had attacked her. Some ghost, some shadow, some thing had dared to touch what was his.

Because Madelyn Stillwell wouldn’t quit like this. She wouldn't abandon him, and she certainly wouldn’t leave her child behind. It was impossible, and Homelander didn't coexist with the impossible.

The minutes that followed were a cold, clinical blur. He felt the ringing in his ears reach a deafening crescendo as he scooped her up. He was careful, uncharacteristically, terrifyingly gentle, as he navigated the air, bypassing the elevators. He didn't wait for the doors on Floor 10; he simply burst in through the exterior glass wall, stepping into the Vought medical wing with her bleeding out in his arms.

The medical staff, to their credit, didn't panic. They were the elite, paid handsomely to handle the various ways gods and their keepers could break. They swarmed her with a professional efficiency that Homelander watched with a detached, hollow stare. He saw them whisk her away into the sterile white void of the operating theater, the heavy doors clicking shut like a final curtain.

Time became a liquid, useless concept after that. He caught fragments of the aftermath; Vought’s crisis management team scurrying like rats, the frantic rings of phones, the hierarchy scrambling to contain the fallout. He heard it all as if he were underwater.

Eventually, he found himself in the VIP lounge of the floor, waiting for an update. He tried to process it. He tried to use that terrifyingly fast brain to reconstruct her final moments, to recall the office room for a hidden intruder, to find a reason that didn't involve her choosing to leave him. But the harder he tried to think, the more his internal circuits seemed to spark and fail. 

Homelander detested the sensation of loss. It was a greasy, suffocating weight, a glitch in his programming that he couldn't simply laser into submission. The last time this specific kind of emptiness had settled in his chest was back in the underground lab, after he’d accidentally liquidated a technician he’d grown quite fond of. Whether the technician had actually loved him or had just been paralyzed by a very reasonable fear of sudden dismemberment was irrelevant. 

The memory sat in his throat like a shard of bone, a knot of grief he lacked the emotional software to process. Beneath the vanity, his crimson boot tapped against the floor in a frantic, mindless staccato, eyes unblinking and lost. 

“Homelander? Earth to the Big Guy—you still with us?”

A voice, too loud and casual, punctured the silence. A hand waved in front of his face, slicing through his catatonic stare and dragging him back to the surface.

Homelander blinked, the transition from the blood spattered past to the present moment feeling like a sudden, violent decompression. 

He sucked in a sharp, lung-searing breath and straightened his spine, the smug posture snapping back into place by sheer muscle memory. His own reflection stared back from the mirror; flawless, golden, and entirely empty. And standing beside him was his Senior Beautician, a woman who had spent the last eight years ensuring a flawless face of a god and had clearly lost her sense of self-preservation along the way.

Right. Reality. 

He’d drifted again, back to that night, back to the office, back to the painful memory.

He let out a thin, weary sigh and gave his head a sharp shake, as if he could physically rattle the thoughts out of his skull. “Ready?” he asked. The word was clipped, distracted, and carried a subtle tremor of his unstable composure.

“Yes, sir. Fabulous as always,” she replied, offering an assuring thumbs-up. She turned away then, sweeping up a chaotic array of brushes from the counter.

Homelander gave a solitary, stiff nod; mostly to reassure his own reflection that he was still in control. He rose from the chair, the heavy fabric of his cape whispering against the floor, and stalked out of the makeup room in a rather agitated mood. And the day hadn't even truly begun.

As he reached the threshold of the backstage area, Homelander’s external switch flipped instantly. The internal rot was suddenly covered with a fresh coat of corporate paint. He slowed his pace, allowing a wide, practiced smirk to pull at his lips.

There she was. Starlight, poured back into her good girl ensemble that Vought’s design team had clearly revised with some distinctions. The waist had been cinched to a precarious degree, ensuring that her curves did most of the talking for her. She looked pleasant enough, in a sanitized, mid-western sort of way, though the headband was a personal affront to Homelander’s taste. It was an accessory for a bake sale, not a demigod. Between the hem of her skirt and the tops of her boots was the only real evidence that she had some skin to show. And maybe her hands, and the face.

Anyway.

He blinked, purging the fashion critique from his mind as his gaze drifted to the woman standing beside Starlight. A lady in her early fifties who looked like the "Before" photo in a fountain of youth advertisement. Her mother. The genetic source of that blonde mane.

“Starlight!” Homelander projected, his voice a rich, resonant baritone that could sell insurance to a dead man. 

He locked his hands behind his back and donned a grin so wide and white, it bordered on eerie. It was the kind of smile that was charming for the first three seconds and deeply unsettling by the fourth.

Annie flinched, an instinctive jerk. 

She pivoted on her heels, her brow twitching with the effort of maintaining a poker face while her pulse likely hit triple digits.

“Oh—Homelander. Hey,” she managed, her words stumbling over one another. She pulled her mouth into a thin, brittle line, a valiant attempt at looking casual.  

She even threw in a desperate flick of her chin, a cool kid gesture that looked painfully out of place compared to the sudden nervous energy radiating off her.

Homelander’s grin expanded, threatening to split his face as he swept toward the pair with his arms open. He pointed a finger at Donna with theatrical astonishment, his face contorting into an expression of pure delight, as if meeting a suburban mother from Des Moines was the crowning achievement of his week.

“Donna, right?” he prompted, letting out a soft, admiring scoff. He sounded breathless, like he was barely holding back tears of joy.

Annie watched the display with a cautious, unblinking intensity. The man was a walking Broadway show, a one-man cast of The Greatest Hero Ever Told. She kept her own smile pinned to her face like a badge, though her skin felt like it was crawling toward the exit.

Donna, meanwhile, was experiencing a total system bypass. She wasn't just happy, she was vibrating on a frequency that one could probably detect from low orbit satellites. She nodded vigorously in response, glancing sideways at Annie. 

In the meantime, Homelander leaned in, closing the gap to deliver a side hug that was pure, distilled Americana. He was the nation's weighted blanket, after all.

“I must say,” Homelander drawled as he retracted himself, gesturing toward Starlight with a performative grace. “You gotta believe me, Donna, when I tell you that your daughter is a true believer. A rare gem in this cynical world.” He topped it off with a conspiratorial wink, as if he and Donna were the only two people on Earth who truly understood the sanctity of capes and tights.

Donna was virtually weeping with reflected glory. “Thank you. Oh, thank you so much, Homelander,” she gushed, her face a mask of awestruck worship. “You have no idea what this means. Annie and I... we find so much comfort in your words, especially because she still cherishes that day back in Pennsylvania—”

“Mom! Shush!” Annie hissed.

The snap was instantaneous. Her eyes went wide with a cocktail of raw shock and soul-crushing embarrassment. It was a beautifully awkward break in the performance, and it earned her Homelander’s undivided, predatory attention in a heartbeat.

Donna, blissfully unaware that she was handing her daughter’s dignity over to a high functioning sociopath on a silver platter, waved a hand at Annie’s protest. “Oh, hush. It’s the truth,” she insisted, wearing her pride like a pageant sash. She turned her beaming gaze back to Homelander, who was nursing a look of amused curiosity; mostly because he could smell Starlight’s desperation, and it was a delightful vintage.

Donna plowed ahead, ignoring the social red flags. “Anyway, surely you remember the Capes for Christ convention in Pennsylvania? Back in 2007?”

Homelander’s grin didn't disappear, but it certainly lost its luster. His brows knit together in the soft, polite confusion, as if trying to remember a specific fly he’d swatted twenty years ago. He offered a non-committal shrug, his eyes darting between the mother and the daughter like he was waiting for the explanation.

“Ugh, it’s honestly nothing. Ancient history,” Annie blurted out. Her tone was a frantic blend of urgency and dismissiveness, the kind of voice one uses when trying to convince a cop there isn't a body in the trunk.

In any other context, it would have been a sweet anecdote for her. But standing in the shadow of the real Homelander now, the story felt like a suicide note. Annie knew the struggle was futile, though; because Donna was a freight train of maternal nostalgia, and she had no brakes.

What followed was a few seconds of agonizing, high voltage silence as Donna began to dig through her handbag. 

Annie traded a glance with Homelander, her soul practically shriveling up and leaving her body as she watched her mother rummage through a sea of tissues and old receipts for the instrument of her social execution.

Finally, Donna produced a photograph, brandishing it like a holy relic. She thrust the glossy evidence toward Homelander’s face. “There was a shooting at the convention. You swooped in, stopped the gunmen, and you personally rescued her,” she explained, gesturing at Annie like presenting a prize winning ham.

Homelander, momentarily caught off guard by the sudden appearance of physical evidence, looked back and forth between Donna’s manic, expectant face and the little rectangle of glossy paper. He didn't actually look at the image at first, he just stared at the object like it was a primitive artifact from a civilization he’d long ago conquered and forgotten. Finally, he condescended to accept the photograph, holding it up to his eyes with a detached curiosity.

Oh. Right.

He blinked. There he was, frozen in 2007, looking disgustingly vibrant. And there was Starlight, roughly ten or eleven years old, looking like a poster child for mid-western optimism. Her tiny arm was looped around his neck in a death grip of crude worship, and they were both offering the camera a double dose of the all American thumbs-up.

He’d been twenty-six back then. A much simpler time, when the hair was a bit more natural and the cracks in his psyche were slightly easier to plaster over.

The gears in his head finally ground into place, as if his memory had rebooted itself. He remembered the humid air, the smell of cheap polyester and holy water, and the high pitched screams. He’d certainly been there. But it had never occurred to him, not for a single, narcissistic second, that the wide-eyed kid he’d hoisted for a PR op was the same woman currently shivering in a Vought modified suit beside him.

He’d rescued a lot of kids in the early days. Back then, the "missions" weren't always three-act plays scripted by a room full of Harvard grads. There were actual, unprompted moments of violence that he’d gotten himself involved with. Eventually, Vought had gotten tired of the accidental collateral damages and the messy liability of spontaneous heroics, pulling the leash tight and making everything a choreographed dance.

The Pennsylvania incident had been one of his classic rebellious phases. He hadn't acted out of some burning desire to protect the innocent; he’d acted because he was bored, impulsive, and had realized that doing something unauthorized would force Madelyn to pay attention to him. 

At the time, Vought's upper management had been predictably pissed that he’d gone off-script, but Madelyn had smoothed it over with her usual charm. Once the cleanup was done, the entire afternoon had become just another forgettable Tuesday in his pursuit of global adoration.

He’d almost managed to scrub the memory entirely. It was just another grain of sand in a desert of his ego now.

When Homelander finally, mentally clawed his way back from the depths of his own thoughts after a few seconds, he let out a mock fond scoff, his grin widening ear to ear.

“No way!” He pivoted his gaze between Donna and Starlight, his enthusiasm so dialed up it was almost uncomfortable to bear with. “That’s Starlight? Actually her?” He barked a sharp, surprised laugh, treating the revelation like it was the most significant event in human history since the invention of the wheel.

Annie stood there, her brain frantically trying to calculate whether he was being sincere or if he was layering on the sarcasm with a trowel. Her cheeks began heating up with a flush of pure humiliation. She gave a subtle, pained roll of her eyes, staring intensely at a particularly interesting piece of duct tape on the floor to avoid his predatory gaze.

Donna, oblivious to the fact that she was basically feeding her daughter to a lion, nodded with religious fervor. “Yes! She’s worshiped you her entire life. You’re her idol, her inspiration—”

“Oh my god, Mom—shut up,” Annie hissed. She kept her pageant smile pinned to her face, but her eyes were screaming. She had a speech in a few minutes, and her mother was busy handing her dignity over to a man who probably viewed people as just bloodbags.

Donna shot Annie that classic tight-lipped mother look, the one that translated to Don't be a brat while I'm talking to a God.

Homelander laughed, a dismissive, airy sound that made it clear he still viewed Starlight as the ten-year-old in the photo, just a prop in the grand movie of his life. He waved a hand as if brushing away a fly. “Small world, huh?” He scanned them both, his grin revealing a flash of sharp canines. 

Before he could twist the knife any further, Ezekiel’s voice boomed from the stage, announcing Starlight’s name to the roaring, caffeinated crowd outside. 

In the backstage, all heads snapped toward the stage.

Homelander gestured toward the curtain with a practiced grace. “Well, that’s your cue. First big speech as a member of the Seven. Don’t trip.”

But before Annie could make her escape, he lunged in, wrapping a heavy, territorial arm around her shoulders. He squeezed her close, as if they were suddenly best friends, tight enough to remind her that he could crush her ribcage like a soda can if he felt a whim coming on.

“Go break a leg, partner,” he muttered, his breath ghosting against her ear before he released her with a firm, jarring pat on the back that nearly sent her stumbling into the spotlight.

Annie squeezed out a nervous laugh at the friendly blow to her spine, the kind of sound a chew toy makes when it’s stepped on. She wasn't amused, she was terrified. 

With one final, pleading look at her mother that silently screamed don't tell him about my potty training now, she peeled herself away from the sticky, radioactive awkwardness and headed for the light.

The second she breached the curtain, the wall of sound hit her. The crowd at the field erupted with the kind of primal, sorbic fervor. 

This was the first day at the Light of the World expo tour, and the golden girl had finally arrived. 

For the attendees, Starlight wasn't just another hero from The Seven, she was a homegrown Christian brand, a face they’d seen on every Capes for Christ brochure since she lost her baby teeth. Seeing the Defender of Des Moines standing where Homelander usually stood was like seeing a favorite niece marry into the Royal Family for them. She was the face of comfort, the face of "Our Values," and she was going to be spending the next few weeks touring next to Homelander.

Annie didn't even have to think; the professional mask snapped into place with a click. It was muscle memory, a lifetime of pageant smiles and indoctrinated humility taking the wheel. She offered a radiant, sun-drenched wave to the masses, her eyes scanning the teleprompter as it hummed to life. She let the applause wash over her, waiting for that perfect, practiced beat of silence before leaning into the mic.

“Wow, guys, isn’t this just... incredible?” She let out a soft, scripted chuckle, inhaling deeply and tilting her head with that "dreams really do come true" expression that Vought had spent millions perfecting. She pretended like she was witnessing a miracle, rather than reading a script written by a guy named Gary in a cubicle. “I can’t believe I’m standing here today as a minister for Capes for Christ. I mean, can you believe this?”

The crowd went feral again, drowning her out in a fresh wave of holy adoration. 

Annie’s grin widened, the sunlight reflecting off her teeth with blinding precision. But as she turned to acknowledge the side of the stage, her gaze snagged on the silhouettes in the wings. There was Donna, almost vibrating with vicarious fame, and right behind her, looming like a shark, was Homelander.

He wasn't cheering. He was just watching, his eyes fixed on her with a clinical, unblinking intensity.

Annie turned back to the sea of faces, radiating a brand of wholesomeness so pure, one simply wouldn't guess what life in the Seven was like. 

“How are we all feeling today? Great?” Predictably, the crowd roared back, a wave of collective, uncritical affirmation. Annie let out a scripted, bell-like giggle. “Yeah. That’s great. Listen… not everyone understands the novelty and the vital importance of us gathering here today, but let me give you the facts.”

She locked onto the teleprompter, her expression a masterclass in angelic certainty while her soul prepared to take a permanent vacation. “Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, and all the other people who believe whatever it is they believe—and the atheists, especially the atheists—they’re all wrong.” She delivered the line with a sunny disposition. “And that’s the first thing you have to accept: as a Christian, there is no compromise. No considering other points of view. No meeting anybody else halfway. You either believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, or you don’t. And if you don’t, I… I…”

The gears of the Starlight Machine hit a snag. Annie trailed off, her gaze flickering between the adoring, expectant masses and the rolling green text that was currently performing an aggressive lobotomy on her conscience. 

Internally, she was reeling; she’d spent her life nodding along to these Vought sponsored values from the pews, but hearing the corporate propaganda exit her own mouth felt like swallowing a handful of thumbtacks.

Her eyes drifted toward the wings. Ezekiel was there, standing next to a glowing Donna, making small, frantic "keep going" gestures with his hands; all sunshine, encouragement, and the silent threat of a breached contract. Thankfully, the shark had left the water; Homelander had been whisked away to a ‘Heroes and Hearts’ roundtable with a group of orphans, an event he undoubtedly viewed as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Annie then turned back to the audience, her smile now held in place by sheer, terrifying willpower. 

“Well, if you don't believe in it, I pity you,” she continued. A small, weary sigh escaped her, a puff of genuine disappointment directed entirely at the person that would be staring back at her in the dressing room mirror. “Because turning your back on the Kingdom of Heaven is a tragic thing. But the point is, God’s way is the only way. There are no other gods, no other possibilities, no other paths to salvation. Now, let’s talk about homosexuality and why they’re not the children of the Lord…”

As the words tumbled out, her eyebrows began a slow, steady climb toward her hairline. Her stomach wasn't just churning, performing a full scale riot. She was today years old when she realized that her "calling" wasn't a divine appointment, it was a high budget indoctrination campaign, and she was the shiny new megaphone at the center of it.

Vought’s relationship with the Bible was purely transactional; they treated the New Testament like a rough draft for a marketing deck. The goal wasn't to save souls, but to garnish their supes with enough Christian seasoning to make them irresistible to the tax paying masses. They opened wallets by branding the Seven as the hand picked lieutenants of Jesus.

This whole Light of the World expo was a sophisticated heist. Tickets started at a modest $195, roughly the price of a week's groceries for the people in the cheap seats, and that was just the cover charge for the privilege of being indoctrinated. Families who had scraped and saved for a year were currently weeping with joy, blissfully unaware that they were being fleeced by a corporation that viewed them as nothing but consumers. The irony was rich enough to choke a prophet. 

The cruelest reality was that Vought and the Seven weren't just violating the commandments, they were treating them like a bucket list. The hedonistic, drug fueled depravity that occurred 24/7 behind the soundproof glass of the Tower made Sodom and Gomorrah look like a quiet afternoon at a library. 

In just six weeks, Annie had seen enough moral bankruptcy to realize that while they were preaching the Kingdom of Heaven, they were living in a high rise version of hell.

As the final notes of her speech echoed through the open field, Annie’s smile was beginning to slip, the structural integrity of her professional mask finally failing. She gave one last, robotic wave to the crowd, who had just happily swallowed every drop of her corporate Kool-Aid, and retreated into the shadows of the wings.

Ezekiel brushed past her on his way back to the mic, giving her arm a greasy, congratulatory pat. 

Backstage, Donna was already in her orbit, her face a mask of secondhand pride as she prepared to recount every inspiring syllable from that speech.

“You were incredible, honey! Truly, the Lord—”

“I need a minute,” Annie cut her off, her voice flat and devoid of any reverence. She didn't stop to celebrate. She just stalked toward her dressing room, her skin crawling with the realization that she’d just become the most beautiful, blonde, and effective weapon in Vought’s psychological arsenal. Whoever had written that script deserved an Emmy, and probably a reserved seat in the afterlife's VIP lounge for the damned.

——

The venue was halfway to total darkness, illuminated mostly by a heavy wash of moonlight over the open field and the massive, overpriced tents that Vought had hauled in for the expo. New York was almost done, one more day of soul-saving tomorrow, and then the whole circus would pack up at midnight to indoctrinate the next town on the map.

Way out on the edge of the grass, the fleet of Prevost buses sat like a row of giant, silver coffins. Most were stuffed with the usual Vought grunts: techs, assistants, and people whose entire job was making sure the stage didn't collapse under the weight of the collective ego. 

The two fanciest rigs in the lot, parked in the furthest corner to avoid the commoners, belonged to Homelander and Starlight. They were the headliners, after all, and the headliners didn't share air with the help.

The interiors of their buses were basically luxury studio apartments that had been put through a trash compactor. They had every splendor imaginable, yet they felt suffocatingly small compared to the wide open halls of the Tower, or even the terrifyingly empty view from orbit.

The expo had wrapped for the day about an hour ago. Annie had already scrubbed off the layers of HD makeup and changed into her real person clothes, a pair of faded blue jeans and a thick, multicolored pullover that looked like it had been knitted by someone who actually liked her, aka her mom. It wasn’t exactly freezing, but the trees surrounding the field let out a natural, damp chill at night that made her want to disappear into the wool.

She was currently half melted into her vanity chair, legs hiked up with her heels resting on the vanity counter. Her thumbs were busy as she texted Alex, better known to the world as Supersonic, the boyfriend she currently only knew as a series of blue bubbles on a screen.

Ever since she'd joined the Seven six weeks ago, her personal life had been stripped down to a digital-only experience. 

Her mom and Alex had been demoted from actual humans to names on a notification bar. Half the time she missed their calls anyway, usually because she was buried in vocal rehearsals for the praise and worship setlist she had to belt out. The last month had been a fun house mirror of grueling practices, diets that made her dream of carbs, and a relentless string of photoshoots to sell the New Girl image to people who thought she was a saint.

It was genuinely unsettling how little the gears of the Vought machine grinded when a high level executive tried to commit suicide. Madelyn Stillwell had famously painted her office wall with her own brains exactly one month ago, and yet every corporate gala, training seminar, and focus group ran with a nauseating smoothness. It was as if she’d simply gone on a very long, very messy sabbatical.

Against all biological logic, Madelyn was technically still breathing. She was suspended in a medically induced coma, a fragile state where one day the monitors showed a spark of recovery and the next she was circling the drain again. 

Annie had made it a point to keep a quiet, diligent tab on the medical updates this past month—not for any political gain, but out of a sincere, dorky brand of empathy. She was just that person. She cared about the woman’s recovery even though they hadn’t shared more than a handful of professional seconds together since her induction into the Seven.

But the real fallout wasn’t in the boardroom of Stan Edgar. The actual, most jarring shift of the past few weeks was the total psychological decomposition of Homelander.

Before the Madelyn Incident, he was your garden variety narcissistic nightmare, a jerk who operated with a terrifying, practiced composure. He bullied and threatened people with a trademark, eerie calm that made you feel like you were standing in a room with a ticking bomb that happened to have a great smile. He’d gawk at women with that heavy, predatory lust, but he usually kept the safety on.

Since Madelyn pulled the trigger, however, the safety was gone. 

Homelander hadn't just changed, he’d started to frazzle, snapping at anyone foolish enough to breathe in his general vicinity.

The gossip mill backstage was a horror show. Annie’s makeup artist had whispered about "accidents" involving the crew, technicians and PAs ending up in the ER after a brief interaction with the blonde bastard. Nobody outside those walls knew the details, and anyone who did know, wouldn't talk about it. 

Annie was entirely certain these weren't accidents. This was Homelander losing his grip, lashing out in unpredictable fits of erratic rage. She’d personally witnessed him cornering a chef in the Tower’s dining hall. Apparently, the man’s risotto didn't taste right because Vought had cleaned house and fired the previous chef; a woman Madelyn had personally hand-picked to curate her private meals.

The replacement of anything Madelyn had touched clearly felt like a personal insult to Homelander’s fragile reality. He hadn't murdered the guy on the spot, but only because the rest of the Seven were sitting right there. Even in his current state of mental collapse, he was self-aware enough to know that disemboweling a cook in front of witnesses wouldn't exactly scream "stable leader of the free world."

It didn’t take a forensic psychologist to connect the obvious dots: the sudden spike in Homelander’s accidental body count was directly proportional to the void Madelyn Stillwell had left behind. He wasn't just grieving, he was like a toddler having a tantrum with the power of a solar flare because his favorite toy had broken itself.

Annie had managed to extract some of the messier history from Maeve during late night hangouts that Annie had essentially forced her way into. She’d made a habit of invading Maeve’s personal space with a persistence that eventually wore down the veteran’s cynical resistance. 

Once Maeve realized the kid wasn't going away, she started spilling the tea out of sheer boredom, and it was toxic.

Apparently, Homelander and Stillwell were locked in some deeply Freud-tier situationship that defied both logic and basic human decency. Maeve whispered that shortly before the shooting, Homelander had been spiraling with jealousy over Madelyn’s baby. Yes, a 38-year-old man was emotionally threatened by a creature that couldn't yet control its own bladder. It would have been pathetic and hilarious if it weren't so terrifying.

Annie had adopted a survival through distance policy, keeping her interactions to the absolute legal minimum required by their joint speech and workshop rehearsals. On the rare occasions their orbits collided, she kept things surgically polite with Homelander; brief, professional, and entirely forgettable.

Not that he noticed. Most of the time, he was lost in a fog of his own sulking, barely acknowledging that other sentient beings occupied the same zip code. He spent his days barking orders at the Vought staff and foulmouthing the help with a vocabulary that would make a sailor blush, usually over things as trivial as the temperature of his bottled water. Everything irritated him. The air was too scented, the lights were too bright, the people too loud, and the world was stubbornly refusing to revolve around his specific brand of misery.

The most horrifying part of this psychological collapse was the visual. He’d deliver these dangerous, venomous tirades while wearing a practiced, eerie grin. It was a mask pinned to his face, a baring of teeth that never quite made the journey up to his cold, unblinking blue eyes.

The icing on this cake of delusion was Homelander’s refusal to accept reality. Despite Vought releasing a very clear, very public statement about Stillwell’s suicide attempt and subsequent medical status, Homelander was ready to die on the hill that she’d been targeted. In his head, Madelyn didn't want to leave him; she was a victim of an assassination plot. The idea that she’d rather have a bullet in her brain than another conversation with him was the only fake news he wouldn't tolerate.

The forensic reports had been the final, cold bucket of water to the face. Every powder burn and trajectory confirmed it was a solo act. It had finally managed to shut Homelander’s mouth, but it hadn't fixed his head. He’d replaced the loud conspiracy theories for a heavy, atmospheric brooding that made the air in the Tower feel radioactive. That was only last week, and the stench of his ego-bruised mourning was still fresh.

Now, with the tour kicking off today and Homelander acting like a live wire in a hurricane, Annie’s pulse had become a frantic, glitching machine. Every time he’d entered her peripheral vision, her heart rate did a jittery dance that no amount of deep breathing could settle.

The day itself had been a masterpiece of disillusionment. Standing on that stage, Annie had been hit with the recurring, nauseating realization that her entire upbringing, the Sunday school lessons, the virtuous heroes, the very "God" she was currently marketing, was just an elaborate, fancy pyramid scheme. It was a beautiful, sanctified scam designed to reach into the pockets of the faithful and shake out every last cent.

The looping realization had scrambled Annie’s sanity by the end of the day. She let out a sharp, cynical scoff as she scrolled through Alex’s latest text, the blue light of the screen reflecting the exhaustion in her eyes.

“You should get some sleep yk. Must be a long day,” he wrote.

Annie’s breath hitched in a sigh, a genuine, tired smile finally tugging at the corners of her mouth. She didn't want to sever the connection. She didn't want the digital tether to the real world to snap for the night. But he was right. She was drained, mostly in the spots where her soul used to be, and a few hours of unconsciousness, or at least a half-hearted attempt at memorizing tomorrow's lies, was long overdue.

Her thumbs flew across the screen, her muscle memory taking over.

“Yeah. I should. Talk to you tomorrow? :* ”

The reply was almost instant, glowing with an earnestness that felt like it belonged to a different planet at this point. “Yes! Goodnight 😘 Love you.”

Annie chuckled, her smile softening into something that almost resembled peace. She missed him with a physical ache. He was the only safe space left in a world that felt increasingly like a predatory stakeout. 

It killed her that she couldn't actually be honest with Alex. She could rant about Ashley’s screeching or the petty office politics, but she couldn't tell him the truth: that Vought was less of a company and more of a villainous hoard, and that the man she shared a stage with was a hair-trigger away from a psychotic break.

She tapped out a quick “Love you too ❤️” and hit send, finally prying her phone away and swinging her legs off the vanity counter with a heavy, ungraceful thud.

Annie snatched the stack of scripts from the side table, along with a supplementary list of "dos and don’ts" for the roundtable session with a group of teenage girls scheduled for tomorrow. She slapped the papers onto the marble counter and leaned forward, propping her elbows up as she skimmed the dialogue. Every other sentence was a verbal landmine that made her cringe, the words stinging what remained of her stale, dying faith.

She had actually visited a church last week, attempting a final, desperate sit-down with the silent God she used to worship. 

She had laid out her entire case, confessing everything that had transpired since her first day at the Tower. She didn't deny her own history; she knew she’d been a competitive brat during her pageant days. But the things the Moronic Trio had put her through, the sheer systemic rot she was now swimming in—that felt like it was on God. It was as if Jesus was personally presiding over her punishment, and that was the part that truly terrified her. She had repented for her past, but if a supposedly loving Almighty allowed all this to happen, wouldn't that make him a tad bit sadist?

After that prayer session, Annie had unclipped the cross locket from her neck, one of the dozen identical trinkets Donna had forced on her over the years. Her belief in the institution had shaken until it simply fell apart, though she still tried to convince herself that she was a hero. She still wanted to believe in the good, in willing the right thing into existence, even if the heavens were empty.

Her internal debate hit a brick wall when her eyes snagged on a specific bullet point in the "don’ts" section of the document. It was a list of topics to avoid with the teenagers tomorrow, the first of which was a strict gag order on her personal life. 

The script demanded that she pretend she was a virgin, "saving herself" for a holy marriage, and that Supersonic was fully on board with their chaste, platonic romance.

A sharp, furious frown pulled at Annie’s forehead as she glared at the page. 

"What the fuck…?" she huffed softly, the sheer audacity of the lie making her blood boil.

Absolutely not. She wasn't doing that.

Annie snapped upright, the chair scraping against the floor. She grabbed a hairband from the counter and yanked her hair back into a low, utilitarian ponytail. She was going to have a very loud discussion with Ashley about this.

Ashley was famously awake 24 hours a day, fueled by anxiety, Redbull, and caffeine, and she had explicitly told Annie that she was available at any hour. And frankly, Annie didn't give a damn if the woman had been lying to be polite.

Annie glanced down at her sneakers. They were clean enough for a late night corporate ambush. With a sharp, practiced shrug, she stalked toward the exit. 

The bus door let out a pressurized hiss as it slid open, venting the climate-controlled air into the damp New York night.

The staging area wasn't exactly sleeping. Scattered crew members were still drifting through the shadows, some hauling equipment crates while others huddled in the dim pockets of the field to smoke weed and forget they worked for a pharmaceutical conglomerate. 

Annie approached a pair of roadies who were currently deep in a stoner debate about the meaning of life. She cut them off mid-sentence to ask if anyone had seen Ashley Barrett. They jerked their thumbs toward Homelander’s silver fortress, mentioning she’d been seen heading inside a while ago to cross-check some discussion points.

So Annie decided she would just lurk at the perimeter of Homelander’s trailer. She’d wait for Ashley to emerge and then tear into her about this virginal Christian propaganda. What she failed to calculate, however, was the shelf life of that information; she had no idea exactly how long ago those guys had actually seen the Director of Talent Relations enter the lion's den.

The moment Annie crossed the ten-foot threshold of the vehicle’s proximity, the pneumatic door of his bus slammed open with a violent crack. Two medics scrambled out, maneuvers frantic as they guided a stretcher down the ramp. 

Annie froze immediately.  

A white sheet was draped over the body, but a dark, heavy pool of crimson was already soaking through the fabric where a face was supposed to be.

Her eyes went wide, her protective instincts overriding her common sense as she rushed toward the gurney. “Oh my God—what happened?” Annie demanded, the genuine horror in her voice cutting through the quiet.

One of the medics offered a casual, dismissive shrug, not even breaking his stride. “Just an accident. Don't worry about it,” he tossed over his shoulder. 

They brushed past her with a clinical indifference, as if they were used to hauling away the remains of Homelander’s bad moods.

Annie blinked, rooted to the grass as the wheels of the stretcher rattled away. “Wait, is he even alive?” she called out, but they were already too far gone to offer an answer.

A third member of the medical team appeared in the open doorway, adjusting his gloves. “Oh, hey, Starlight!” he chirped, offering a friendly, surreal wave as if they weren't standing in the wake of a localized massacre.

Annie stared at the man in the medic uniform, her expression going flat. 

“Hey,” she managed. Before she could demand an explanation or ask if Ashley was in there, a voice drifted out from the bowels of the bus. It was low, resonant, and carried that familiar, terrifying weight.

“Is that Starlight outside? Send her in.”

The words hit Annie like a physical blow, a sudden, cold sense of doom creeping up her spine and settling at the base of her skull. 

The medic at the door dutifully relayed the command, gesturing for her to enter with a comfortable, "go right ahead" wave as he stepped out to clear the path. He clutched his medical kit and vanished into the night, leaving Annie alone at the foot of the stairs.

Annie hesitated for a moment, her sneakers suddenly feeling heavy as her brain screamed for her to turn around and run into the woods. But in Vought’s kingdom, a polite invitation from Homelander was a subpoena. 

She groaned internally before the resignation finally settled, and she forced herself up the small steps, her pulse hammering against her chest like a trapped bird.

"Close the door," Homelander hollered from inside the cabin the moment she crossed the threshold.

Annie froze for a heartbeat, her hand hovering over the handle before she nodded to the empty air and clicked the door shut. The silence that followed was heavy and pressurized. She turned toward the source of the voice, her eyes searching the faintly lit interior until they landed on him. 

The man was sprawled across a luscious leather couch tucked into a corner beside a sprawling vanity. The entire wall behind him was a sheet of seamless mirrors.

The sight was enough to make her stomach lurch. 

His face, those perfectly curated blonde streaks in his hair, and the span of his chest were painted in thick, dark crimson. Some of it was already drying into a tacky crust. In the mirrors behind him, infinite versions of a blood-soaked Homelander stared back at her, speckled with what Annie realized with a jolt of nausea was gray brain matter.

Annie swallowed hard, her throat suddenly feeling like she’d been eating rocks. Her breath caught, stuttering in her chest as she ignored every survival instinct she possessed and moved closer. She stopped a few feet away, her arms wrapping tightly over her stomach as if to hold her organs in place while her wide eyes swept over the gore in sheer, undiluted horror.

“What... what happened?” she managed to ask. It wasn't an accusation, she wasn't that suicidal yet, it was just a desperate curiosity.

Homelander’s head had been tilted away, lost in a lazy, depressive trance as he presumably relived his favorite traumas on a loop in his head. He only blinked when the sound of her voice finally pierced his trance. 

A long, bored exhale rolled off his lips as he slowly rotated his head to acknowledge her presence.

He didn't speak immediately. Instead, he subjected her to a slow, methodical once-over. His eyes traveled from her sneakers up to her ponytail and back down again, assessing her value, judging her outfit, and likely sexualizing the fear on her face. It was a standard power play, made infinitely more deranged by the fact that he was currently marinating in a fresh coat of maroon.

A wide, theatrical grin split across his face the moment he was satisfied with his silent inspection. 

“Starlight!” he announced, his voice dripping with a forced warmth, as if she was a refreshing sight for his bored, bloodshot eyes. 

He shifted from his lethargic sprawl, sitting upright with one leg hooked casually over his other knee. He draped his arms along the backrest of the couch, leaning into the expensive leather as the grin remained plastered to his face, stubborn and stationary, never once migrating toward his frigid blue eyes.

“Come, sit down,” he prompted, giving a sharp, inviting jerk of his chin toward the cushion beside him.

Annie’s eyebrows climbed toward her hairline, her entire posture radiating a profound hesitation. 

Despite every internal alarm bell ringing in unison, she moved. No one with a functioning survival instinct said no to a man who looked like the devil had just finished a particularly messy shift in a slaughterhouse. And the worst part was that Ashley wasn’t even in here.

She settled onto the edge of the couch at a respectable distance, her palms resting flat against her thighs. She was already deeply regretting the decision to leave her bus without a jacket. The body-hugging weave of her pullover offered zero protection against the predatory weight of his gaze. She fought to keep her breathing rhythmic, acutely aware that he was tracking the rise and fall of her chest. 

Eventually, Annie forced herself to meet his stare, the horrified concern still carved into her features. “So—what exactly happened here? Is he alright?” 

“Oh,” Homelander said, his tone as light as if they were discussing the expo schedule. “Nothing. Just an incompetent fuck who had a little accident. Tripped, fell on his head on the floor, and it just... cracked right open.” He offered the explanation with a breezy, sudden charm that was far more unsettling than the gore itself. He even gave a dismissive wave of a blood-crusted gloved hand. “Really. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little head about.”

Annie nodded slowly, her mind racing. “Right. And how'd you get the blood all over your face? Are you injured?” she probed. She carefully wrapped her dangerous curiosity in a layer of sincere, doting concern for her captain, playing the part of the dutiful subordinate to the letter.

Homelander let out a sharp bark of a laugh, sputtering with genuine amusement. 

“No. No. I’m fine. Come on, Starlight, you know better than that. I couldn't be injured if I tried, right?” He seemed utterly charmed by the idea that she thought he was bleedable. “He just exploded right in front of me, you know. Very, very close to my face.”

“Mmm,” Annie hummed, her lips pursing into a thin, tight line. She crossed her arms again, her spine straightening in a display of mock thoughtfulness that remained perfectly polite on the surface. “So, you were lying on the floor?” she asked, her face a mask of innocent curiosity that expertly veiled the biting sarcasm underneath.

Homelander blinked, his brain momentarily lagging behind. “What?”

“Well, you said he tripped and fell on the floor, and then you said he exploded right in your face. So, logically, you were down there on the carpet with him?” Annie elaborated, her voice a pitch perfect melody of innocent curiosity.

The smugness on his face soured the second he heard his own lie played back to him. It sounded pathetic when spoken aloud, a clumsy bit of fiction that wouldn't fool a child. But he wasn't about to dignify her observation with an actual defense. Instead, he opted for a small, indifferent shrug, leaning into the laziness of his own cover story. 

“Sure.” He said, “I carried the guy to the stretcher. Hence, all this.” He gestured to the gore decorating his suit with a synonymous flick of his wrist.

Annie felt a dry chuckle bubble up at the sheer irony of the moment. It was a beautiful, dark little dance they were doing. They both knew he was lying, and he was perfectly aware that she wasn't buying a word of it, yet he remained smug enough to lie through his teeth anyway. He had clearly liquidated that guy for some petty whim and didn't even have the decency to craft a believable alibi.

“What? You don't believe me?” He laughed, as if she were being utterly hilarious for even suggesting he might be capable of something untoward. He fanned his hand dismissively, smacking his lips. “You know what, never mind. Forget it. Let's talk about you. What exactly brings you to my door at this hour?”

He leaned forward, the sudden shift in his posture suggesting he was now intensely fascinated by her presence.

Annie raised a brow, a small, involuntary smirk pulling at her lips. “You told the medic to send me in?” she reminded him, her voice trailing off into a soft chuckle. She was trying her best to suppress the mean girl energy rising in her chest; she really wasn't in the mood to be murdered tonight.

Homelander’s forehead creased in a mock frown. 

“Did I?” He let out a sharp dismissive scoff, his eyes raking over her casual attire again, already changing the topic on whims. “So, is this like your… secret identity? Your undercover look?” He flicked his chin toward her clothes.

“I’m not sure it qualifies as much of a secret around here, but sure, let's go with that.” Annie gave a small, weary shrug. 

She found a bitter kind of humor in his complete lack of self awareness, a hard pill to swallow considering she had spent her entire childhood worshipping the ground this man flew over.

Homelander smirked, apparently finding her dry tone endearing for once. “Well, you don't look bad. Not good, mind you.” He lifted a bloodied finger to emphasize the distinction. “But definitely not bad.”

Annie racked her brain for a moment, trying to remember the exact second she had requested his fashion critique. Since she couldn't find it, she simply offered him a cryptic, tight lipped smile and kept her mouth shut.

Homelander drew in a long, rattling breath, as if physically trying to vent the static electricity from his nerves. The silence was punctuated by the sharp, electronic buzz of a notification on the vanity counter. He leaned his entire torso to the side, snatching the device and bringing it level with his eyes.

Annie noticed the actual state of his gloves then. There was a fresh, darker sludge layered over the crimson material, a textured viscera that made her pulse spike into a frantic rhythm once again. She watched his face, tracking the transformation as he digested the text on the screen. 

His expression shifted in visible stages: the boredom vanished, replaced by a sharp focus that quickly curdled into a scowl. His jaw tightened by degrees until the bone looked ready to snap, his eyelids blinking in a rapid, glitchy staccato.

“Total renal failure (left) approx. 7 minutes ago. A committee has been established to explore options including dialysis.” The text said, coming from floor 10 where Madelyn was undergoing treatment. 

Homelander's eyes drifted into the middle distance for a long, heavy second. He lowered his hand slowly, the phone still clutched in his grip, but he remained silent. He sat there grimacing at the empty air, appearing lost in a dark internal commentary as he processed the latest insult to his reality.

“Everything alright?” Annie probed, her voice a fragile balance of genuine curiosity and extreme caution.

“Yeah,” he answered almost instantly, punctuated by a sharp, shaky inhale. He turned his head to look at her again, but the mask was different now. He looked grimmer, more bereft, his lips pulled into a visible, petulant pout that made him look like a grieving child in the body of a god.

Then, without a word of warning, he surged up from his spot. He closed the distance in two predatory steps and dropped onto the cushion directly beside Annie, aggressively invading her personal space. His blood-stained chest brushed against her arm as he draped his limb over the backrest behind her, effectively pinning her into the corner of the couch.

Annie’s entire form went rigid, her arms locking even tighter over her stomach as she fought the urge to bolt. She instinctively started to lean away before her survival instincts forced her to compose herself. 

She tilted her head to look at him sideways, finding him looming over her, suddenly radiating an intense, suffocating interest in her very existence.

He flashed her a wide, humorless grin. It was eerie, unsettling in ways Annie couldn't explain. “You still have that guy back in Des Moines, right? Does he love you? I mean, really love you?” he asked, a curious frown creasing his brows as if he’d suddenly decided to audition for the role of a vulnerable confidant.

Annie’s eyebrow shot up in a reflex she couldn't suppress. She opened her mouth, but the gears of her brain were grinding against each other, making the words come out a beat too late. 

“Uh, yeah. Yes, he does,” she managed, giving him a curt, stiff nod. She was hyper alert now, her heart hammering so loudly against her ribs she was certain his super hearing was picking it up like a bass drum.

“Good.” Homelander nodded, the sickly sweet scent of his expensive cologne mixing with the metallic stench of drying blood. It wafted off him in thick, invisible waves. “And what about you? Do you love him?”

Annie fought the physical urge to wrinkle her nose at the stench. She nodded again, her chin moving in a sharp, defensive jerk. “Yep.”

“Hmm,” Homelander hummed, a mischievous giggle seemingly buried just beneath the surface of his tone. He didn't blink once, his unmoving stare reading her like a forensic report. “Right.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “So, tell me. Would you like to fuck someone else when he isn't watching?”

Annie’s face crumpled into an instant frown, and she flinched away from him, her body acting on pure instinct. “No! Absolutely not!” she snapped, genuinely horrified by the lurid, casual suggestion.

Homelander’s smirk widened, clearly entertained by the spark of life he’d managed to provoke. “Relax,” he drawled, rolling his eyes as if she were being dramatic. “I am just trying to get a handle on what kind of girl you really are.” He teased her with a playful, heavy handed nudge of his arm against her back. “Why didn't you tell me you were such a big fan?”

The contact was the breaking point. Annie’s spine straightened as if she’d been electrocuted, and she bolted to her feet in an instant. 

“Okay, I'm not going to sit here and indulge whatever weird mood you are in tonight,” she said, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and triggered PTSD. She gestured wildly at the blood spattered room, her eyes wide. “If you are thinking about pulling some kind of evil shit like the others did, I’m not just going to—”

“Starlight,” Homelander interrupted, his voice dropping into a smooth, parental drawl. He spoke as if he were affectionately scolding a toddler for using a swear word. “Sticks and stones won't break my bones, but words….” He placed a bloodied hand over his heart, clutching his imaginary pearls, looking at her with mock hurt as if his feelings were on the verge of shattering.

The subtext wasn't really subtle, it was a neon sign. He was telling her that she needed to choose her next few sentences with extreme care, or the conversation was going to stop being verbal and start being physical.

Annie stood there with her mouth slightly parted, the momentum of her defiance dying in her throat. His sudden pivot into that faux fatherly tone wasn't just eerie, it was a psychological anchor she couldn't quite shake. She blinked at him, feeling stupid and small as her tense shoulders finally began to sag under the weight of his gaze.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her hands coming up in a small, reflexive gesture of surrender. “I didn't mean to—”

“You know, I had a very loooong chat with Donna at the expo today,” he said, cutting off her apology with a casual indifference. “It prompted me to do a little bit of digging into your personal records. And I found it a bit surprising how you used to refuse to sleep without a Homelander plushie. How you’d dress as me instead of yourself at VoughtCons. But now…” He trailed off, giving her a slow, theatrical once-over that practically dripped with his feigned disappointment.

He rose to his full, imposing height with a predatory grace, his shadow stretching out to swallow her whole. His eyes never left her face as he closed the distance, leaning deep into her personal space until his blood spattered jaw was brushing against her ear. 

“Now you suddenly seem like you are afraid of me,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a low, intimate vibration that made the hair on Annie's arms stand up. “Are you afraid of me, Starlight?”

Annie remained frozen in place, her brain rapidly calculating if moving even an inch would be a terminal mistake. It was official; Donna had absolutely no concept of boundaries when it came to oversharing the embarrassing details of Annie’s life with literally anyone who would listen. Well, not just anyone. Homelander.

She found herself utterly paralyzed, her vocabulary deserting her as she struggled to keep from visible shuddering. She didn't have the heart to dignify his question by admitting the truth, nor did she have the suicidal courage to lie and say no. She just stood there, her heart hammering wildly against her chest while she forced her breathing to remain slow and agonizingly careful.

For a long, suffocating moment, Homelander just watched her, savoring the silence as he waited for an answer that wasn't coming. He was positioned so close to her head that some of the tacky, fresh blood on his jaw began to transfer onto her hair and the shell of her ear. He was absolutely loving the sensation, listening to her heart thump like a terrified rabbit under the sheer weight of his psychological thumb.

As Annie’s chest began to heave with the rhythmic, visible stutter of a full blown panic attack, Homelander finally released a soft, airy chuckle. The sound was almost musical, a sharp contrast to the suffocating dread filling the cabin.

He retracted just enough to give her room to breathe, though the air remained heavy with the scent of his morbid hobbies. He brought his phone up, his gloved thumb dancing across the screen as he navigated through a series of encrypted files. After a few seconds of silent scrolling, he found his prize. He paused the playback and shoved the device into Annie’s hand with a casual, almost brotherly smirk.

“Enjoy,” he said, punctuating the offer with a wink that made her skin crawl. He prompted her to press play with a sharp flick of his chin before locking his hands behind his back. 

Then, he began a leisurely, rhythmic pace across the small span of the bus, back and forth like a bored predator waiting for the trap to spring.

Annie remained rooted to the spot, her muscles locked in a permanent flinch as he moved away. She tracked his silhouette cautiously, her eyes darting between the man and the screen in her hand. Only when the floorboards stopped creaking under his weight did she finally look down at the device and press the play icon.

The footage flickered to life, revealing the interior of a talent trailer. A pair of young women, undeniably attractive and radiating a hungry kind of ambition, shuffled into the frame. They were followed closely by Alex. He turned to click the lock on the door, and the girls began giggling, shedding their clothes with a comfortable ease that suggested this wasn't their first audition. Alex didn't hesitate; he closed the distance instantly. 

What followed was a pornographic, steamy foreplay that rapidly devolved into a frantic, high definition threesome. It was a portrait of a man living his absolute best life the moment his girlfriend was out of the state.

The transformation on Annie’s face was a grotesque mirror of Homelander’s earlier reaction to the Madelyn update. It moved in painfully visible stages: from cautious confusion to a sharp, agonizing focus. Her jaw tightened until the tendons in her neck stood out like wires, and her eyes began to glaze over with a sudden, hot swell of tears. An instinctive hand flew to her mouth, her fingers digging into her cheeks in a futile attempt to hold back the sound of her own heart breaking.

She couldn't reconcile the images on the screen with the man she thought she knew. This wasn't just cheating; it was a depraved, primal kind of performance. The passion was so raw, so wild, that it forced a toxic set of questions into her mind. Had she been the dead weight dragging him down? Was she too boring in bed? Too repressed? Not pretty enough to keep his attention for more than forty days?

The tears finally spilled over, carving hot tracks through her skin despite her desperate efforts to remain stoic. 

About half an hour ago, she had been exchanging "I love you" texts with a ghost. She had only been away for six weeks, and he was already juggling between options, not even bothering to limit his betrayal to a single woman. The timeline was undeniable, Alex was wearing the newly rebranded Supersonic suit, a costume he’d only owned for a few months before Annie had left. This wasn't a mistake from the past, it was recent.

At one point in the footage, the carnal dance paused just long enough for Alex to produce a small, translucent sachet of cocaine, which he began to distribute among the girls in neat lines, like a seasoned degenerate.

Annie’s lips trembled, her teeth grinding together in a desperate, white-knuckled attempt to tether her soul. She refused to grant Homelander the perverse satisfaction of watching her heart disintegrate in real time. Her thumb blurred across the screen, dragging the seeker bar forward in a frantic search for an ending that wasn't a nightmare.

From that point on, the video spiraled into a visceral descent. A chemically stimulated Alex was now tearing through the women with a predatory, coke fueled ferocity. The man had become so aggressively overstimulated, his physical restraint so thoroughly eroded by the powder, that he ended up snapping the spine of one of the girls mid-act. The transition from ecstasy to a localized massacre was instantaneous, the screen erupting into a frantic, blurred panic.

Annie let out a sharp, audible gasp, her wide eyes darting toward Homelander, who was still engaged in his leisurely patrol of the cabin, his face a grotesque mask of dried blood and fresh arrogance. 

He looked relaxed, almost serene, his smirk deepening as he inhaled the scent of her unfolding horror.

And as if the biological betrayal weren't enough, the footage took a turn into the truly macabre. When the second girl began to shriek in a blind terror, Alex lunged to subdue her; a clumsy, desperate tackle meant to silence the noise. Instead, he ended up snapping her neck with a sickening, audible crunch. The video lingered on the aftermath: a naked, trembling "hero" standing over a bed turned into a makeshift morgue.

Annie’s throat constricted, the air in the bus suddenly feeling like it was made of broken glass. She staggered back, her grip failing so completely the phone was barely hanging on. Tears now poured unabashedly down her cheeks as she struggled to process the double layered agony. She couldn't even distinguish which wound was deeper—the visceral sting of his infidelity or the soul crushing realization that the man she loved was a murderer.

Her shoulder blades struck the wall behind her with a dull thud. Gasping for air that wouldn't come, she blindly tossed the device onto the leather cushions of the couch, desperate to put as much distance as possible between herself and that digital poison.

Homelander didn’t offer her the mercy of a single, silent minute to mourn. Now that the cinematic trauma was over, his predatory pacing decelerated into a satisfied saunter. 

He flashed a wide, porcelain grin, emphasizing his point with a single finger as if he were about to deliver a particularly enlightening lecture on corporate ethics.

"You know what the best part about that little tragedy is?" he asked, his voice a smooth, terrifying purr. 

He glided past her, the smell of clotting blood trailing in his wake, and settled back into the cushions with a sigh of genuine contentment, as if he’d just finished a very productive day at the office.

Annie watched him with a hollow silence, the tears tracing hot, shameful tracks on her cheeks. The caution she had been clinging to earlier had been scorched away, replaced by a tectonic heartbreak she hadn't known her soul was capable of housing. She didn't interrupt him; she simply stood there, her weeping eyes locked onto him as he made himself comfortable in the center of her collapsing universe.

"Both of the girls in that video are underage," Homelander added then, casually lobbing another psychological grenade into the wreckage. "Technically, that’s... statutory rape, right?" He tilted his head to the side, his features twisting into a mask of feigned, innocent curiosity, as if he were genuinely seeking her expert legal opinion on the matter.

Annie let out a sharp, ragged huff of air. "That's not true," she retorted instantly, her voice cracking but fueled by a desperate, dying instinct to protect the version of Alex she once loved. "I mean, fine, he’s a cheating prick, he’s human. But he wouldn't touch a minor. Now you’re just fucking with me because you can."

Homelander barked a sudden, sharp laugh, appearing genuinely delighted by her attempt at an objection. He let out a deep, patronizing breath, his eyes lazily surveying the luxury of the bus before snapping back to her with a predatory glint.

A few seconds of agonizing, heavy silence stretched between them, made ten times worse simply by his smug, unblinking smirk, before he finally deigned to speak again. "Do you really believe that, Starlight? Truly?"

Annie blinked, her frown deepening into a mask of uncertain suspicion. "Okay. Fine. Let’s pretend you’re telling the truth for a second. But why now?" She gave a manic, helpless shrug, her curiosity beginning to bleed through the seams of her grief. "What was that text you just got? What is actually happening here? And how exactly do you claim Alex—of all people—just casually agreed to sleep with children?"

The questions came tumbling out in a single, breathless barrage. She was seething, her skin crawling with a toxic mixture of anger and disappointment, but she was also acutely aware that she was dancing on the edge of a blade. She would rather fight a losing battle for the truth than succumb to being the next broken thing on his floor.

Homelander didn’t offer the grace of an immediate reply, of course. He simply marveled at her, allowing a condescending silence to fill the bus. He waited until he could practically taste the vibration of her seething before he finally broke the quiet with a casual, conversational cadence.

“The girls were fans. Groupies,” he said, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “They snuck backstage, did a little flirting, and managed to give poor Supersonic enough of a case of blue balls that he personally invited them back to his trailer. He did ask their age, by the way—” He pointed a stained, gloved finger at her, his expression turning hilariously serious. “But the girls lied. And your boyfriend?” His grin widened into a cavernous, dark thing. “Well, he didn't exactly insist on seeing an ID. I believe you’ve already seen the director’s cut of what happened next.”

He punctuated the revelation with a playful wink.

Annie’s face twisted into a mask of pure horror. The disappointment was a physical weight, crushing the air out of her lungs as she averted her eyes from his terrifyingly blue stare. She shook her head in a bitter, rhythmic denial, her lips trembling too violently to form a single coherent word. The sheer volume of the betrayal was a tidal wave, leaving her drowning in her own head.

“Now, to address your other burning curiosity,” he continued, leaning forward until his elbows rested on his knees. His gaze sharpened, turning into something piercing and clinical. “Why now?” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, his shoulders rolling upward in a slow, theatrical shrug that was the pinnacle of condescension at this point. 

“See, Starlight, I think you and I were long overdue for a little heart-to-heart.” He said with a slow, coercive nod. “You think the Seven are bad people. Awful, even. You sit there thinking you’re this righteous little golden bitch who has done right by every soul she’s ever met. Don’t you?” He let out a sharp, bitter scoff, his eyes rolling with a profound, bone-deep disdain. He stabbed an accusing finger in her direction. “Look at yourself—you sanctimonious whore. Didn't someone leave a comment on that little video of yours? That you were a total cunt to everyone? You basically passively murdered your own father.” 

He laughed then, a loud, booming sound that held zero humor, only a freezing, toxic contempt. “And now your boyfriend is a triple-threat. A proven criminal for double homicide and statutory rape. But—no, oh no, he isn’t in a cell.” He gave her another patronizing little wink, leaning further forward. “Because Vought has his back. They buried the bodies. They scrubbed the carpet. And the absolute cherry on top? This didn’t happen tonight. It happened three months ago. Right around the time you were auditioning for the big leagues.”

He nodded to virtually underline his point, his tone turning grimly sincere, because he simply had no business lying to her. “So yes—I really do believe we were overdue for this talk. Get it? You’re not above us, young lady. You’re just another part of this landfill.”

Annie didn't even have the energy left to shake her head. Her face remained frozen in a grotesque expression of localized horror, her brain struggling to archive the sheer volume of trauma Homelander had just dumped into her lap.

Suddenly, the most terrifying part wasn't the blood on his face or the corpses on the screen anymore—it was the fact that he was right. This was the actual architecture of the world she lived in. It wasn't that Sunday school version where the bad guys wore black and the good guys got the girl; it was a sewer where everyone was drowning in the same moral sludge. 

This was Homelander’s twisted version of a welcome orientation, a little ice breaker meant to snap her spirit like a dry twig. He was feasting on her disintegration, savoring every sob like vintage wine.

Annie eventually lost the war with her own tear ducts. Her lips quivered with a rhythmic, pathetic motion that made speech an impossible feat. Realizing she was one moment away from a total physical collapse, she didn't bother with a rebuttal anymore. She simply swiped the salt and grief from her cheeks with the back of her palms, let out a single, wet sniff, and turned toward the exit without another syllable.

Homelander watched her retreat, his smirk widening until it threatened to split his gore-stained face. 

“I’ll airdrop that video to you!” he hollered after her, his voice dripping with a playful, saccharine affection that made her stomach turn. “In case you want to study the technique!”

The pneumatic door of the bus hissed open, and Annie stepped out into the night, slamming the metal shut behind her with every ounce of strength she had left. She didn't look back. She didn't acknowledge the final, mocking jab. What was she supposed to do? Send a thank you note for the front row seat to her own emotional demolition?

Her chest ached with a profound, suffocating weight that made every breath feel like a chore. She felt genuinely nauseous, the metallic scent of the trailer still clinging to the back of her throat. She didn't stop moving until the lights of the crew buses were dim flickers in the distance, her sneakers crunching through the tall, damp grass of the open field.

She finally slowed down, her lungs burning as she doubled over. Her hands gripped her knees, her head hanging low as she fought for air in the biting night chill.

A dark, hysterical thought flickered through her mind: maybe telling those teenage girls tomorrow that she was a virgin saint wasn't such a bad marketing move after all. It was certainly better than admitting she’d shared a bed with a coked-up double murderer. She shook her head, the irony tasting like rich and bitter, and wiped her eyes one last time before the dam finally broke.

The first wail was raw and ugly, a ceaseless sound that finally let the messy, concentrated hurt escape her chest. For several minutes, she just screamed at the empty sky. She screamed until her throat felt like it was bleeding and her lungs were screaming back at her. 

Eventually, the strength left her legs entirely, and she dropped to her knees in the dirt. Her palms pressed hard against her face, her body racking with unabashed sobs as she let the reality of her new life finally sink in.

Back in the silver clad interior of his bus, Homelander remained exactly where he was, nestled into the expensive leather with the deep satisfaction of finally having checked every item off his to-do list. 

He had heard her screams clearly, even though she had bolted quite far away. He was fairly certain the crew had caught the highlights too; though he had the sole luxury of hearing the high definition, soul crushing nuances that the ordinary folks missed.

It was genuinely cathartic, watching the systematic demolition of her heroic delusions. Ruining her night, and potentially her entire psychological framework, had restored a much needed sense of equilibrium to his chest, like a soothing balm for his frayed nerves.

His mood had soured the second that medical update flashed across his screen. And the only way to bypass that crippling fear and grief of losing someone he cared about was to outsource that agony. That was the only way he knew, anyway.

He wasn't about to let a little thing like his surrogate mother’s kidney failure ruin his evening without dragging someone else down into the trenches with him. Now, at least, he wasn’t the only one hurting.

Oh—and that escort boy from earlier. He let the thought drift through his mind like a pleasant memory of a summer breeze.

To be perfectly honest, that kid had done a much better job of dying while performing a blowjob than he had at the blowjob itself. The face caving-in finale had been the perfect palate cleanser for a monotonous day of pretending to care about the "faithful" at the expo. 

He gave himself a little, self-assured nod, his reflection in the mirrored wall mimicking the gesture with a bloody, vacant stare. He’d done a stellar job of uplifting his spirits.

Well done, John, he thought, letting out a soft, amused chuckle that echoed through the quiet of the bus.

Chapter Text

The morning was offensively pleasant, with a sky so blue and a temperature so soothing they could simply be a movie backdrop. The open field below had transformed into an ecosystem of tourists, starry-eyed visitors, and a small army of corporate handlers; all shuffling between stalls to bring out the dollar bills from people's pockets in exchange for a heavy dose of God. As long as you were a "true believer" or had a valid credit card, there was a curated activity readily available for you. 

This was the second day of the expo, colloquially known among the staff as the Team-up Day. 

At every stop on this grueling tour, the itinerary demanded that Homelander and Starlight perform a series of coordinated public displays of religious affection for the masses, ranging from joint keynote speeches to special meet-and-greets. 

Homelander, for his part, was having a truly spectacular morning. Having successfully offloaded his psychological baggage onto a junior coworker the night before, he felt positively buoyant. There was a certain dark, heavy satisfaction in knowing that while his own world was crumbling, he had managed to kick someone else’s pedestal out from under them. 

He had framed it to himself as a necessary education. The world was a cruel place, and the new girl needed to stop playing Miss Goody-Two-Shoes and start smelling the decomposition. It was a civic duty, really. Good for the brand, great for the team, and transformative for his own midday ego.

He had been an absolute delight for his makeup team, radiating a breezy, eerie generosity that was highly unusual on a regular day. There was a visible bounce to his crimson boots as he moved through the staging area. 

He found himself especially looking forward to his scheduled appearances with Starlight, mostly because she had spent the entire morning silently brooding. The poor girl had withered into a mere shell of her former self, a realization that moved him to let out a quiet, appreciative chuckle in the privacy of his vanity mirror.

The festivities had kicked off with the morning roundtable for teenage girls. Homelander and Starlight sat shoulder to shoulder on a raised platform, fielding a barrage of wide-eyed questions that veered uncomfortably into the personal. 

One particularly timid girl, clutching a Bible and a Starlight action figure, dared to ask the million dollar question: had Starlight actually done it yet?

And right on cue, Starlight had choked down her pride and recited her Vought-approved testimony. She told the crowd exactly what they wanted to hear, that she and Supersonic were saving themselves for marriage, preserving their "purity" for a future wedding special.

Homelander watched the performance with rapt attention, like a theater critic. He could practically see the physical effort it took for her to swallow her pride. It was a slow motion collapse of her dignity, written in the subtle trembling of her jaw. The humiliation was exquisite, flavored by the fact that she had to lie through her teeth while sitting inches away from the man who had shown her the high definition footage of her boyfriend’s mid-sex massacre last night. 

And as if it wasn't already awful enough, another girl, inspired by the first, decided to aim the same awkward question at Homelander. She piped up with a tremor in her voice, asking if he’d ever actually had sex, considering he hadn’t found a wife yet to bless with his super-genetics.

But Homelander felt a surge of genuine, lizard brain pleasure as he delivered a solid, resounding "no." He didn't just deny it, he proudly claimed that such things were merely base human needs and, frankly, beneath someone of his stature. His sole responsibility, he reminded them with a humble tilt of his head, was to serve the people in the name of the Lord.

In reality, he absolutely hated that answer. It made him sound like a eunuch in a cape.

However, the lie was worth it for the sheer patronizing weight it dropped on Starlight. She’d seen him with Noir; she knew his "purity" was about as real as a three-dollar bill. He could feel her seething beside her, her anger likely a toxic cocktail of the previous night’s trauma and his current, blatant hypocrisy. It was hilarious. Truly, he was having the best morning of his life.

Starlight had even refused to look at him between their scheduled bouts of public theater, her focus split into a million directions. She’d been taking bathroom breaks every hour on the hour just to sob into a wad of industrial paper towels. Homelander had heard every ragged gasp through the drywall, of course, tracking her movements with his ears like a shark following a blood trail, deeply satisfied with the fruits of his labor.

Annie, for her part, despised every agonizing second of the day. 

Her brain was stuck on a loop, replaying the grainy, horrific reality of that video. True to his word, Homelander had actually airdropped the file to her, a digital poison pill sitting in her pocket. She hadn't touched it; she didn't have the stomach to rewatch her life fall apart in HD again. She hadn't even found the words to break up with Alex yet. There simply wasn't enough time in the day to process the betrayal, let alone the murders. She’d spent the night in her bus, crying until her tear ducts felt like they’d been scrubbed with sandpaper.

Her makeup artist had been forced into a salvage operation this morning, using every concealer in the kit to hide the exhaustion lines carving into her face. To make matters worse, Donna had been chauffeured back to the grounds from her hotel, courtesy of Vought’s bottomless PR budget. 

Her mother had been buzzing around her like a caffeinated wasp all morning until the roundtable mercifully started. From there on, it was just a relentless cycle of tent-hopping and hosting activities that cost the fans five thousand dollars a head just for the privilege of standing in their aura. And that was just the Early Bird special.

Thanks to Annie’s military grade schedule, Donna barely had a window to start her usual routine of swooning over her daughter. But it was still quite surreal. 

While Annie could only manage a curt "Hey, Mom" or a "I will catch you later," Homelander was actually carving out chunks of his time to chat with Donna. He was likely just mining for more psychological ammunition to use against her later.

The man was a total asshole. Annie didn't even have the residual energy required to disrupt whatever weird, chirpy rapport those two were building in the background.

In fact, Homelander was in the best mood he’d ever been in since the Madelyn incident. He was breezy, dangerously charming, and actually posing for extra photos with the fans. He was even tossing out friendly tips to the stagehands and crew members, all while maintaining a predatory, enthusiastic focus on every single activity. He was working the room like a politician who’d just dodged an indictment.

He clearly believed Annie was too shattered to notice his constant surveillance. It was almost funny in a sardonic, miserable sort of way, though it didn't actually pull a laugh out of her. Whenever the grief finally clawed through her professional composure, Annie would duck away to a private corner and cry until her eyes burned. She didn't even bother trying to muffle the sound, knowing full well Homelander was likely tuning in like it was his favorite podcast. He wanted to hear her break. And as much as Annie hated feeding his sadistic appetite, the sheer hurt of the betrayal made everything else feel small and insignificant. It was just waves of grief, one after another, crashing against her ribs.

Then came the afternoon meet and greet. The space was massive, a luxury tent designed to hold at least a hundred of the elite faithful. These were the whales, the ones who had dropped fifteen thousand dollars per ticket or more just to breathe the same air as a superhero. There were group packages too, starting at twenty thousand. The guests were treated to a lavish spread, a sprawling buffet, and three massive photo booths. There was wine, cheese, and enough superhero branded chocolate to give a small army a sugar crash.

The plan was simple and grueling, they would hand out signed shirts, caps, and mugs after posing for a custom photo with every single person in the room.

Annie had just dragged herself back from a lunch she couldn't properly stomach. After a quick touch-up of her makeup, she marched toward the main event. Apparently, the fans had all arrived and were marinating in their own anticipation. 

By the time she reached the heavy fabric of the tent entrance, Homelander was already there, flanked by a manic Ashley and a small phalanx of Vought sycophants. 

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, a cold, expressionless spark, before they both pivoted forward. They entered the space with a mechanical synchrony that was frankly eerie. It was as if the internal drive to perform for the masses was hardwired into their very bone marrow, a biological mandate that overrode any pesky things like personal trauma or the urge to scream.

The moment they crossed the threshold, the masks snapped into place. They slid into their superhero personas in a blink.

“Hey, everyone!” Annie hollered in a singsong tone, waving at the expensive guests. 

Her grin was wide, bright, and aggressively vacant, as if her life wasn't currently a smoking crater. She was greeted by an immediate, thunderous wave of applause and holy-roller adulation.

Homelander came to a halt right beside her, one hand planted firmly on his hip while the other conducted the crowd’s energy with a regal wave. 

“Hey, guys!” His smile stretched from ear to ear, his blue eyes sweeping the room with a warm gaze. “It’s so good to finally see all of you.”

The cheers shifted into high gear, punctuated by a few enthusiastic whistles from the back of the room.

Homelander seemed to physically bloom under their devotion. He turned to Annie, his expression softening into something nauseatingly affectionate as he hooked an arm around her shoulder and hauled her close for a firm, proprietary squeeze. “As you can see, I have partnered up with the newest jewel in our crown—Starlight, everyone!” He prompted the room with a sharp, theatrical gesture, demanding a crescendo of noise.

Annie plastered a look of breathless excitement onto her face, even throwing in a little "aw-shucks" hand gesture to mirror the wholesome energy of the fans. She turned to look at Homelander, gently but firmly extricating herself from his grip. 

“Thank you, Homelander. It has been nothing but an absolute honor and a pleasure working with you this morning.” She addressed the crowd again, nodding with rhythmic, artificial sincerity. “No, really. He is an incredible man, you guys. Let’s hear it for him!” She began clapping, leading the fans in a chorus of self-congratulatory noise.

The roar of the crowd boomed against the tent walls, loud enough to rattle the catering. In the background, Ashley was buzzing with a manic, corporate joy, also joining in the applause with the attendees. 

Eventually, the PR queen and her crew herded the duo toward the primary photo booth to capture some authentic moments for the Vought social media machine.

Annie took her designated spot on the tape, positioned right beside the golden boy of American fascism. That pageant-trained smile remained glued to her face, a structural marvel of dental hygiene and pure misery. 

Homelander stood beside her with his hands locked behind his back, a posture of regal patience that masked a bone deep boredom. He scanned the perimeter with a clinical detachment, his gaze occasionally snagging on Starlight.

The shutter began to fire, capturing a series of frames defined by a glaring, awkward vacuum between the two icons. Annie’s arms hung uselessly at her sides, refusing to participate in the charade. 

Sensing the lack of marketable chemistry, the photographer peered over the lens with a grim, professional intensity, as if he was trying to fix a leaking pipe.

“Guys, can we get some chemistry here?” he asked, gesturing at the empty air separating them. “Maybe an arm on the back? Give the fans something to dream about.”

Annie strangled the urge to roll her eyes. She took a dragging step inward just as Homelander mirrored the movement, their biceps brushing together in a textile kiss. 

He was the first to commit, his gloved hand moving up the small of her back. His palm vanished behind the heavy material of her cape, pressing firmly against her spine with a possessive, chilling heat.

Not to be outdone in the theater of the absurd, Annie extended her own arm. She let it slither beneath his red and white cape, wrapping around his waist in a performative embrace, as if he was her north star rather than her tormentor, tugging him close.

​“Oh?” Homelander actually looked surprised, his eyes dropping to her hand where it was currently wrapped around the narrowest curve of his waist. It was a rare lapse in his usual rehearsed perfection, a flicker of genuine ‘what is happening?’ crossing his face as he tracked her fingers against his suit.

Annie met the camera lens with a look of wholesome, wide eyed adoration that was nothing short of an Olympic-level lie.

Homelander’s grin split even wider, his performance reflexes kicking into overdrive. His arm then slid further, wrapping around her arm now, visible to the camera on her side. He tightened his grip, hauling her into his side with a gentle pressure.

What followed was a rhythmic, soul erasing sequence of poses dictated by the man behind the tripod. The two Vought puppets pivoted and tilted like expensive wind-up dolls, their joints clicking in sync. The camera flashed relentlessly, recording every fraudulent dimple until Ashley finally swooped in to usher them toward the podium. 

Homelander and Starlight followed her lead with a religious devotion, oozing a script mandated sweetness that threatened to give the entire crowd a collective case of diabetes.

Within minutes, their Hollywood approved faces were detonating across social media like a digital gospel. The internet inhaled the imagery whole, millions of users liking, sharing, and mainlining the fraud as if it were a mandatory nutrient.

At the tent, once the primary sermon was over, the handlers steered the duo toward the second photo booth, a velvet roped booth for the wealthy fans. 

They stood shoulder to shoulder again, a matched set of expensive trophies, as the believers began to trickle into the frame. Couples, families, and groups shuffled in and out in a dizzying rotation of polyester and perfume. 

It made Annie’s stomach do slow, nauseous somersaults to watch these people swallow the Vought’s Kool-Aid without a single skeptical blink, again. They practically bathed in the proximity of their idols, lathering the duo with a brand of adoration that felt heavy and sticky, like spilled soda on a theater floor.

The grind was relentless. They posed, they smiled, they distributed the holy relics; t-shirts, mugs, and caps, and scribbled their names onto an endless stream of glossy cardstock. The session dragged on far past its expiration date, and by the time the line began to thin, Annie was internally screaming for an exit strategy. 

In a rare, silent moment of atmospheric alignment, Homelander seemed to mirror her exhaustion, his own regal patience beginning to fray at the hem.

The final pilgrim was a young woman; probably eighteen, nineteen, who approached the platform with a zealous, vibrating energy. The moment she stepped into their orbit, Homelander deployed a wide, predatory grin, one arm unfurling for the young fan.

“Hello there. And who are you supposed to be?” he asked, his voice a smooth cocktail of charm and simulated interest.

The girl radiated a frantic joy. “Hi, I’m Jordan. I’m a huge fan of both of you!” She locked her hands over her mouth in a gesture of timid, sweet disbelief. “I have every single collectible from the Seven Launch tour. Every single one.” She darted a quick, self-conscious look around the cavernous tent before leaning toward her heroes with a conspiratorial air.

“Can I be honest? I'm not actually that religious,” she whispered, giggling behind her knuckles as if sharing a secret with Gods in person. “But I really, really just wanted to meet you both.”

Homelander let out a rich, theatrical laugh, his arm descending onto her shoulder to guide her into the gap between himself and Starlight. 

Annie found herself offering a genuine, brittle little chuckle at the girl’s confession. There was something hilariously relatable about being "not that religious" but showing up for the circus anyway. The only real distinction was that Jordan had paid for her ticket, while Annie was being held hostage by her own contract.

As the fan settled into the gap between them, Annie went for the standard, two dimensional embrace. She swept her arm across the girl’s shoulder blades, but mid-arc, her hand collided with Homelander’s knuckles. 

It wasn't a painful impact, but the sudden heat of it made her flinch. Annie’s gaze snapped to the space between their capes, her heart suddenly doing a nervous beating against her ribs.

Her hand remained momentarily paralyzed, her skin pressed against his crimson gloved knuckles. 

Homelander didn’t even look at her. He was too busy performing one last high octane burst of charm for the young fan, asking her questions about her hero worship history. 

Annie attempted a casual retreat, sliding her hand back by fractions of an inch, but her fingers remained stubbornly in contact with his. She moved with the frantic caution of trying not to wake a landmine, terrified that any abrupt movement would make him notice the contact.

But the man was a masterpiece of multitasking, murmuring sweet corporate nothings to the fan while maintaining a flawless profile for the cameras. Annie finally forced her eyes forward, realizing he wasn’t noticing. She pinned on a small smile to her face as the photographer began the countdown.

As Homelander finished his quiet aside with the girl, his hand shifted absentmindedly on the fan’s back. He pulled back his gloved fingers from under Annie’s and pressed them back down, almost gently, over Annie’s knuckles. He didn't react. He didn't even look. He just pinned her hand there with a gentle, suffocating pressure while posing for the lens with a serene confidence.

Annie’s breath hitched, her eyes darting back to the fan's spine. Her hand was now trapped beneath his in a gesture that felt sickeningly intimate, an unscripted, private collision in the middle of a public spectacle. It felt like an accidental affection, a brief, terrifying bridge between two people who spent most of their time trying to either ruin or avoid each other.

“Everyone, at the camera, please!” the photographer hollered, gesturing wildly at the lens.

Annie’s head snapped back toward the tripod, her vision slightly blurred by the sudden rush of adrenaline. She held the pose through a barrage of flashes, her knuckles burning with nervousness under the weight of his glove. 

A few more shots for the parents’ iPhones, a few more seconds of staged bliss, and the nightmare finally reached its expiration point.

The trio broke formation simultaneously. Annie yanked her arm back with a haste that bordered on violent, her movement immediately drawing Homelander’s sharp, predatory attention toward their retreating hands. 

Meanwhile, the fan drifted off the stage with a final, breathless “Thank you so much!”, leaving the two of them standing in the sudden, awkward moment.

Homelander didn’t even glance at the departing girl as he offered a mechanical, "It was a pleasure meeting you, Jordan." His focus was now acutely pinned on Starlight, a sharp, inquisitive stare that felt like he was trying to x-ray her nervous system. 

He retracted his arm with a nonchalant smoothness, locking his hands behind his back beneath the cape. His eyes remained on her stoically, before he tossed a dismissive, low-effort goodbye wave in Jordan’s direction and exhaled a long, weary breath.

Annie had braced for impact. She was practically counting the seconds until the inevitable eruption, mentally shielding herself for whatever psychological or physical landmine he was about to detonate. This was the exact kind of attention she had spent the last twelve hours avoiding. 

But in that rare subversion of his own lunacy, Homelander simply looked away. His expression didn't go cold; it just went flat, a terrifyingly unreadable horizontal line of a face.

Annie let out a quiet breath of her own, her arms coiling protectively over her stomach. 

For a painful, suspended moment, the two most powerful beings in the room just stood there, doing literally nothing. The room continued to buzz with the murmur of the rich and the rhythmic pop of distant flashbulbs, but for some reason, the spotlight seemed to have drifted. They had been momentarily orphaned by their own audience, standing like two high priced wax figures whose clockwork had finally jammed.

The silence between them was deafening despite the surrounding noise, and they both looked like absolute idiots.

Homelander, however, was currently a nuclear reactor staring down a total meltdown internally. His reservoir of manufactured charm had been finally drained dry, and he’d spent the day spending it with reckless abandon. Being the "Good Guy," the "Mentor," the "Generous Tipper"; it had all been a delightful little play act until about fifteen fans ago, when his patience had officially turned to ash. The simulated holiness had evaporated entirely, leaving behind a strong urge to find a soundproof room and some blissful, murderous silence.

The irony was that even with all that godly power, he seemed to have no idea what the next thing on the schedule was. He just remained rooted to the spot, clueless and looming, while the world moved on without him for a gloriously awkward minute.

Eventually, the pressurized silence between them became the loudest thing in the room, a screaming void of non-interaction that was too bizarre for even them to ignore. Now it looked like they were two statues of a dead civilization, standing at the center of a busy marketplace.

Homelander was the first to let the mask slip, a bored sigh escaping him as he leaned into Annie’s personal space. He drifted close enough for her to catch the scent of his expensive cologne, his voice dropping into a guarded baritone that didn’t carry an inch past her ear.

"It’s like they're fucking high on it, you know," he scoffed, the sound dripping with a bitter, concentrated disdain. He rolled his eyes with a subtle, rhythmic arrogance, his jaw hovering inches from her hair. "Hope. They’re so addicted to the high of it, they’ve gone blind. Can't see past the fucking hope." 

He let out a dry, belittling chuckle, a moment of eerie, unvarnished honesty as though Starlight had been drafted as his involuntary therapist.

Annie cut him a sideways glance, her expression hardening into something more resilient than usual. 

"Why?" she asked, her brow furrowing into a knot of genuine agitation. "Don't you hope for anything?"

The look Homelander gave her was instantaneous, bordering on offended, as if she’d just asked a shark if it enjoyed a nice salad. 

"Well, given the absolute wreckage of your life lately, do you still have the stomach for hope?" He barked a soft, condescending laugh, as if the very concept of goodness on this planet was a punchline only an idiot would fall for.

Annie’s face twisted into a defensive grimace, her eyes sparking with a sudden, localized heat. "Yes, actually. I still hope for things—boring, human things. Like my mom’s health, or for Vought to rot in a shallow hell, and I hope Ms. Stillwell pulls through." She leaned in, the filter between her brain and her tongue beginning to dissolve. "I’m not some mindless bloodbag, you—"

She cut herself off with a sharp, frantic inhale, the "foul-mouthed Annie" retreating just before she could commit career suicide. She huffed a shaky breath, her gaze drifting away in a cloud of pure, concentrated annoyance.

Homelander blinked, the casual cruelty momentarily stalling in his throat. His jaw twitched, a rhythmic pulse beneath the skin of his cheek. He let out a sharp snuff of air and mirrored her retreat, looking out at the crowd of worshippers. 

After a beat of heavy, odd silence, he offered a single, stiff nod.

"I hope that, too," he said, his voice stripped of its theatrical vibrato, sounding strangely sincere. "About Madelyn."

Annie pivoted to face him fully, a move dragged out of her instinctively. She tightened her arms across her stomach, a soft, tired sigh escaping her lips. 

"I’m sorry about Ms. Stillwell," she offered, her voice stripped of the earlier reluctance to interact. "I didn't realize you two were... close. Not until after."

Homelander didn't respond. He let the comment hang there a second too long, his brain seemingly grinding through the gears of a genuine emotional response. 

Finally, with a dismissive roll of his eyes and a tone that was as flat as a dial tone, he shrugged. "Okay, well—that was a better conversation than anything else I’ve had to endure today." He let out a dry, joyless chuckle and began to pivot, ready to exit the stage of his own boredom.

He’d barely cleared a single step when a scent hit his nostrils with the force of a ballistic missile. Homelander froze mid-stride, his nose wrinkling in a reflex of absolute disgust. 

His eyes darted frantically through the sea of expensive fans, hunting for the source of the biological audacity. He found it: a man in his mid forties, looking remarkably average right up until the moment his physiology decided to declare war on the laws of nature.

It began with a faint, neon blue luminescence pulsing through the man’s veins, as if he’d just chugged a radioactive glow stick. He started heaving, his eyes bulging in a frantic, wide eyed panic. 

Soon, the man thrashed about, his grunts escalating into a loud, raw scream that cut through the ambient chatter of the tent. 

The crowd began to peel away in a wave of instinctive horror as the blue light intensified, turning his circulatory system into a roadmap of impending doom.

Then came the steam. It hissed out of his mouth and tear ducts in thick, scalding plumes, drawing a collective gasp from the horrified onlookers.

Without warning, the man’s internal pressure reached its limit, his biology undergoing a gruesome, high speed chemical transition. His skin charcoaled instantly, slumping into a steaming pile of white hot ash and liquefied viscera. 

He hissed away into non-existence, leaving nothing behind but a scorched, messy organic smear on the expensive Vought carpeting and the metallic stench of vaporized organs.

The tent detonated instantly. The previously orderly crowd dissolved into a shrill, uncoordinated riot of terror. People trampled over one another, a messy, desperate scramble to escape the nightmare that had just unfolded in the middle of their VIP experience.

Homelander stood paralyzed for a heartbeat, momentarily flabbergasted by the sheer messiness of the event. He snapped his gaze toward Starlight, his expression a mix of confusion and mounting irritation, before turning back to the stampeding herd.

“Everyone, stay calm! Please, remain calm!” he bellowed, his voice booming with a practiced, casual authority. “The authorities will be here momentarily!”

He waved his arms with a regal confidence. He expected the world to stop on his command, but the world wasn't listening. 

In their blind, animalistic panic, the crowd ignored him entirely, their screams drowning out the hero who was supposed to be their compass.

Annie, for her part, had been stuck into a state of complete metabolic stasis. She hadn't so much as flickered an eyelid since the moment the fan had undergone his unsolicited cremation. 

It looked like a biblical plague; a customized divine retribution for the sin of spending fifteen thousand dollars on a photo op. The sheer, visceral horror of it was, in a twisted way, a mercy for her. It was finally loud enough to drown out the internal static of her own misery. Of course, replacing a broken heart with fresh trauma wasn't exactly a win, but it certainly shifted the priority list.

She was so far underwater that she hadn't even registered Homelander’s fleeting look of confusion, nor the useless, booming instructions he’d barked at the stampeding mob. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched, incessant ringing, a sonic wall that made the world feel like it was happening behind a thick glass. Every fine hair on her body stood at attention, vibrating with the aftershock of the atmospheric shift.

It took the physical intervention of Ashley Barrett, who had been waving her hands in Annie's face to bring her back to reality. 

Annie’s breathing caught in her throat, coming in shallow, uneven strops. She blinked absently, her vision finally refocusing on Ashley’s face, which was currently a frantic roadmap of twitching nerves and smeared mascara. Apparently, the woman had been talking to her for several seconds.

“What?” Annie managed, her voice sounding like it belonged to someone else.

“Hey, Starlight—Starlight, look at me!” Ashley barked, her hands slamming onto Annie’s shoulders in a grounding gesture that was less about comfort and more about ensuring the asset didn't wander off into the chaos. “Are you good? Focus. We are getting you back to the bus right now. Okay?”

Annie offered a numb, rhythmic nod, drawing in a sharp, cold lungful of air. “Where is Homelander?” she asked, her eyes darting around the open field now. The transition was jarring; one moment she was in a VIP kiln, and the next she was standing in the grass, surrounded by the distant, fading echoes of a crowded panic. She hadn't even realized when she'd stepped out of the tent. 

Ashley gave a sharp, dismissive shrug, already pivoting to scan for the nearest exit route. “He left after pulling you out. Let’s move, Starlight.” She delivered a firm, mechanical pat to Annie’s back, herding her through the perimeter toward the farthest corner of the lot where the Prevost sat waiting like a getaway car.

Annie blinked, unsure if she even remembered that happening. She'd been too stunned to notice. 

As they walked, Annie focused on the simple mechanics of calming herself down: inhale, exhale, repeat. She tried to slow the thumping in her chest, desperately attempting to catalog the sensory data of the last five minutes into a box that wouldn't haunt her dreams. 

——

The Prevost bus rushed through the pre-dawn gloom of the interstate, a silver bullet piercing the fog. Inside, the hum of the engine was a low, vibrating growl that Annie could feel in her marrow. It was a constant, mechanical reminder that she was being hauled like freight to the next stop on Vought’s holy crusade, no matter what had happened to the poor man last night. 

Outside the glass, the skeletal remains of billboards and leafless trees flickered by, distorted by the speed and the grime of the road.

Annie was sprawled across the king-sized bed in the rear suite, her body a heavy weight against the designer linens. She had changed into a pair of pajama shorts and a tank top about an hour ago, her bra tossed somewhere she didn't even recall. 

Her eyes were fixed on the ceiling, tracing the faint, rhythmic pulse of the recessed lighting. Every time the bus hit a seam in the asphalt, a subtle jolt shuddered through the mattress.

The air in the cabin was subtly sweet from the aroma the incense released, mixed with a faint smell of expensive leather. The vehicle had been transformed into a luxury environment designed to soothe, yet it felt like a variant of a sensory deprivation tank. She felt untethered, drifting in a mental abyss. Her phone sat forgotten and facedown beside her on the bed. 

Annie’s brain was currently a high definition projector stuck on a loop, replaying the fan’s final, sizzling moments. She had stood beside him for a generic photo op barely thirty minutes before he decided to undergo an unsolicited internal combustion. It was a localized, biological implosion, a human being retreating into his own ribcage until there was nothing left but a grease stain and a lawsuit.

Twenty-four hours ago, she was convinced that Alex being a world-class monster was the ultimate ceiling for her personal misery. But she had been wrong.

In fact, the last six weeks of her life had been a series of escalating trauma. Every new horror seemed designed specifically to make the previous one look like a minor inconvenience. It was a perverse achievement. Even after six weeks of psychological implosions, the universe had still found a way to deliver a fresh, steaming pile of shock to her doorstep last night.

She couldn't shake the clinical, gruesome details. 

What kind of cellular treason leads to a reaction that extreme? Was there a Supe in the crowd playing a lethal game of hide-and-seek? Was it a new, bespoke plague? She’d caught the hushed, terrified whispers of the crew last night, some of them already comparing the incident with biblical terms, a divine strike from a God who was clearly losing His patience. But mostly, Annie thought about the man’s family. Their screams were a serration in her memory, a raw sound of loss that made her own chest ache for a stranger who had been reduced to a pile of carbon in under twenty seconds.

She didn't blink. She couldn't afford to let the images settle. Instead, she just stared at the overhead vent, watching a single, frayed thread from the curtain perform a frantic, rhythmic dance in the artificial breeze of the climate control.

The silence of the suite was finally disrupted by the sharp, electronic buzz of a notification. 

Annie’s eyes snapped toward the device on the mattress, a reflex born of modern anxiety. She let out a long, shaky exhale, the kind that feels like it’s scraping the bottom of your lungs, before rolling onto her side to retrieve the phone. 

She brought the glowing screen toward her face, the blue light washing over her features like a cold wave, and swiped to unlock the screen.

It was a text from Tilda, a floor 10 nurse at the Seven Tower. 

Annie had developed a recent, early morning ritual with the woman, a post-gym visit to the tenth floor to fish for updates on Madelyn Stillwell’s precarious grip on life. It was a habit born of a misplaced sense of duty.

Annie tapped the message, her eyes tracking the sentences:

“Hi, it’s Tilda from floor 10. You usually drop by for Ms. Stillwell, but you didn’t show up this week. I heard about the tour. Thought you should know, her health has taken a turn. Left kidney failed 29 hrs ago. We have her on dialysis now. Best, Tilda Munson.”

Annie’s internal clock stalled instantly. Twenty-nine hours. She stared at the digits until they blurred into glowing blue streaks. Her mind performed a quick piece of detective work, tracing the timeline back through the fog of her memory.

Wait. She shoved herself up on her elbows, the designer mattress sighing beneath her. 

Twenty-nine hours ago, she had been an unwilling audience in Homelander’s private bus. She remembered the exact micro-second the atmosphere had soured, the moment his phone had buzzed and his entire persona had undergone a visible, tectonic shift. He’d mutated into a different kind of monster right in front of her, promptly using her as a psychic punching bag to vent his redirected grief. 

And now, she was rotting in her own private corner of hell because his surrogate mother’s kidney had decided to quit.

The realization prompted a massive, agitated roll of her eyes. The sheer, cosmic unfairness of it, that her life had been dismantled by the organ failure of a woman she barely knew, was almost impressive in its cruelty.

A sudden, rhythmic shudder vibrated through the floorboards as the bus hit a final bump in the asphalt and groaned to a definitive halt. 

Annie swung her legs off the bed, her feet hitting the cold floor as she ditched the blankets. She snatched a thick, checkered black robe from its wall hook, shrugging into the heavy fabric. She yanked the belt tight across her stomach, scooped up her phone, and slid her feet into a pair of flats.

The hydraulic hiss of the bus door was a sharp, mechanical exhale against the Virginia stillness. The sky was just beginning to bruise into a pale, pre-dawn blue, shedding the total black of the interstate. The Richmond air was a different beast entirely. It was thick, damp, and carrying a persistent, heavy chill that seemed to latch onto the industrial concrete of the loading dock like a parasitic twin.

They were parked in a familiar, isolated configuration: a desolate stretch of outskirts far from the actual expo grounds. It was a strategic wasteland, chosen to keep the gods from having to smell the unwashed masses before their scheduled appearance.

Annie drew in a lungful of the biting air, her eyes surveying the landscape. 

As per the Vought hierarchy of needs, Homelander’s Prevost was parked at a respectful but intimate distance, close enough to be a threat, far enough to maintain the illusion of privacy. The lesser crew buses were huddled together like frightened sheep further down the line, with the distant silhouette of the arena looming beyond them.

Without warning, a violent, gushing sonic roar tore through the quiet of the morning, shredding the atmosphere.

Annie staggered back, her neck snapping upward to track the source of the acoustic assault. It sounded like a jet engine trying to play a symphony at 10,000 decibels. 

Within seconds, a localized hurricane of dust and gravel erupted, tousling her hair into a chaotic mess as a sleek, predatory shape descended. The craft touched down with a smooth, expensive elegance barely ten yards from their trailers.

The gleaming, silver-embossed logo of Vought and the Seven emblazoned on the hull acted as a cold splash of reality. 

Right, she thought, the memory prickling at her skin. Vought’s jet. She’d been stuffed into one of those once for a certain nonexistent "undercover mission at a lesbian bar".

A second, distinct hiss of pneumatic pressure pulled her attention back to ground level. 

The door of Homelander’s bus yawned open. Annie instinctively wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing her biceps against the creeping frost of the dawn as she watched with a deepening, confused frown.

The Deep stepped out of the cabin, looking less like the King of the Seven Seas and more like the survivor of a very specific, very weird fraternity gathering. A hot pink bra was draped over his head with a bizarre sort of structural integrity, the cups acting as a pair of secondary, neon ears. He blinked into the morning light, looking utterly bewildered by his own existence.

Following the fish-whisperer out of the bus was Translucent, or at least, the visual approximation of him. He was currently a floating collection of oversized bead necklaces, as if he’d just returned from a spring break. However, the true piece de resistance, the detail that really tied the vacation look together, was the used condom he’d apparently forgotten to discard. It was clinging to his invisible, and still very much hard dick like a translucent, rubbery barnacle.

Annie’s stomach did a violent, nauseated flip, her nose wrinkling in disgust. She stood there, a captive witness to the secret guest list of Homelander’s midnight festivities, a roster she had been blissfully unaware of until this very second. She suppressed the urge to gag at the sight. 

Then came A-Train, mercifully clad in his suit, followed by a literal parade of human wreckage. It was a chaotic assortment of escorts: men, women, a full spectrum of races and body types, all of them in varying states of nudity. Some dangled stiletto heels from their fingertips like trophies; others moved with a distinct, post-fuck limp. 

Two of the women were ironically sporting “Light of The World" tour t-shirts, paired with nothing but lace underwear and bare feet. Despite the early hour and the damp Virginia chill, the group was buzzing with a manic, celebratory energy. They were a cacophony of hushed giggles, muffled gossip, and playful slaps on the back and asses.

It didn't take a detective to do the math. This wasn't a mere late-night party session. It was a mobile orgy, a localized "fuck fest" hosted in Homelander's suite.

A raspy, dry scoff escaped Annie’s lips. 

Of course. 

While she had been staring at a ceiling, replaying the image of a human being melting into a puddle of carbon, the "Heroes of America" had been busy working their way through the local talent. The death of a high-paying fan was already ancient history to them, a minor PR hiccup filed away in the ‘not my problem’ folder of their collective consciousness.

She was the only one still drowning, the only one who hadn't gotten the memo that empathy was a career ending move. 

What a fucking joke. 

Just as Annie began to pivot, ready to retreat back into her own bus, the rhythmic thud of a heavier pair of boots made her pause. She turned back toward the yawning maw of Homelander’s bus.

Black Noir stepped out into the pre-dawn fog, a silent, obsidian monolith. He had closed the bus’s door behind him. And as usual, he was sealed into his suit from head to toe, the silent guardian of the Seven’s most depraved secrets. 

He moved with a mechanical, scanning grace, his head swiveling from side to side to assess the perimeter. When his visor finally locked onto Annie, he went perfectly still.

A heavy, awkward silence stretched between them, thick enough to choke on. Then, with a slow, hesitant movement that felt almost surreal compared to the neon-pink bra and the floating condom currently exiting the scene, Noir lifted a gloved hand and offered her a small, polite wave.

Annie blinked, the sheer weirdness of the moment momentarily short-circuiting her brain. A faint, puzzled smile tugged at her lips as she returned the wave, her hand moving with an uncertainty. 

But then, the silent assassin actually began to drift her way, detaching himself from the debauched parade of nudity and condoms. 

Annie’s eyes darted around the horizon, her polite mask remaining firmly in place even as her pulse spiked. Up until this very second, Noir had been little more than a piece of sentient furniture in her life; a lethal, black furniture that didn't speak. 

What could he possibly have to say to her?

Noir came to a halt a few feet away, the silence radiating off his suit like a physical chill. 

Without a word, he reached into a back pocket and produced a worn sketchbook. He flipped through the pages with a fluid, practiced grace, the paper rasping in the quiet air until he found his target.

His masked head tilted up, the blank lenses of his cowl fixing on Annie for a fleeting second before dropping back to the page. With a swift, surgical tug, he tore the sheet along the perforation. He tucked the pad away and extended the loose leaf toward her.

    Art By DelightfullySad

 

“Oh,” Annie stammered, scrambling to bridge the gap and take the offering. She flipped the paper over and felt the air leave her lungs in a sharp, appreciative gasp.

It was a graphite sketch of her, captured during some forgotten, soul crushing session in the Seven’s conference room. Probably at the tower. 

She was slumped in her high-backed chair, her chin propped on a knuckle as she stared into the middle distance with a look of profound, beautiful boredom. Based on the perspective, she was likely looking directly at the spot where Homelander usually sat, radiating a look of "checked-out" that only a Vought employee could truly master. 

The likeness was uncanny, an unfiltered display of technical talent that felt far too human for a man who spent his weekdays disemboweling people on Vought’s orders.

A dry, surprised chuckle escaped Annie’s lips. She’d always seen him scribbling during the meetings, assuming he was either drawing his usual Buster Beever sketches or just practicing his skill with random doodles.

“Thank you,” she said, offering him a sincere, singular nod. “It’s beautiful. Really.”

Noir didn't linger for the review. He returned the nod,  a sharp, efficient tilt of the head, before pivoting on his heel. 

He marched back toward the jet where the rest of the Seven and their collection of naked companions were congregating. 

The escorts were currently putting on a performance of tearful, high decibel goodbyes, as if they were sending their husbands off to the front lines rather than waving at a group of spoiled millionaires getting onto a private plane. Only Satan, or perhaps Vought’s payroll department, knew the true motivation behind the theatrics.

Annie stood in the damp, unforgiving chill, watching the silent ninja hoist himself into the pressurized belly of the jet. He was followed by the rest of the degenerate vanguard: A-Train, Translucent, and the guy who apparently had a pink bra for a beanie. 

The craft’s engines surged, a small hurricane of expensive fuel and arrogance, while the abandoned escorts actually stood there waving. They looked genuinely awestruck, despite being visibly sore and presumably underpaid for a night of serving as human fuck-bag for the "world’s greatest heroes."

Annie rolled her eyes so hard it physically hurt her temples, suppressing a second, more violent gag. She took one last, lingering look at the graphite sketch, that sharp, hauntingly accurate window into her own depression, and shoved it deep into the pocket of her robe. She shook her head, the sheer, kaleidoscopic absurdity of the morning leaving her feeling both incredulous and spiritually gutted.

Black Noir had likely been part of some deranged, private fuck pile with Homelander all night, and his post-sex cooldown involved handing her a custom portrait. It was his first and only meaningful interaction with her in the history of her tenure. 

So fucking weird, she thought. Normalcy didn't just not exist here; it was an endangered species that Vought had hunted to extinction.

She exhaled a long, weary breath that clouded in the freezing air. “Fuck this shit,” she muttered under her breath, the words tasting like copper and fatigue. 

She pivoted on her heel and marched back toward her own bus.

The heavy door slammed shut behind her, the hydraulic hiss sealing out the Virginia dawn and the smell of jet fuel.

Standing in the dim, incense-choked cabin, a final, cold clarity finally settled over Annie. She realized with a spiritual jolt that looking for a light at the end of the tunnel was a fool’s errand. 

There was no light. There was no exit strategy. Her entire life had been retrofitted into a neverending, filthy tunnel, and she was stuck in it.

It was a liberating kind of nihilism. Annie finally understood that nothing really mattered anymore. Whether a meteor decided to end the human civilization, whether Homelander finally lost his shit and flashed his prick on live television, or whether she ended up in the crosshairs of some fucked up Vought conspiracy and died; it was all white noise. The world was a self-sustaining, filthy dumpster fire in reality, and it would continue to burn with or without her wholesome contribution.

So, fuck giving a fuck. 

Chapter Text

Homelander stood with his shoulders squared, eagle heads perched on each, and his arms locked behind his back; positioned just out of the spotlight's reach behind a trembling crew member. He remained a fixed monument of patriotic muscle, chest swollen and chin cocked at that precise, heroic angle that looked like he was continually smelling victory or something. 

From the wings, he listened to Starlight’s voice projecting through the venue, the same old, soul-sucking script from the previous city.

He hadn't been standing there for the last twenty minutes because he enjoyed the speech or the rhythmic drone of religious platitudes. He was there to provide oversight, which was Vought-speak for hovering like a predator to ensure the Richmond Expo didn't dissolve into another puddle of human sludge. After that unfortunate spontaneous combustion at the last stop, the brand couldn't afford a repeat performance. 

Homelander was acutely aware that Starlight was a pathetic novice in the grand scheme of things. In his professional estimation, she was a structural failure waiting to happen, likely to crack under the psychological weight of the tour. So, naturally, he considered it his civic duty to apply even more psychological pressure, ensuring she remained far too terrified of him to ever dream of falling apart in front of cameras.

Apparently, Stan Edgar had spent the morning throwing orders at Ashley, sending her scurrying around like a headless chicken to ensure Homelander personally supervised every mundane detail of the schedule during his breaks. 

It was a tedious waste of his godly potential; yet even he had to begrudgingly admit the Richmond kickoff was a success.

Starlight was performing with an adept, empty perfection, like a veteran. She inhabited the celebrity superhero persona with nauseating accuracy, hitting every warm, teleprompter-fed beat with a Swiss watch timing. She had even taken a rogue detour off-script earlier to lead a spontaneous prayer session before the main speech. It was a calculated bit of theater that Homelander found impressively manipulative.

The low buzz of the wings was briefly interrupted as Ezekiel drifted into his peripheral vision. 

The elastic preacher crossed his arms over his chest, his face settled into that serene, practiced mask of holiness as he watched the stage. 

Then, for a fleeting moment, their eyes met, a brief affirmation of two men who both knew exactly how the sausage was made.

"Homelander," Ezekiel murmured, offering a small, deferential smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Homelander gave him a single, curt nod, more of an acknowledgment. He didn't move an inch, his gaze returning to the stage as he let the silence stretch out just long enough to be uncomfortable.

"Well?" Homelander finally prompted, his voice a low, dangerous vibration. He didn't do small talk. He expected an immediate justification for the interruption.

Ezekiel shrugged, sucking in a crisp, theatrical breath that hissed through his teeth. "The FBI got involved. Forensics already swept the New York venue and collected the samples. Their working theory? The guy was poisoned."

"Poisoned?" Homelander let out a sharp, incredulous scoff, his voice thick with a dark mirth. "Poison sounds a bit personal, don't you think? A bit... intimate. Not to mention the guy literally turned into a human Roman candle. That’s some elite boutique poison right there."

Ezekiel nodded, his expression darkening into that somber 'man of God' mask he wore for the cameras. "Exactly. Hence the Bureau stepping in. They’re smelling a headline." He paused, his gaze drifting back toward the stage where Starlight was currently hitting a crescendo of manufactured hope. He flicked his chin toward her, a subtle gesture of doubt. "You think the new girl is going to pull through the rest of the tour? Or are we looking at a mid-season replacement?"

Homelander drew in a lung expanding breath, his chest straining against the fabric of his suit, before exhaling in a display of dramatic, weary mock exhaustion. "I don’t see why not. She looks perfectly functional to me. I think Ashley was just being—well, Ashley—when she started hyperventilating over a psych eval for her last night."

"I don't know, man." Ezekiel’s shoulders rolled in a cautious, non-committal shrug, his voice dropping an octave. "She looked pretty spiritually compromised to me last night. Fucked up, to put it bluntly.” He gestured at Homelander then, “You practically had to scrape her out of the tent. And word from the hive is she told Seth from Marketing to go piss up a rope this morning when he tried to change the script for the afternoon speech."

The corner of Homelander’s mouth hooked upward into an instantaneous, genuine smirk. There was a flicker of amusement in his blue eyes. "Really, now?” He turned to look at Ezekiel fully this time. “Our little Cornfield Miracle has a spine?"

"Mm-hmm.” Ezekiel nodded, smirking as well. “She skipped the prayer breakfast, refused to eat—"

"Homelander! Sir!"

Ashley’s voice sliced through the casual backstage atmosphere like a dull blade. She'd materialized from the shadows in a frantic blur, her heels clacking a panicked staccato against the concrete floor. 

Her tablet was clutched against her chest, as usual, her eyes wide and darting. "There’s been a... a development. A situation. Sir, you have to fly. Now."

Homelander blinked, momentarily derailed by the sheer velocity of her arrival. 

He looked between the trembling PR executive and the elastic preacher, weighing the disruption. It wasn't that Ashley ever had a "normal" or measured reaction to a crisis; her baseline was a permanent state of nervous collapse. But there was a specific frequency to her voice this time that sounded like a genuine fire was burning.

He gave Ezekiel a sharp, dismissive flick of his chin. It was the silent command of clearing the room, one that the stretchy man took with an easy hint, fading back into the darkness of the wings without a word. 

Once Ezekiel was safely out of earshot, Homelander shifted his weight, adopting a deceptively relaxed stance that didn't quite hide the predatory alertness underneath.

"Yep, Ashley," he prompted, his voice dangerously smooth. "Tell me why I'm leaving my own event."

Ashley was already frantic, her thumbs blurring across the glass of her tablet as she navigated a flood of incoming reports. When she finally looked up, her face was a pale mask of jittery terror, her voice pitched at an odd frequency. 

"There’s been an explosion at the TNT Twins’ residence. Both of them—they’re both confirmed dead, sir. First responders are on the scene, and we’ve already dispatched Queen Maeve, but the situation is... it’s deteriorating. The police and EMTs are falling ill on-site. Projectile vomiting, skyrocketing fevers, skin lesions—"

"Radiation?" Homelander cut her off, a single blonde brow arching toward his hairline. The insinuation hung in the air, heavy and poisonous.

Ashley exhaled a ragged breath, her eyes wide with a very real, unvarnished horror. She gave a sharp, jerky nod. "I’m forwarding the coordinates now. Vought is rushing a specialized hazmat team with Geiger counters to the perimeter, but we need eyes on the ground immediately. Your vision... you can see frequencies far beyond the visible spectrum. You might actually be able to track the fallout before it spreads to the surrounding suburbs."

Homelander stood silent for a moment, a rare frown creasing the expanse of his forehead. He slipped into a brief, contemplative trance, the gears of his ego grinding against the sudden shift in the day’s narrative. He turned his gaze back toward the stage, where the muffled sound of cheering fans evaporated off the open field.

"And my appearances?" he asked, pointing a gloved finger toward the stage. "The schedule is packed through the evening."

"We’ll have Starlight and Ezekiel fill in for you," Ashley prompted, the sheer urgency in her gut leaking into her tone. "She’ll back you up, cover the photo ops, do the heavy lifting with the fans. You need to move, sir." 

She tapped a final command on her screen, and the instant buzz of Homelander’s phone vibrated against his forearm through the material of his glove. "Those are the coordinates."

Releasing one final, petulant sigh, partly for the lost adulation and partly for the inconvenience, Homelander gave her a curt, regal nod. 

He turned and strode away from the backstage shadows, his boots thudding with rhythmic smugness as he moved toward the open field behind the venue.

In truth, a small, dark part of him felt a genuine relief.

A real investigation. A chance to exert actual power in a high-stakes crisis, was a hundred times better than enduring another hour of performative sanctity and stale religious sermons.

He maintained a brisk pace until he was well clear of the venue’s perimeter, ensuring the dense, adoring crowds were far enough away to miss his departure.

He pulled his device from his glove, glancing at the glowing map. The site was roughly a hundred miles north of Richmond, a distance that meant nothing to a man who could outrun sound itself. He realized with a smirk that he could be hovering over the wreckage before the hazmat trucks even cleared the city limits.

Without further ceremony, Homelander flexed his calves and launched. The ground buckled slightly beneath the force of his departure as he tore into the clear, unforgiving blue of the midday sky, leaving the cheers of the Expo far below him.

The flight lasted only a few minutes, a blur of blue and red as Homelander’s gaze swept over the rolling geometry of the Earth from high above the cloud line. He drifted over barren fields, isolated farmhouses, and skeletal patches of forest until he finally crossed the invisible threshold of the explosion’s radius.

Even before his brain could process the visual wreckage, the air itself changed. It hit his palate with a sharp, synthetic taste; the distinct, copper tang of sucking on a 9-volt battery.

Homelander’s face twisted in a flicker of genuine disgust, his nose wrinkling as he tasted the atmosphere. It was a localized, stinging ozone that coated the back of his throat like a layer of industrial film.

He eventually pinpointed the estate, an expensive, isolated sprawl tucked into the upstate countryside, exactly the kind of place a pair of millionaire twins would buy to hide their private depravities. 

The fire had been suppressed, but the charred remains of the residence were still exhaling thick, oily plumes of smoke into the afternoon air. A few yards away, a huddle of first responders were doubled over, their bodies racking with the violent, rhythmic heaves of radiation sickness.

Twenty feet from the blackened remains of the foyer was Queen Maeve, looking about as thrilled to be standing in a crater as anyone else on the Vought payroll. She was pacing a frantic line with one hand planted on her hip, her voice low and sharp as she argued into her phone.

Homelander descended with a slow, predatory grace, his eyes tracking the strange, snow-like particles drifting through the air. It was a macabre mimicry of a winter flurrie, phosphorescent debris from the blast that seemed to glow with a faint, sickly light. 

His gaze raked across the perimeter, his expression locked in a perpetual, disgusted scowl.

He touched down directly in front of Maeve, the soles of his boots crunching into the soot. He spat on the blackened grass, unable to keep the grimace off his face.

"It tastes like a fucking fuse box in here," he complained, his voice vibrating with irritation. "Can’t you smell that? It’s metallic."

Maeve stopped her pacing the second his boots hit the dirt. "Officer, let me call you back," she snapped into the phone, her eyes locked on Homelander with a rare look of desperate relief. "Homelander is on-site. We can actually use him for now."

She ended the call before the person on the other end could offer a rebuttal and slid the device into the  slot of her bracer. She exhaled a breath that looked like it hurt. "Thank fuck you’re here. Come with me. You need to see the primary site before the hazmat team seals it off."

Maeve gestured for him to follow, leading the way into the skeletal remains of what had once been a multi-million dollar foyer. The roof was entirely gone, opening the charred interior to the indifferent blue sky. 

"The blast hit sometime around dawn. The twins were likely dead before they even hit the floor. Most of the surveillance grid within the immediate radius was fried instantly, though crime analytics is trying to scrape anything they can from the scorched servers," she explained, her voice echoing hollowly against the black studs of the walls.

They stepped into the remains of the living room, a space now defined by drifting ash and the rhythmic hiss of smoldering furniture. 

Maeve continued, "I got here a few hours ago when the local crews were still trying to contain the fire. Then the fallout started. Projectile vomiting, violent nausea—men were dropping in the driveway with fevers before they could even stow their gear. I flagged it as a hot zone immediately. We’ve got Geiger counters and recovery teams en route for the remains."

She turned back to gauge his reaction, but Homelander was already elsewhere.

He surveyed the wreckage with a bored, clinical disdain, the bridge of his nose pinched in a permanent wince. He didn't need to step inside to know the place was a write-off. To his eyes, the house wasn't just burnt, it was glowing. He could see the heavy, radioactive isotopes clinging to the debris like a layer of neon mold; a rhythmic, violet-blue pulse that throbbed against his retinas.

But inside the house, he couldn't even hear the wind anymore. The rest of the world had gone quiet, replaced by a high-pitched, localized shriek. It was the microscopic, discordant scream of atoms literally tearing themselves apart in real time.

"Don't touch the walls," Homelander muttered, his voice tight with an underlying current of revulsion. He paced the floor cautiously, his gaze continuously tracking the glowing particles that snowed down from the air. "The whole place is hot. It’s caked in it."

"So, it is a radiation event?" Maeve asked, her tone shifting into a guarded, professional caution.

"Mm-hmm," Homelander hummed distractedly. He sauntered into the adjacent room, a gaming suite, judging by the melted husks of fancy consoles and the warped remains of designer furniture.

This was the epicenter. This was where the TNT Twins had spent their final, agonizing seconds.

The bodies were barely people anymore. More like topographical maps of carbon. Burned to a matte, charcoal black, the remains lay dismembered across the floor like discarded mannequins. The explosion hadn't just killed them simply. It had occurred at such a lethal, close-range proximity that it had bypassed their supe tier durability and simply torn their limbs from their sockets. 

And the moment Homelander bridged the distance to the remains of their corpse, the sensory feedback intensified into a physical assault. A shrill, escalating ringing took hold of his inner ear, an ugly sensation that felt as if someone were scrubbing the soft tissue of his brain with sandpaper.

His wince deepened, the movement subtle but pained, as he massaged the bridge of his nose. His eyes narrowed, beginning to glow with a dull, frustrated crimson; the biological equivalent of a warning light flickering on a dashboard. 

He pivoted his head toward the living room, his voice tight. "Do you hear that, Maeve? That... whining sound?"

"Hear what? It’s quiet," Maeve countered, her boots crunching as she scouted the perimeter for a physical source of the fallout.

Homelander rolled his eyes, a flash of genuine irritation breaking through his professional mask. 

"It's not quiet," he snapped, his voice dropping into a low frequency register. He inhaled a sharp breath and immediately recoiled, the taste of ionized copper coating his tongue like a thick, metallic sludge. "The air is fucking wrong. It’s heavy. It’s like standing inside a microwave."

He looked upward, his X-ray vision activating as it scanned through the charred remains of the rafters and insulation. There were grainy, entropic flickers of decay clinging to every surface. "Yep, there’s definitely a lot of radiation here. It’s sticky for sure... filthier."

Before Maeve could open her mouth, Homelander caught a thought that seemed to grab his immediate attention. He held up a single finger, a silent shut up and stay put, before he pivoted and marched out of the wreckage.

Maeve didn't argue; she was too tired to care. She took one last, dry look at the charcoal remains in the gaming room and followed him out.

"What’s going on? Where are you going?" she called out, her heels digging into the soot stained grass.

Homelander didn’t offer the courtesy of an immediate response. He marched straight toward the dense treeline of the woods a few dozen yards behind the estate, his head swiveling with predatory intent. 

His eyes were a blur of motion, simultaneously scanning the stagnant air, the scorched bark of the oaks, and the forest floor. 

Finally, his gaze locked onto a specific patch of shadows. He stopped dead, gesturing with a lazy, arrogant wave for Maeve to join him.

When Maeve finally caught her breath and pulled up beside him, her eyes followed his line of sight. The air left her lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. 

"Holy shit," she murmured, her voice barely a sound.

The woods had transformed into a silent necropolis. Within this specific blast radius, nature had been summarily executed. Dozens of small animal corpses, squirrels, rabbits, and songbirds, lay scattered across the leaf litter. They were scorched dead, their fur and feathers singed as if they had been caught in a localized sun.

Homelander let out a dry, humorless chuckle, his face turning toward her with a look of dark satisfaction. "Mhm. That’s what I was talking about. They’re all contaminated."

"But… what exactly were the twins playing at? How did a pair of fossils even get their hands on weapons-grade radioactive material?" Maeve asked, a deep frown creasing her forehead as she surveyed the ecological graveyard. "Is it possible they were just trying to trigger one of their ‘joyful explosions’ and accidentally tapped into a local radioactive source?"

Homelander let out a sharp, dismissive sputter, his shoulders rolling in a heavy shrug. 

"No fucking clue, but I can tell you there isn't a natural source within five miles of this blast radius. Whatever triggered this wasn't an accident.” He said, already moving, “The source was localized, concentrated, and—judging by the lack of a physical core, it was removed long before the first responders arrived."

He didn't wait for Maeve to process the implication, already stalking away from the woods. Once he reached the front lawn, Homelander knelt. 

He held his hand steady, fingers hovering barely an inch above a splintered slab of drywall that had been hurled into the grass by the force of the blast. He didn't make physical contact; he didn't need to. He could still feel the raw, invisible heat radiating off the molecular decay, a shimmering vibration that hummed against his skin.

Maeve had walked over in the meantime, pausing a step behind him, waiting for his ongoing verdict. 

"Could be Cesium-137," he muttered, his pupils dilating as his vision shifted into a microscopic zoom, dissecting the very dust motes dancing in the air. "It’s literally caked into the dust. Every breath you take in here is like swallowing a handful of needles." He turned his head, looking back at Maeve with a rare, chilling sincerity. "You should probably step back, and have them quarantine the entire county if they have to."

Maeve grimaced, her jaw set in a stubborn line. She didn't budge, her hands landing firmly on her hips as she stared down the invisible threat. "I’m a supe, John. My cells don't exactly fold under a little bit of fallout. I've handled worse."

"Not this kind," Homelander countered immediately, rising to his full height and dusting off his gloves with a look of pure disgust. "This isn't some sloppy power plant leak or a cracked cooling pipe. This is... very, very concentrated. Seems aimed."

Maeve exhaled a loud, ragged breath, her head shaking in a mix of exhaustion and dawning dread. She threw her hands up in a gesture of total frustration, the weight of the mystery finally starting to crack her stoic exterior. 

"Well, fucking hell knows what happened here then. If it was aimed, we're not looking at an accident anymore. It’d be a fucking execution."

Before Homelander could answer, the Vought CBRN units rolled in. 

A convoy of reinforced SUVs and lead-lined vans rumbled onto the property, followed by a fleet of ambulances. Their sirens were silenced, but their strobing lights threw a rhythmic, nauseating pulse against the charred trees.

The containment teams emerged like yellow ghosts, their bulky hazmat suits crinkling as they moved with a practiced, robotic efficiency. Their heavy boots crunched through the ash of what had once been a designer living room. 

Nearby, medical staff in full PPE scrambled to stabilize the first responders, local cops and firemen who were already losing the fight with their own stomach linings.

Four technicians lugged heavy, lead-lined sarcophagi toward the house, industrial boxes designed to house whatever was left of the TNT Twins.

"Homelander. Queen Maeve," several of them grunted, their voices muffled and distorted by their respirators as they filed past the two Supes.

Maeve gave them a curt, impatient nod, her hand still planted to her hip. "It’s hot and sticky. Radioactive as hell. Homelander just called it—he thinks we’re looking at Cesium-137. You might want to get a reading before your suits start melting."

One of the lead technicians dropped to a knee, his movements hindered by the layers of yellow polymer. He unzipped an equipment bag and pulled out an identiFINDER, with Maeve looming over his shoulder, watching with guarded intensity, while Homelander remained several feet back, his posture rigid and eyes in the air. 

The moment the device was powered on, it didn't just emit a standard click. It let out a flat, panicked wail, a digital shriek that spiked into a continuous, piercing alarm as the tech edged closer to the epicenter of the blast. 

The sound was a physical needle to Homelander’s eardrums. He winced again, his jaw tightening as the low grade ringing in his head harmonized with the device's scream. 

Between the noise, the persistent metallic taste on his tongue, and the ruin of his afternoon schedule, his mood had soured into something truly volatile by now.

"Sir, we need to—we really need to back up," the technician’s voice came through thin and tinny, trembling with a very rational fear. He held the device up with a shaky hand, the screen strobing with aggressive, crimson digits: 52.4 Sv/h.

Homelander didn't bother glancing at the readout. He was too busy staring at the way the air seemed to warp over the ruins; the fancy violet-bluish shimmer of entropic energy that looked like a bruise on reality itself.

"Talk to me, man," Homelander said, his tone distracted yet alert. "What is your little box screaming about?"

"It... it's off the charts, sir. We’re at fifty-two Sieverts per hour," the tech stammered, his breath catching in his throat behind his mask. "To put that in perspective... a standard chest X-ray is about 0.1 millisieverts. At this level, a normal human would absorb a lethal dose just by standing where you are for ten minutes. Your internal organs would literally begin to liquefy by the time you sat down for lunch."

Maeve sighed, her arms folding over her chest. She didn't even look at the technician, her gaze fixed instead on a random splinter of the doorframe. 

"Good thing we don't eat lunch, then," she dryly remarked.

The corner of Homelander’s mouth twitched. He let out a soft chuckle; a rare, genuine sound of amusement. It was a bleak and untimely bit of gallows humor, but it hit the mark perfectly.

The technician, however, wasn't sharing the laugh. 

His heart rate was audible to Homelander, a frantic, fluttering bird trapped in a yellow polymer cage, as his brain ran a thousand different simulations of how a house simply turns into a hotzone. 

"Have you... have you located a primary source?" he stammered, the sensor in his hand continuing its one-note death rattle. "A casing? Shell fragments? Anything?"

"That’s the thing," Homelander said, his shoulders rising in a lazy shrug. He shot a momentary, glowing glare at the device in the tech's hand, wishing he could melt the noise out of existence. "There’s no lead casing. No shrapnel. No 'bomb' to speak of. But the air itself is just... ionized. It’s like a sun went off in the living room and then just... I don’t know, walked away."

Maeve turned her head toward him, her brow furrowing with a sudden, sharp realization. 

"You were within a hundred-mile radius during the explosion," she noted, her voice dropping into a more clinical tone. "The seismic shift alone should have alerted you. You should’ve heard it, right? A blast this hot has a distinct acoustic signature."

Homelander’s mouth parted slightly, his eyes suddenly darting between the technician’s visor and Maeve’s expectant stare. For a moment, the man who was supposed to know everything was uncharacteristically silent.

Maeve was technically right. With his hearing, he should have tracked the sound across three counties; it should have been a thunderclap that shook him awake. But the reality was far less heroic. 

Around the time the twins were being vaporized, he had been deep in a post-shagging coma. 

The sheer, bone deep exhaustion from the previous night’s mobile orgy. A hedonistic sex marathon... that had left him more spent than a twelve-hour supersonic sprint against the jet stream; had rendered him deaf to the world. 

He’d lost count of the bodies he’d cycled through and how many times he ejaculated somewhere around 3:00 AM. His nervous system had simply checked out.

Homelander let out a shallow, slightly sheepish huff, shaking his head with a dismissive finality that he hoped looked like boredom rather than a cover-up. 

"Nope. Not really. Heard absolutely nothing," he lied, punctuating the statement with an effortless shrug.

The technician and Maeve exchanged a brief look behind him, a silent communication of 'that’s impossible,' though neither was suicidal enough to say it out loud.

"Right. Well," Maeve sighed, moving back into command mode. "We need to widen the quarantine perimeter immediately and find this nuclear ghost that did this." She gestured with a sharp tilt of her head toward the treeline. "And we’ve got a wildlife graveyard in the woods. Every bird and squirrel for half a mile is contaminated. It’s a freaking ecological blackout."

Homelander nodded alongside. “You might wanna evacuate the surrounding—" 

The vibration of his phone thrummed against his forearm, within his right glove, cutting him off mid-sentence. His attention snagged instantly, brow twitching with slight annoyance of being paged by a phone call.

"Excuse me," he muttered to the duo and stepped away, the singed grass crunching beneath his boots, and pulled the device free.

His eyebrows shot up as the name Starlight glared back at him from the screen. 

It was an anomaly in the Vought food chain. Calls to his personal line were a curated privilege. Usually, it was Maeve or Madelyn who were allowed to call him directly, or one of the lesser Seven members he’d personally dispatched on a specific, degrading side quest. Noir, of course, remained a silent phantom of text bubbles and emojis. 

So, to have the "Dorothy of Iowa", the girl who was still scrubbing the glitter out of her costume, dialing him directly was a bold, borderline suicidal move.

He swiped the screen with a gloved thumb and pressed the phone to his ear. "Starlight," he said, his voice a flat, unreadable monotone that dared her to waste his time.

"Hi, Homelander," she began, her voice breathless and the cadence entirely urgent. "Sorry for the direct line. I know you’re handling an emergency off-site, but you need to be back at the venue immediately. It’s happening again.” She said, “We’ve had at least a dozen spontaneous combustions, exactly like the New York incident. Psalm Siren... she literally burned out and exploded in the air."

Even through the digital distortion, Homelander could hear the frantic energy in her voice, yet there was a new, hardened edge to her. She was concerned, sure, but she wasn't falling apart. 

"Ashley is currently on the phone with Mr. Edgar. Can you get here? Now?" Starlight added, her tone dead serious. 

Homelander blinked, a rare moment of genuine, stunned silence washing over him. 

He felt a dull discomfort blooming behind his eyes as he ran the grim math of the last twelve hours: a localized nuclear execution of two legacy Supes, followed by a mass casualty combustion event at a high-profile religious expo. And that wasn't even counting the lone combustion death from yesterday’s New York show. The sudden spike in violent, speedy deaths was reaching a statistical impossibility.

"Hello? Homelander? Are you still there?" Starlight’s voice prodded him, sharp and insistent, dragging him back from the internal abyss of his own calculations.

Homelander released a weary sigh. It was the sound of realizing that even Vought’s best lawyers couldn't bury such absurd deaths within twenty-four hours. 

"Right. I’ll be there in a—"

His sentence fractured mid-thought as his gaze drifted past the technician to Maeve, who was currently carrying a burned, irradiated hunk of debris with her bare hands, assisting the CBRN team as if she were moving furniture in a penthouse.

"Hang on a second," he barked into the phone, not waiting for Starlight’s response before hollering across the lawn. "Hey! Don’t touch those without protection, woman! You're literally marinating in isotopes!"

"I’m fine!" Maeve hollered back, her voice dripping with her trademark brand of nihilistic stoicism. She didn't even look up, appearing as unbothered as a person could be while standing in a literal death zone.

Homelander rolled his eyes hard, a sharp huff of genuine frustration escaping his nostrils. 

He brought the phone back to his ear, his tone shifting into something distracted and clipped. "You know what, Starlight—handle it. You wanted to be a hero, right? Just keep the lid on the pressure cooker until I get there. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Clear?"

"But it’s a total bloodbath over here! People are trampling each other, and the press is already swarming the gates!" Starlight’s voice rose an octave, thick with incredulity. "You could literally fly between these two locations in under ten minutes. Are you seriously telling me you won't—"

"Just—" Homelander cut her off, his patience finally snapping like a dry twig. He squeezed his eyes shut for a heartbeat, the low-grade ringing in his ears not really helping the moment. "Handle it. If you’re half as competent as your marketing bio claims, you’ll survive. Bye."

He killed the connection before the new girl could squeeze in another syllable of logic. The sheer audacity of the girl, thinking she was important enough to lecture him on his travel schedule, was the rancid cherry on top of a very unpleasant day. 

If she managed to stabilize the Richmond Expo, fine; if she failed and the whole thing burned to the ground, it would be the perfect bureaucratic excuse to kick her off the team and send her back to whatever cornfield she’d crawled out of.

With a final, agitated growl, Homelander stalked over to Maeve, his phone still gripped in his hand. He stepped directly into her personal space, his stance firm and unyielding. 

"You need to get the hell out of here and hit a decontamination shower. Now," he commanded, his voice vibrating with a rare, protective authority. "You’ve had enough exposure to melt a normal person’s DNA twice over. Okay?"

Maeve ignored him, dropping the second batch of sealed forensic containers into the back of a lead-lined van. Her jaw was set, her eyes empty. She didn't care about his orders, and she certainly didn't care about Vought’s safety protocols. 

She'd seen the human responders, men with families and mortgage payments, vomiting into the dirt while they did their jobs. And a dormant, dusty part of her soul had sparked to life at the sight. 

It wasn't that she "loved" humanity; that bridge had burned a long time ago. But at a crime scene this horrific, even a jaded queen felt the need to hold the line. It wasn't every day you stood at the epicenter of a nuclear ghost story, and she wasn't leaving until the job was done.

"I think I’m going to personally escort the vehicles, see what the lab folks have to say about all this," Maeve countered, her voice dropping into a conversational lilt that purposely ignored Homelander’s escalating rigidity.

"No, you’re not," Homelander said, the simplicity of his tone carrying an edge of finality. 

He reached out, his gloved hand clamping firmly around her wrist. He tugged her along as he moved, dragging her away from the debris. "Didn’t you hear a word I said? You’re going to wash up. You’re going to decontaminate. Unless your goal for the evening is to start irradiating every surface in the Tower, from the lobby to the fucking observation deck."

Maeve huffed, a sharp sound of indignation as she was being physically dragged away from the crime scene. She planted her heels for a brief, stubborn second. 

"And what about the sequence of custody? Who’s going to oversee the paperwork and the forensics? These people are already dropping like flies," she demanded, gesturing toward the swaying, pale faced technicians.

Homelander stopped dead in his tracks. 

He pivoted and let go of her wrist, leaning into her personal space until his face was inches from hers, a proximity that would have petrified any other living creature. 

"Who the fuck cares about these people?" he hissed, his teeth gritting in a display of sincere fury.

There was no theater in his eyes now. It was a rare, naked glimpse into his worldview: the 'mud people' surrounding them were nothing more than disposable biological units. 

If there was a shred of genuine concern in his orders, it was reserved exclusively for his supe coven he considered his only peers. Even while he was fuming, he was still possessive of Maeve. He didn't want one of his own people getting dirty handling a mess this human and pathetic.

"Listen to me," he whispered, his voice dropping into a low, predatory register that bypassed the ears of the surrounding crews and drilled directly into her skull. "You may be durable, and yes—you’ll likely recover from the exposure without ever really noticing anything wrong. But I will not have you contaminating our establishments. I will not have you risking your life for menial, bureaucratic shit that these worthless humans are fucking paid to handle. Do you understand?"

He didn't move, his breath hot against her forehead as he enforced the boundary of his command. "I’m having them send Tek Knight for the paperwork and the forensic oversight. He loves a good mystery and he’s obsessed with the details. Once he’s on-site, I’m flying us both out of here for a chemical scrub. And I still have to get back to that godforsaken expo before Starlight burns the place down. Is that clear?"

Maeve held his gaze for a long, defiant second, her eyes searching the cold blue of his pupils. 

Eventually, the resistance broke, and she exhaled a defeated, uneven sigh, her eyes rolling toward the sky.

"Clear," she spat, the word forced through her teeth against every instinct of her autonomy. She gave a single, begrudging nod.

"Good," Homelander replied. He didn't gloat, though. Instead, his face remained dead-serious, underscored by a rare, almost microscopic sliver of genuine concern for Maeve. For a fleeting moment, he wasn't the self-loving jerk; but the patriarch of a very small, very dysfunctional family that was the Seven. 

He stepped back, the tension in his shoulders finally beginning to bleed out into a tired exhale.

His eyes performed one final, sweeping scan of the perimeter, tracking the shimmer of the fallout as it clung to the blackened studs of the house like a living shadow. 

He thumbed his phone unlock, navigating the encrypted Vought channels to ping the Tower. He needed Tek Knight on-site immediately to start digging through the paperwork. The rest of the Seven were busy with movie shoots or branding deals, and he had zero interest in letting any more of his high value assets get irradiated. After all, you didn't keep a collection just to let it remain unused.

Besides, the situation in Richmond was starting to itch at the back of his mind. Dozens of spontaneous combustion cases weren't just a tragedy, they were a PR apocalypse and a pile of pending class-action lawsuits. Having two mass casualty events drop within the same twelve-hour window was just the ultimate statistical middle finger to the Seven’s brand.

He tucked the phone back into his glove, his jaw setting as he looked toward the horizon. Suddenly, he caught himself hoping, actually hoping, that Starlight had managed to put a lid on the panic there.

Ashley hadn’t called to scream in his ear yet, which he took as a win. In Vought’s world, silence was the only metric for success during a crisis like this. If the new girl hadn't let the venue burn to the ground by now, she might actually be worth that hideous all-covering suit she loved wearing.

——

If this hadn't been Annie’s bajillionth rodeo with human misery and corporate trauma within the last six weeks, she likely would have suffered a neurological collapse and slipped into a very comfortable coma by now.

It was supposed to be an ordinary Tuesday on the Light of The World tour. After spending the previous night drowning in a cocktail of despair for that fan in New York and the fresh, ugly realization that Alex was a genuine monster in the flesh, Annie had foolishly convinced herself that the universe might grant her a brief ceasefire. 

She'd relied on the odds. Surely the same brand of hyper violent tragedy wouldn't hit the same PR tour twice in twenty-four hours. It was a comforting theory, right up until the late afternoon.

Annie had just finished her own scripted sermon, stepping off the stage to the sound of roaring applause after introducing Psalm Siren’s highly anticipated gospel set. The transition was smooth and professional.

By the third song, the atmosphere was chummy with manufactured religious fervor. Psalm Siren was deep into a crescendo, her massive, feathered supe wings spread wide in a display of avian majesty while the crowd swayed in a rhythmic, glassy eyed trance. 

Annie watched from the darkness of the stage wing, her arms crossed as she leaned against a flight case. 

Everything seemed perfectly on brand until, mid-chorus, the singer began to emit a soft, bioluminescent pulse. Faint blue veins became visible beneath her skin, tracing a glowing roadmap across her arms, throat, and collarbone.

For the record, glowing was absolutely not on Psalm Siren’s list of super abilities. She had a voice that could shatter reinforced glass and a good enough physical durability, but she wasn't a biological lightbulb like Annie. 

The crowd, naturally assuming this was a high budget special effect designed to simulate divine favor, cheered with renewed intensity. Even Annie felt a brief flicker of doubt, wondering if Marketing had slipped some LEDs into the singer's costume without telling the rest of the team.

The illusion broke when the singing stopped. 

Psalm Siren’s voice died in her throat, replaced by a choked hitch. Her wings began to flap with a violent, asymmetrical desperation as she drifted several feet off the stage floor, her body trembling with a sudden, localized palsy. 

The grunts of effort quickly spiraled into guttural wails of agony while she thrashed in mid-air. Her wings beat the stage lights with enough force to send sparks flying into the front row.

The stadium erupted into a chaotic soup of shocked gasps and confused murmurs. Then the steam arrived. It didn't just rise off her skin, it hissed out of her open mouth and tear ducts in thick, scalding plumes.

Annie had already moved to the very edge of the wing, her hand gripping the cold metal of a support beam as the horrifying realization set in. She didn't need a medical degree to diagnose the situation. She’d seen this exact sequence of biological failure just twenty-four hours ago in New York. The only difference was that this time, the victim was a supe and at a much higher boiling point.

Just when Annie thought the day couldn't get any more visceral, the nightmare expanded. 

It wasn't just the supe in the air anymore. Like a coordinated biological glitch, a dozen pockets of the audience began to flicker. A handful of fans started grunting in the sea of believers, their skin pulsing with that same unauthorized, neon blue glow. And the crowd had already started peeling away in a messy, frantic wave; desperate to put distance between themselves and the human glow-sticks among them.

Then, Psalm Siren reached her boiling point. 

High above the stage, her skin charcoaled in a blink. It was a flash-fried combustion that disintegrated her bones instantaneously. What was left of Vought’s premiere gospel singer rained down over the front rows as a steaming slurry of white hot ash and liquefied viscera.

The screams that followed were the starter pistol for a full blown stampede. As the panic hit a fever pitch, the similarly affected fans on the ground hit their own boiling points. 

One by one, their grunts escalated into pained shrieks before they popped like over-pressurized valves. Hissing chunks of charred flesh blew outward, bathing the lucky survivors with a rain of gore. 

It was majestically horrifying, the kind of biblical retribution the people in this venue usually only paid to hear about.

Annie didn't hesitate, jumping into the fray alongside the security detail to try and funnel the chaos toward the exits. But you can’t reason with a panicked herd. Humans are remarkably selfish when they think they’re being hunted by the invisible. It was every man for himself as boots crunched down on anyone slow enough to trip. 

Ezekiel had grabbed a microphone, his voice booming over the speakers in a desperate bid for order, but he might as well have been whispering into a hurricane. Nobody was listening to a man in spandex while their neighbors were turning into confetti.

In the wings, Ashley Barrett was a vibrating mess of cortisol, frantically dialing the authorities. The on-site police were already losing the battle, screaming into their radios for every backup unit in the tri-state area. 

It was only after she’d hit 'end' on the emergency services that Ashley realized, with a visible spike of terror, that Stan Edgar should have been her first call.

For over an hour, the open field was a theater of pure, compromised mayhem. The authorities were hopelessly outnumbered by a crowd that had traveled from three different states just to witness a miracle and found a massacre instead. 

And because it was the twenty-first century, the horror didn't stay in Richmond. The digital world was watching within minutes because teenagers with steady hands and zero survival instincts were already uploading live TikToks, broadcasting the pandemonium of thousands to a global audience before the bodies had even finished cooling.

Feeling helpless and dangerously out of her depth, Annie had eventually reached for the one person the Vought handbook claimed was the solution to every earthly problem. 

She’d called Homelander, while her heart hammered against her ribcage, only to be met with a verbal shrug. He hadn't even offered her a single tactical advice. He’d simply told her to "handle it," suggesting that if even half of her marketing bio were true, Starlight shouldn’t need her hand held.

The dismissal stung like a chemical burn. This wasn't some difficult contract negotiation or a stiff upper lip charity gala. Dozens of people had just been vaporized in a display of spontaneous gore, and the survivors were currently crushing each other's ribcages in a blind panic. How was a girl from Des Moines supposed to "handle" a local apocalypse? 

It was a nightmare of oncoming class-action lawsuits and permanent brand stigma, a situation that required a corporate sociopath like Homelander, not a hero. 

Annie simply wasn't trained for the logistics of mass casualty management, yet the dial tone in her ear made the reality clear: stabilize the ship, or go down with it.

Staring at the dead screen of her phone, Annie realized the safety net had been retracted. If she didn't seize control of the narrative within the next thirty minutes, she wasn't just failing the crowd, she was effectively handing in her resignation to a man whose definition of “severance package” was entirely different than the rest.

So she marched back onto the stage, nearly tripping over a scorched piece of Psalm Siren’s dress, and wrenched the microphone from Ezekiel’s trembling hand. The feedback shrieked over the field, momentarily cutting through the cacophony of the stampede. Annie tried her best to control the crowd with the Starlight brand of wholesome, unbreakable calm. She fed them the first of many necessary lies, promising that Vought had already isolated the anomaly and was currently dissecting the cause in a lab.

But the crowd was still a panicked animal, trapped by the very security barricades meant to protect them. 

To break the panic fever, Annie leaned into her specialty. She raised a palm, letting a rhythmic golden pulse emanate from her skin; a visual lullaby to pull their eyes away from the exits. With a new, steely authority, she ordered them to form lines, promising to personally lead them out of the dark.

Miraculously, the herd listened. The sun had dipped below the horizon by then, bathing the Virginia landscape in a bruised, dark blue gloom. The survivors finally followed the glowing beacons of her hands like moths to a porch light. 

They moved in eerie, silent rows, stepping over discarded shoes and dropped Bibles, while behind them, the authorities finally moved in. The recovery teams began the grim work of scraping the steaming sludges of the dead into industrial containment units.

Once the stadium was somewhat cleared and the immediate panic had subsided, the Vought medical teams set up a makeshift triage. They processed the guests with a high speed car wash efficiency, checking vitals and scrubbing anyone who had been unlucky enough to be standing in the splash zone of the combusted victims. Once they were deemed biologically stable and legally quiet, they were funneled through the barricades and out into the night.

Annie, meanwhile, had drifted back toward the center of the field. The grass was a graveyard of lost shoes, dropped cell phones, and flattened bibles and brochures. She moved between the bodies left behind by the stampede, helping medics lift the injured onto stretchers and, more often than she cared to count, helping carry the ones who weren't breathing anymore.

It was a staggeringly heavy experience, a massive upgrade in horror from the day before, and the day before that. 

At this point, trauma had become the gift that just kept on giving, a relentless loop of misery with no off switch. But strangely, Annie wasn't breaking today. Something inside her had already snapped earlier that morning when she’d watched Homelander’s private bus having been turned into a mobile orgy.

Her entire life, she had clung to the idea that being good was a choice you made regardless of the world around you. She’d really believed that her empathy was a virtuous quality. But seeing the God of the skies and his inner circle celebrating with a fuck fest while she sat alone with her guilt had killed that sentiment. 

The world was clearly several steps ahead of her while she was left holding the psychological bill.

If the gods didn't care, why on earth should she?

She looked up at a giant banner of Jesus, portrayed as the OG Supe, a narrative Vought had been hammering into the public's skull for nearly a century. She wondered if every Sunday school lesson she'd ever attended was just another clever marketing campaign. She wondered if the "First Supe" was as much of a manufactured lie as the modern ones. 

She tried to rationalize it, thinking that maybe Jesus had actually managed to be a decent person simply because Vought hadn't been around to manage his PR or sell his bathwater back then.

Regardless of the history, the version of faith Annie had carried since childhood was gone. It wasn't even a flickering candle anymore. It had become a cold, empty room.

She just didn't have any more "fucks" left to give. 

But then the second wave of human combustion had ignited today, and Annie found herself right back in the thick of it. She tried to lean into her new nihilism, but her muscles wouldn't cooperate. She simply wasn't built to stand by and watch people melt. So, she forced herself to care, dragging her exhaustion across the field to help in any way that didn't involve soundless screaming.

By the time the sky had turned into a dark, featureless gloom and the last of Psalm Siren and a few others’ sludge had been vacuumed into Vought containers, the situation was finally under control.

Annie retreated to the massive command tent where the corporate staff had been ordered to hunker down. 

The air inside the tent was dense with the smell of expensive perfume and cheap anxiety.

On a row of monitors, Stan Edgar was already delivering a live press statement. He looked as unshakeable as a mountain, smoothly announcing that Vought was "deeply saddened" and that the Light of the World tour was officially on hold until they had answers for today’s "tragic anomalies." It was a masterpiece of corporate acting. You’d almost think he actually viewed the victims as people rather than a dip in the quarterly earnings.

Annie watched the broadcast with the rest of the shell-shocked crew, feeling a wave of relief that the tour was finally dead.

The wait in the tent was slow and heavy, but the silence ended up being surprisingly useful. In a secluded corner, away from the hovering PR folks, a young Asian intern was hunched over his phone, whispering frantically into a TikTok live-stream. He was busy spinning his own conspiracy theories to three thousand bored teenagers, but one phrase caught Annie’s ear: "The bottled stuff."

He was telling his followers that he and a friend had noticed a pattern, a specific drink that seemed to be the common denominator among the casualties.

So Annie brazenly stepped into his personal space, disrupting his exclusive short. She didn't even ask for his permission. She just tapped the screen to kill the session and looked at the kid with an expression that said she wasn't in the mood for a debate. 

Terrified, the intern started talking almost instantly. His story was the first thing all day that didn't sound like it had been through a Vought legal filter. His name was Jimin, by the way. 

Apparently, Jimin had pulled some strings to get a group ticket deal for his friends. Three of them had gone all-in, signing up for the morning rebaptismal workshop hosted by Ezekiel and, in a rare show of corporate branding, Homelander himself. It was a top tier, Vought-exclusive experience. Homelander had personally rebaptized them as an ordained minister at Samaritan's Embrace. 

As a parting gift for their devotion, the attendees had been handed snack boxes. And inside those boxes was a bottled drink, a neon pink soda. It was a limited run item. Nobody else at the expo, not even the VIPs in the front row, had been given one.

Two of Jimin’s friends from that workshop were currently being scraped into Bio-Hazard bins. The third guy, who had luckily not consumed the beverage, was still very much in one piece. The math was simple and terrifying. Everyone who likely drank the pink soda had turned into a human firework.

Annie didn't waste another second after that. She grabbed Jimin by the elbow, ignoring his stuttered protests, and marched him out of the tent toward the lines of survivors she’d organized earlier.

The conversation with the third friend, a guy who looked like he’d just seen the end of the world, confirmed the worst. He’d spent the morning in that workshop, and he recognized the victims. He confirmed that every single person who had spontaneously ignited had been holding that pink bottle. Those who hadn’t received the drink or saved it for later were the only ones still standing.

Annie then pulled out her phone, her fingers flying across the screen as she bypassed the usual security tiers to access the guest database and the surveillance footage for the workshop. Ironically, that was really the easiest investigative part she’d done today compared to everything else. Within minutes, she was cross-referencing names with the casualty reports. And the data didn't lie.

Then she hit the final name on the workshop roster: Psalm Siren. Her parents, desperate for a piece of the Vought sanctioned divinity, had dragged her to the morning workshop to be rebaptized by Homelander’s own hands. She’d been a good daughter. She’d sat through the ceremony, opened her snack box, and drank that pink soda.

Annie stared at the screen, the blue light reflecting in her eyes. It was clearly a targeted delivery system. It was a solid lead, the kind of smoking gun that usually ended with a dramatic arrest in a better version of reality. 

But Annie’s makeshift investigation hit a brickwall before she could even talk to Ezekiel, the person she’d deemed fit to talk about this in Homelander’s absence. 

She’d just tracked the man at the field, but the press, always persistent like a skin disease, had managed to breach the perimeter. 

They ambushed Starlight and Ezekiel in the open field, their microphones thrust into the supes’ faces. The air then swiftly transformed into a charged mess of shouting questions: Was Vought responsible? Were the deaths contagious? Was it a virus?

Under the mental pressure, Annie went off-script. Without checking in with Ashley or waiting for a Vought approved line, she let the raw data leak out. She told the press she’d been conducting an on-site inquiry and confirmed a 100% overlap between the casualties and the morning’s Rebirth Workshop. She even floated a possible chemical reaction theory.

Of course, the reporters smelled blood instantly. A wave of follow-up questions crashed over her, but before Annie could mention the beverage in the snack boxes, Ezekiel saw an opening. And he wasn’t about to let a possible targeted "chemical glitch" ruin a perfectly good narrative of divine intervention. 

He jumped into the spotlight, maintaining that sanctimonious wisdom mask as he said these exact words on camera:

“We saw over fifty people go through the rebaptismal fonts today. It was a beautiful, unified display of faith. But, it’s interesting to note that every single casualty was part of the Rebirth Workshop, as Starlight has just told you. It seems their systems were under some immense... internal stress. Perhaps some burdens are too heavy for the flesh to carry. It’s a tragedy, yes, but for the rest of you, the ones still standing, your strength is a testament to your path.”

It was a scandalous bit of PR theater, coated in a thin layer of hopeful horseshit. Neither Annie nor the reporters were slow enough to miss the subtext.

Ezekiel wasn't just comforting the survivors, he was effectively labeling the dead. He was insinuating that the victims hadn't succumbed to a toxin, but to their own unworthiness. 

In the world according to Ezekiel, if you exploded after that rebaptizing, it was probably because your soul was too heavy with sin to make it through the Vought sanctioned gate of redemption. It was a horrific, victim-blaming magisterry, and it was exactly the kind of "Act of God" spin that kept the lawyers away. It was pure gaslighting on a global scale.

To Annie’s absolute horror, the reporters didn’t push back or ask for a toxicology report after that.  

They just nodded along with glassy eyes like they were sitting in a Sunday morning pews. Most of the local press were deeply religious themselves, and they looked at Ezekiel like he was a direct messenger from God. To them, if Ezekiel said these people exploded because of "internal burdens," then that was the gospel truth.

It was a total circus. Annie watched, nauseated, as the journalists scrambled to write down notes about "spiritual unworthiness" as if it were a scientific fact. She was horrified by how fast the story changed from a corporate disaster to a divine judgment.

But the truly fucked-up part was that the bullshit narrative actually worked among the masses. The panicked crowd, the ones who hadn't been in the workshop, suddenly started to calm down. A wave of twisted, smug relief washed over the field. They hadn't been in the Rebirth Workshop group, which meant they were safe.

They'd already developed opinions, that they were the worthy ones who had passed God’s sudden, explosive test.

It turned out to be a PR miracle for Vought. 

Because Starlight had been the one to confirm the workshop connection, the public was hailing her as a voice of reason. She’d given the anxious country a reasonable answer that didn't blame Vought's incompetence. 

Within the hour, the Sinner’s Combustion theory exploded across the internet. 

And the world didn't just accept it, it sighed in relief. There were a few people online screaming about cover-ups and basic biology, but they were just tiny voices drowned out by a sea of "God is just."

It was ridiculous. The whole world had been drowning in blind faith like this for centuries, and Annie was finally getting to see the reality behind the mass faith. 

Maybe Homelander was right yesterday; she thought. It really was like they were high on hope. 

——

It was well past midnight now, and the first day of the Richmond expo was finally over. The authorities were still out on the grass with tweezers and vacuums, collecting the last tiny pieces of the victims. 

Small groups of Vought crew members were huddled together across the field, looking like survivors of a shipwreck as they tried to console each other. 

Nearby, Ashley was back on her phone with Stan Edgar, her voice a zealous sound as she explained how they’d turned a massacre into a religious victory.

And away from the groups, Annie was pacing a tight line in the dirt, mentally auditing the day's wreckage. She was cataloging the survivors from the workshop and that pink soda that had apparently turned thirteen people into human sparklers.

The ivory-gold suit was a wreck, streaked with soot and industrial grime. Her boots were caked in mud, her hair was a matted disaster, and a frown was permanently carved on her face.

"Starlight!" a voice called through the dark.

Annie skidded to a halt, her heels digging into the turf as she turned toward the staff member.

"Homelander’s back. He’s in the coach," the girl hollered, waving her hand toward the far edge of the lot.

Annie scoffed, the sound sharp and bitter. "Oh, thank fucking God," she muttered under her breath, low enough only for the ghosts of the victims to hear. She flashed a quick, media trained nod to the staffer. "Thank you!" she shouted back, already pivoting toward the exit.

The leader of the Seven had promised to be here in a couple of hours, by the way. It had been nearly eight. 

In those eight hours, Annie’s world had done a complete 180-degree flip into a nightmare, and now he decided to show up? He was probably just looking for a place to nap or host another round of his mobile orgy.

Annie wasn't just tired at this point, she was buzzing with a very specific kind of anger and disappointment. They were supposed to be the Seven. The absolute bare minimum of the job was simply showing up, and Homelander didn't even have that much grace in him.

She stomped across the field, her boots thudding against the ground as she headed for his luxury bus parked in the furthest, most secluded corner behind the venue. 

She stopped at the heavy door, closed her eyes, and took a breath so deep it made her lungs ache. She exhaled slowly, trying to shed the "I want to punch a wall" energy, though the frown stayed firmly in place.

She gave the door a polite, professional knock.

"Come in," Homelander’s voice drifted from inside the Prevost, sounding entirely too relaxed for a post crisis-filled meetup. 

Annie flipped the lock and pushed the heavy door aside with a pressurized hiss. She stepped up the small stairs, the interior of the Prevost smelling of expensive leather as usual, a sharp contrast to the smell of smoke she’d brought in with her.

Homelander was standing right there, waiting. 

He looked like a statue of himself, face blank, arms locked behind his back, chest puffed out, and chin tilted up at that perfectly smug angle. His eyes tracked her soot-stained shoulders with visible disgust as she climbed into the cabin, gaze pinning her the moment she stood on his level. 

Annie didn't pause as their eyes met. She closed the distance between them, her arms coiling tightly over her stomach as if she were bracing for an impact. 

"You said you’d be here in a couple of hours," she said. Her voice was flat, dripping with the kind of exhaustion that had moved past anger and settled into pure disappointment.

A slow smirk unfurled at the corner of Homelander’s mouth. "And you said I needed to be here. But, as it turns out, I didn't." His tone was light, almost playful, as if he was teasing a child. "You seem to be making massive waves on the internet right now. So it all worked out pretty well, didn't it?"

Annie let out a sharp scoff, her eyes darting toward the ceiling in a subtle roll. "I didn’t make that statement. Ezekiel did," she muttered, giving a tired shrug. "And it was a disgusting thing to say."

Homelander chuckled at her, the sound full of genuine amusement at her naive morals. He rolled his eyes right back at her and took a slow, predatory step closer, his hands still hidden behind his back. 

"Doesn't matter who said it. You managed to save Vought’s face and trend worldwide at the same time. I’d say that’s a pretty fuckin’ impressive showcase of competence." He finished the sentence with a wink and a slow, performative little clap. 

It was deeply patronizing, the kind of applause you give a dog for successfully sitting down.

Annie’s face twisted into a grimace. She didn't want his praise; it felt greasy and fake. Maybe it would’ve made her flip with exhilaration two months ago, but not anymore. 

"I think there's a drug behind the deaths.” She said bluntly, pivoting the topic to what actually mattered. “Every single victim drank a specific soda that was in the snack boxes for the morning Rebirth Workshop."

The smug smirk on Homelander’s face wavered. His hands froze mid-air, suspended in the middle of his mock applause. 

He blinked stupidly, the silence in the bus suddenly becoming heavy and deafening. Slowly, his hands dropped to his hips, and a sharp, focused frown creased his forehead.

"...How exactly," he asked, his voice dangerously calm as one eyebrow arched up, "did you manage to come to that conclusion?"

"A little detective work," Annie said, giving a small, tired shrug. 

She didn't have the energy for courtesy fear anymore, and she certainly didn't have the patience for his games. She wasn't being intentionally disrespectful, though; she was just being straightforward, treating him more like a coworker she couldn't stand than a god who could laser her in half.

Homelander stared at her in a heavy, ringing silence. He blinked absentmindedly, his eyes glazing over for a split second as if he were suddenly running a thousand calculations behind those blue eyes. 

Then, as quickly as the chill had set in, it vanished. He snapped back to the present and flashed a wide, blindingly charismatic grin that didn't reach his eyes.

"Sooo... like I said—it all worked out pretty well!" He threw his arms open wide, a grand gesture as if he was presenting a trophy to an empty room. "You’ve got the press eating out of your hand, the cleanup is moving along, and you’ve even got a lead for your little investigation. Good work, Starlight!"

He closed the remaining gap between them and gave her a firm, condescending pat on the back, careful not to touch the filthy stains on her suit. It was supposed to be appreciative, but it felt like being branded. Everything about the man was a constant tightrope walk between a genuine compliment, a masked threat, and whatever twisted opinion he’d decided was fact that night. 

This sudden burst of his approval made Annie's skin crawl.

Annie shifted slightly, politely stepping out of his reach while keeping her arms locked over her stomach like a shield. "Where have you even been all da—"

A sharp knock on the door cut her off; and both of them turned toward the sound. 

"Come in!" Homelander barked, his voice instantly losing the charming edge he’d been using on Starlight.

The door hissed open before the echo of his voice even died. Ashley scrambled inside, clutching a phone in one hand and a tablet in the other. That signature brand of Vought-induced mania rolled off her in waves; like a human personification of a hundred different PR fires burning all at once—which was true in every possible sense.

Ashley stood in the center of the bus, heaving because she’d just sprinted a marathon in five-inch heels. She looked back and forth between the two Supes, her eyes wide and bloodshot.

Across from her, Annie and Homelander waited in a heavy, practiced silence, both of them fully expecting her to announce that the venue had spontaneously caught fire again.

When Ashley finally managed to catch her breath with one last exhale, she looked up, her expression urgent but not panicky. 

“Mr. Edgar would like to see you,” she wheezed, her finger pointing toward Homelander. “Like, right now. He said it'd be much faster if you could just... fly both of you to New York. Please.”

“What?” Annie blurted out, her voice rising in pure disbelief. “But—I haven’t even changed.” She looked down at her ivory sleeves, which were currently decorated with a generous coating of Richmond’s finest cinders and dirt.

“Tsk!” Ashley clicked her tongue, shaking her head with a dismissive wave of her hand. “No time for a wardrobe change! You’ve got to run—well, fly. Right now.” She didn't even wait for a rebuttal. Her phone began to buzz in her grip again, and she used it as an exit strategy. “Excuse me!”

Ashley pivoted on a dime and vanished out the door, her lingering perfume the only thing left in her wake. 

The silence that followed was chokingly awkward.

Homelander and Annie exchanged a single, long glance. It was a rare moment of mutual agreement on the fact that neither of them wanted to be in close proximity with the other in mid-air. 

His gaze ran over Annie’s clothes again with obvious revulsion. He’d just spent an hour in a thorough radiation decontamination wash and was wearing a fresh suit that cost more than ten suburban homes. The last thing he wanted was peasant ash rubbing off on his cape.

Annie, for her part, had a laundry list of reasons not to want his arms around her; most of them involving the fact that he was a homicidal narcissist and a ceaseless pervert. But Stan Edgar didn't "ask" for meetings, he summoned them.

So, without another word, Annie turned and headed for the door, following Ashley’s trail. 

Homelander trailed after her a few seconds later, his pace heavy with a reluctance so thick you could just see it in his demeanor.

Chapter Text

The moment they had surged off the ground and into the humid Virginia night, Annie slipped into a heavy, defensive silence. Her arm was hooked around Homelander’s neck, her grip far tighter than necessary, with her fingers digging into the gold-plated eagle perched on his shoulder. 

Homelander held her with a practiced, effortless strength; one arm hooked under the back of her thighs, the other clamped firmly against her ribs. It wasn’t a heroic hold, his hand was positioned with a very specific grip against the side of her breast.

Annie knew by now that the man didn't have a decent bone in his body. He was the type of person who claimed every inch of space he could, touching people simply because he knew they were too terrified to back away. So yes, protesting a mid-air grope was a suicide mission. If she so much as whispered a complaint, she knew exactly what he’d say. He’d remind her, with that terrifying grin of his, that she should be profoundly grateful he’d even agreed to play taxi for her in the first place.

To the rest of the world, flying in Homelander’s arms was the ultimate divine blessing. The PR machine had spent decades selling the idea that a flight in his arms was a one way ticket to heaven. Heck, Annie had spent her entire adolescence dining out on a single childhood photo of her in Homelander’s arm back from Pennsylvania. 

If the younger, starry-eyed version of Annie could see herself now, actually joining the Seven and flying over the East Coast in the arms of her idol, she would have been over the moon.

Instead, as the wind blew gently through her messy hair, the modern Annie found herself wishing he’d just accidentally lose his grip or something. A several-thousand-foot drop onto the interstate felt like a much more dignified end than spending another minute as a prop for a superpowered pervert.

These bitter thoughts had begun swarming her mind within seconds of hitting the air. He was fast, sure, but he wasn't exactly breaking the sound barrier. They were moving at a leisurely, comfortable cruising speed that made Annie’s skin crawl. It felt intentional, like he was stalling to extend the "intimacy" of the flight or just to see how long it would take for her to get uncomfortable. She had zero trust in any man who wore a Vought issued cape anymore. 

As a matter of fact, Annie hadn't even bothered to look at him at all. She kept her gaze glued to her own stained boots, her jaw clamped so tight it ached as she spiraled through a mental list of everything she hated about this day. But the leisurely pace was finally starting to get under her skin. The stalling felt obscenely deliberate, like he was trying to drag out the bonding time for some twisted reason of his own.

"Could we go any faster than this?" she finally snapped, her eyes snapping up to his face.

It was only then she realized that Homelander wasn't even paying attention to her. He was staring intensely at the horizon, his eyes darting side to side as if he were scanning for a ghost. He was flying at what you could only call a “bicycle speed," his entire posture rigid and distracted. He was clearly hunting for something in the air.

"Yep. We will," he answered immediately, his eyes still sweeping the dark expanse. A small frown was carved into his forehead. 

He let out a quiet, sharp sigh through his nose before finally shifting his gaze down to her. 

"The TNT Twins are dead," he said. The words were flat, stripped of any theatrical flair. "There was an explosion at dawn. My working theory is that their explosive powers finally hit a breaking point and went nuclear in their final moments."

Annie felt her soul dry up in a sharp gasp. Her brows furrowed as the horror of the news hit her. "TNT Twins? From—?"

"Payback. Yes." Homelander nodded, his eyes already drifting back to the horizon. All of a sudden, the usual bravado and the condescending narcissism were gone, replaced by something uncomfortably clinical. "I’m looking for traces of ionizing radiation in the air because it’s on our way. Just trying to read the fallout situation—and avoid it, obviously."

He gave a lazy, nonchalant shrug, but it was a clumsy mask. For the first time all week, the man actually looked bothered. 

The way he was speaking, it sounded like he was dying to talk—not to Starlight, specifically, but to anyone who could witness his irritation. He didn't look afraid, because fear was a human emotion he’d outgrown or suppressed long ago. He looked inconvenienced, like he’d developed a psychological itch he couldn’t quite reach to scratch.

Annie remained stunned, realizing now where he'd been all this time. Her brain struggled to process yet another piece of bad news added to the day’s body count. She just blinked at him, her eyes searching his profile for some kind of subtext she could actually use. 

Eventually, she shook off the internal paralysis, a deep, genuine frown of concern creasing her forehead. “That’s... terrible,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the wind. “And the fallout? How bad is it?”

Homelander let out a heavy, intense sigh. The vibration of his chest was so strong it rattled against her ribs as he held her close, his eyes still fixed on the empty space ahead of them.

“It’s bad enough,” he said quietly. For a fleeting second, he sounded almost spooked, his voice carrying the faint ring of a boy who had seen a ghost. “I don’t really care about the twins. They were fossils. Useless. But the fallout... well, it’s a mess. I just hope it’s a one-time thing.” He sputtered the words out, shaking his head and rolling his eyes to dismiss the obvious fact that he was nervous, enough that his guarded demeanor had crumbled, and he started using Starlight as a convenient vent for his frustrations.

“...Oh,” Annie managed, the sharp irritation from earlier dissolving into a cold, dull terror.

“Anyway, I suppose it’s for the best that they're gone,” Homelander continued, his tone shifting back to its usual dismissive arrogance. He gave a nonchalant shrug. “They always managed to ruin the fun at every Herogasm anyway. The crossovers will be a lot more peaceful now without them.” He scoffed, rolling his eyes again with an exasperated sigh; clearly talking to himself more than he was talking to her.

Annie blinked, her brain momentarily stalling as she tried to decode his rambling. She didn't know the specifics of whatever "crossover" he was eulogizing, but the gist was clear: the twins were dead, and Homelander was mostly just relieved the guest list for some weekend getaway had been trimmed of some dead weight.

Typical, Annie thought, fighting a Herculean battle to keep her eyes from rolling into the back of her skull. She didn't have the emotional bandwidth to process his lack of a soul, so she simply looked away, staring into the dark horizon. There was no point in responding, anyway. Talking to Homelander about the value of human life was like explaining color to a person born without eyes.

"Okay, hang on tight!" Homelander commanded suddenly. His voice didn't suggest a request, but a warning.

Before Annie could even brace herself, he pivoted, taking a sharp, headfirst ascent that felt like being strapped to an air missile. Her arm snapped tighter around his neck on pure, frantic instinct, her other hand shooting up to cling to his suit for dear life. 

Once they punched through the thick humid layer of the lower atmosphere and leveled out above the clouds, he didn't slow down. He kicked it into a high altitude sprint toward Manhattan.

The speed was obscene, somewhere in the neighborhood of 870 miles per hour. It was faster than a commercial Boeing but just shy of an F-16's supersonic scream, and the transition was jarring. The sudden G-force hit Annie’s ribs like a physical punch, the velocity piercing through the thin air and making every breath a struggle. She sucked in a sharp, stinging lungful of oxygen, her face contorting into a pained frown.

Homelander, of course, was wearing a smirk. He looked like he was enjoying her misery almost as much as the chaos he was sowing thousands of feet below. His passage was leaving a trail of rumbling counties in his wake, the sonic pressure probably shattering windows and car alarms from Virginia to Jersey. 

In the Vought handbook, this was affectionately labeled "collateral damage."

He'd figured a long time ago this was the most harmless kind of collateral damage he’d caused in his Homelander career. A few broken windows were a bargain compared to the so-called "accidents" some of his peers left behind. He thought briefly of the Moronic Trio’s track record of clumsy sexual depravity that ended in body bags, or Lamplighter’s habit of turning people into human charcoal. Compared to them, he was practically a saint for only giving a few thousand people a localized earthquake.

Ironically, Homelander was as relaxed at over eight hundred miles per hour as he had been leaning against his bus in Richmond. It took a special kind of internal wiring to hurtle through the stratosphere at near supersonic speeds while mentally cataloging a list of gallows humor jokes. The air resistance wasn't a physical barrier to him, mostly just a background noise to his own thoughts.

Meanwhile, Starlight’s visible misery, her face contorted by the G-force and the biting cold, was a pleasant secondary entertainment. But beneath his usual layer of ego, Homelander found himself chewing on a rare, bitter thought: he was actually impressed by her tonight. 

He’d watched her handle the mass combustion aftermath with a level of calm he hadn't expected.

If he’d left the Moronic Trio—A-Train, Translucent, or the Deep—to manage a field of exploding Christians, Vought’s stock price would currently be in a nosebleed inducing freefall. The entire PR department would have been sacked by noon for letting any of those idiots speak without a script. So yes, he had to begrudgingly admit, even if only to himself, that the new girl was more competent than the three of them combined.

Maybe this wasn't a total loss, he mused, his eyes tracking the horizon while his mind wandered elsewhere. Perhaps she could actually be useful. She was young, and she had that annoying "hero" complex, but she wasn’t a complete moron. Well, she was still a bit of a moron, but a remarkably capable one.

He let out a low chuckle, the sound lost in the roar of the wind, realizing he was actually starting to have a good feeling about her. 

But the universe had a dark sense of humor. Just as he was internally warming up to his new teammate, the high velocity wind caught the hem of Annie’s skirt. The sheer air pressure whipped the fabric upward with torturous force, exposing her underwear and her bare midriff to the freezing sky. 

Panic overrode self preservation, and in a split second, Annie’s hands shot off Homelander’s neck as she scrambled frantically to pull the fabric back down and prevent a total wardrobe apocalypse.

The movement was too sudden, too messy, and too violent. The shift in her center of gravity broke Homelander’s concentration, snapping him out of his internal monologue as he momentarily lost his aerodynamic balance. His grip, usually like a vice, loosened just long enough for the disruption to take hold. 

Before he could register the mistake, Annie slipped from his arms. She plummeted toward the dark earth, a single, raw scream tearing from her throat before the wind swallowed the sound.

Homelander blinked, suspended in the thinning atmosphere as he watched her shrink toward the distant patchwork of the Earth. It took a solid second for his brain to catch up with the fact that his cargo had just pulled a disappearing act. 

"What the fuck… ?" he muttered to himself, the words whisked away by the freezing gale. 

He let out an exasperated scoff, the kind a parent gives a toddler who just smeared jam on a white sofa. He’d just started thinking she might actually be reliable, and here she was, auditioning for a crater in a New Jersey cornfield. What a total fucking idiot.

He shook his head, tucked his chin, and ignited into a headfirst dive. The violent change in his trajectory at that speed didn't just break the sound barrier, it tore through the sky with a roar of apocalyptic thunder that probably broke every eardrum within a five-mile radius.

He caught her just as she punched through the lower cloud layer. It wasn't a romantic, slow motion rescue; it was a jarring snag. He hooked a single, strong arm around her waist and pivoted back toward their original heading with an efficiency that sent a secondary shockwave rumbling through the neighborhoods below. But, who cares? 

It wasn't his fault the local architecture couldn't handle his arrival. It was Starlight’s fault for failing at the basic physics of "staying held."

Once they were safely back above the white of the clouds, he leveled out, maintaining a noticeably slower, more insulting pace, and turned his head to glare at her.

"What in the absolute gaping fuck was that?" he barked, his voice sharp and loud with irritation. "You got rocks in your head or something? Is your brain just decorative?"

Annie didn't answer. She couldn't. She was heaving, her chest hitching in uneven, desperate gasps as her mind tried to stitch together the pieces of her reality. She’d just had an epiphany: flying was horrifying. It was absolutely nothing like the breathless, poetic nonsense she’d scribbled into her fanfictions as a teenager.

Physics was a cruel, unrelenting mistress. It hit her then that at the speeds they’d been hitting earlier, a normal human wouldn't have survived the trip. They’d have been pulverized against the atmospheric pressure like a bug on a windshield. 

And the falling? That was a special kind of hell. She officially retracted her earlier "dignified death" wish. If the choice was between being groped by an egomaniac or the visceral horror of a several-thousand-foot plummet, she’d take the wandering hands every single time now.

Annie eventually managed to wrestle her heart back down into her chest, her breathing finally leveling out enough to form a sentence. She glanced at Homelander, her voice still a bit thin. "I’m—I’m sorry. My clothes—"

"This!" Homelander hissed, cutting her off with a sharp, venomous bite. "This is exactly why Madelyn and I wanted you to switch to a flight-and-combat-friendly suit from day one. But no, Little Miss Cornfield here just has to look 'wholesome' and 'Christian.'"

The adrenaline was still running in Annie’s veins, and it gave her a reckless courage she usually kept under lock and key. She rolled her eyes, her gaze snapping to his. 

"Yeah, well—Vought could’ve just given me a pair of pants instead. But no, I got a piece of fancy lingerie that’s always one stiff breeze away from indecent exposure. Let’s not pretend that thing doesn't show off most of my body—which isn’t very 'family-friendly' for the tour, according to Ashley." She spat the words out in a single breath, the sheer irritation of the day finally bubbling over into a direct challenge.

The moment the words left her mouth, a cold pit formed in her stomach. She immediately regretted the impulse. This was Homelander she was talking to; an unpredictable, egomaniacal godling who could turn her into a red smear across the troposphere for less than a sarcastic remark. She shouldn't have poked the bear; she shouldn't have dignified his petty jab with a real response.

But instead of the expected violent outburst or a hand around her throat, Homelander’s frown simply deepened. He stared at her, his blue eyes unblinking and hard, radiating pure, concentrated annoyance. 

Then, in a move that caught Annie completely off guard, he let out a quiet, defeated sigh and rolled his eyes with petulant theatricality.

"Women," he muttered under his breath, loud enough for her to hear over the whistling wind. He turned his face away from her, staring back at the horizon as he kicked their velocity back up into a high-speed sprint.

Annie just blinked at him, her hair whipping around her face like a golden storm as she gripped him firmly. 

This was not the reaction she’d been bracing for. She had fully expected him to take offense, to escalate the situation, or to remind her of her mortality in some horrific, rapey way.

Instead, he was just... sulking. He looked genuinely irritated, like a spoiled child who had lost an argument and didn't have a comeback ready.

It was baffling. To see the most powerful man on the planet acting like a moody teenager was almost enough to make her laugh, if she weren't so exhausted. She decided to withdraw while she was ahead, choosing to remain silent for the rest of the trip, only offering him the occasional, wary glances as the skyline of New York finally began to shimmer in the distance.

Homelander didn't spare her so much as a sideways glance for the remainder of the trip. He kept his eyes locked on the horizon, his jaw a rigid line of suppressed ego. 

He’d only allowed her that little back-talk victory because she’d actually been useful in Richmond. It was a one-time-only professional courtesy. The next time she tried to get clever with her tongue, he’d make sure she was begging for her life.

They hit the rooftop helipad of the Seven Tower with a heavy thud that sent a shudder through the entire billion dollar structure, as usual. The flight had clocked in at forty minutes, a sluggish eternity compared to the fifteen it should have taken. With Starlight as a literal excess baggage, he’d been forced to fly like a commercial pilot.

The man was radiating a quiet, dangerous annoyance. The moment his boots touched the concrete, he unceremoniously retracted his arm from her waist, stepping back as if she were a piece of luggage he was finally done carrying. 

Without a word, he pivoted toward the roof access, his cape snapping behind him like a whip, as if it was pissed too.

Annie took a sharp breath, her legs feeling like jelly as she shuffled after him. Her eyes darted around the landing pad; she’d never actually been up here. 

So that was the "God’s Eye View" everyone talked about, flying in Homelander's arms

It was frustratingly fascinating to witness his power in its natural habitat. The way he’d mastered the granular control of his velocity, transitioning from a supersonic blur to a pinpoint landing, was nothing short of graceful. It was a genuine tragedy that a man with such objectively sexy capabilities was a completely demented freak.

A sarcastic, involuntary scoff slipped past her lips as she stepped into the elevator behind him on the ninety-ninth floor. The doors hissed shut, sealing the two of them inside the golden brushed box. 

Stan Edgar’s office was on the floor 84, fifteen stories down; just enough time for the silence to become physically uncomfortable in a contained space.

Annie stood with her hands primly locked over her skirt, her gaze fixed on a microscopic scratch on the elevator’s door to avoid any risk of eye contact. The air in the elevator was suddenly thick with the stale scent of ozone and burnt flesh off Annie’s suit, and Homelander’s expensive, suffocating perfume.

Homelander remained a few paces behind her, as still as a marble monument to his own greatness. His hands were clasped behind his back beneath the cape, his posture radiating a bored, restless energy. 

Every other floor, he let out a long, pointed huff through his nose, clearly wallowing in a private pool of self pity. 

To him, "work" was a tedious interruption to his preferred schedule of being worshipped. He felt the familiar, twitchy need for a physical release, something to dull the irritation of a long day. He needed to have sex as soon as possible. 

Maybe he’d also drop by the tenth floor to see Madelyn later. The thought of her maternal brand of manipulation was the only thing currently keeping him from lasering the elevator cables just for the thrill of the drop.

Before the elevator chimed at floor 84, he flicked his eyes toward Starlight, giving her a slow, judgmental once-over. His lip curled in a silent sneer as he noted the streaks of grime and soot on his own pristine sleeves that had transferred off her suit; souvenirs from their mid-air struggle. The flight had officially compromised his aesthetic. 

He let out another sigh, this one dripping with genuine disdain for the universe's lack of consideration for his dry cleaning bill.

The doors finally parted with a soft whir. 

Annie didn't even wait. She stepped out immediately, keeping her pace steady and professional as she marched toward the double doors of the CEO’s office. 

Homelander trailed after her with a lazy, heavy-footed reluctance, like a teenager being dragged to socialize with relatives.

When they reached the office, he didn't bother with the indignity of knocking. He simply shoved the heavy doors open and strolled in, his hands finding their arrogant perch on his hips. 

His eyes swept the room with a practiced boredom until they landed on Stan Edgar. 

The CEO was the picture of corporate tranquility even at this hour of the night, leaning casually against the edge of his mahogany desk. He was nursing a glass of neat whiskey in one hand and a smoldering cigar in the other, looking entirely too unbothered for a man whose company was currently facing dual explosive cases with multiple body counts.

"Stan!" Homelander exclaimed, his voice rich with a smug, condescending warmth that was as fake as his love for humanity. "Look at you. Still alive and kicking!"

Stan offered a dry chuckle, the silver grey smoke curling from his nostrils. "A tragedy for your aspirations, I’m sure, but yes—still very much alive."

Homelander’s smirk sharpened, his head pivoting to track Starlight as she finally breached the threshold. 

She stood a respectful few feet away, the fluorescent office lights catching every smudge of ash on her once-radiant shoulders.

Annie turned toward the desk, her expression melting into a sincere plea. She flashed an apologetic smile at Stan. "Mr. Edgar, I am so incredibly sorry for the delay. It was entirely my fault, really. I just—"

"Oh, stop it, Starlight," Stan interrupted, flicking his wrist with a dismissive, almost paternal warmth that felt deeply out of place in a room containing a god complex in a fancy suit. "I’m well aware it was your first voyage in the arms of our premier flyer. It’s a rite of passage most of your teammates have experienced. No need to apologize." He offered her a look that was contrastingly gentle.

Annie’s mouth hung open for a second, the apology dying in her throat before a soft, relieved chuckle escaped her. "Thank you. Really. I appreciate that."

"You bet," Stan replied, his tone as smooth as the scotch in his hand. "Have a seat, please." He gestured toward the plush grey sofa set across the room, positioned perfectly for VIP guests.

One of Homelander’s eyebrows shot up in a spike of subtle, petty jealousy. He'd watched the exchange with a cynical internal monologue this whole time, rolling his eyes at the sudden sweetness Stan was radiating. He chalked it up to the simple fact that Starlight possessed a vagina, the one universal biological cheat code that seemed to make even the most hardened corporate sharks soften their cynicism.

He huffed an agitated breath and pivoted, stalking toward the sofa with a petulant energy. He collapsed into the leather, hooking one ankle over his other knee and draping his arms across the backrest in a display of regal smugness that practically screamed, I own the air in this room.

And throughout Homelander’s very public displays of brooding, Stan remained as unbothered as watching a screen saver. He continued to draw on his cigar with a meditative calmness, the glowing cherry at the tip the only thing in the room showing any real sign of his passion.

Annie, catching the heavy scent of an invisible dick swinging competition, looked between the corporate titan and the costumed godling. She wisely decided not to stand in the crossfire and navigated toward the sofa. She claimed a spot to Homelander’s right, maintaining a polite, professional buffer zone.

Stan finally pushed off the edge of his desk, the cigar held expertly between his fingers as he began a short, measured pacing track across the hand-tufted rug. He flicked a momentary glance at his two primary assets before squaring his shoulders to face them properly, one hand disappearing into the pocket of his slacks.

“Let me start by thanking you both for handling two very different, very volatile situations with such remarkable efficiency,” Stan began. “These are exactly the kinds of disasters the Seven were formed to contain. And Starlight—” He turned his focus entirely on her, his voice dropping into a register of genuine approval. “You truly outdid yourself today. Congratulations. It wasn’t just the statement you made; the leaked footage of you assisting the paramedics is currently cannibalizing the internet. They’re calling you a saint. A real hero.”

Homelander’s eyes performed a slow, tectonic roll toward the ceiling. 

“Yeah, well—she wasn’t exactly dealing with a nuclear fallout, was she?” He spat, his tone up an octave with simmering jealousy. “And I would've been at the venue, too, you know? If not for the hours long ass-hauling I've done for Maeve and Tek Knight to hand over the paperwork. Then there was the whole decontamination process.” He shrugged theatrically, his eyes darting between Stan and Starlight in expectation of their acknowledgement that he felt entitled to. 

“So let’s just not pretend a bit of janitorial work is a world-class feat.” He added with flick of his wrist toward Annie, green hot jealousy radiating off him like a physical fever; because his corporate daddy was handing out gold stars to the new girl instead of him.

Annie shifted on the leather, her gaze darting awkwardly between the two men as the tension thickened.

Stan offered a soft, arctic chuckle, completely dismissing Homelander’s outburst. “Regarding your little fireworks show, we’re officially categorizing the TNT Twins’ demise as a double suicide. You told the investigators yourself that their powers likely hit a terminal evolutionary point as they decided to end it all.”

“That was a theory, Stan. I never confirmed a damn thing,” Homelander countered, his tone dropping into a flat, bored drone that barely masked his irritation.

“Of course,” Stan nodded, his expression the picture of patronizing agreement. “But since there was no external source, no radioactive core, and the Twins were essentially walking sticks of dynamite, the math practically does itself. We’re closing the book on it.”

Homelander let out a sharp scoff, his patience and ego grating against Stan's dismissal. "Then why the hell am I even here, Stan? Sounds to me like you’ve got your shit all figured out.” He gestured dramatically with a hand in the air. “Or did you just need me as a glorified Uber for Miss Cornfield here so you could lather her in all that flowery appreciation?"

Annie’s head snapped toward him, her jaw dropping slightly at the sheer, casual entitlement of his tone. The brazen rudeness was one thing, but the way he spat "Miss Cornfield" made it clear he viewed her as little more than a rural accessory he’d been forced to wear for the night.

Stan, however, looked about as bothered as a man watching a fly bounce off a windowpane. He calmly snubbed out the remains of his cigar in a crystal ashtray, the movement slow and annoying. He slid both hands into his pockets and leaned back against the mahogany edge of his desk, a cryptic, shark-like glint dancing in his eyes.

"Actually, you're both here because I’m tasking the two of you with spearheading the internal investigation into today’s mass combustion events," Stan said, his voice dropping into a casual, boardroom drone. "In the grand scheme of the quarterly projections, this is significantly more pressing than the TNT Twins. And on that note—" He shifted his focus back to Annie, "Starlight, give me the ground-level intel. What do we actually know about the Richmond casualties?"

Annie straightened her spine, offering Homelander a wary, side-eye glance before addressing the CEO. "Uh—apparently, there was a carbonated beverage. Bright pink. It was slipped into the snack boxes for the morning Rebirth Workshop. From what I learned, anyone who actually took a sip was affected. The distribution was strictly limited to the workshop attendees."

Stan blinked, a subtle, thoughtful crease marring the smooth skin of his forehead. 

"Interesting," he murmured, the word sounding more like a chess move than an expression of sympathy. He looked at her again, his gaze clinical. "Vought’s forensic team is already on-site. I’ll have them sweep the perimeter and seize every last bottle before the FBI gets their clumsy hands on them. We’re taking over the chain of custody for a private internal review. We need to ensure this wasn't a... clerical error on our end."

Homelander let out a low, judgemental sputter, his eyes rolling again in a display of profound disdain. "Oh, I’m pretty sure it’s a 'clerical error on our end,’" he grumbled, a dark, private chuckle bubbling up at the sheer audacity of Stan’s faux innocence.

"Do you have something substantive to contribute to the dialogue, Homelander?" Stan prompted, his voice turning stern, layered with an icy coating of sarcasm that suggested he was losing patience with the theatrics.

"Yeah, actually," Homelander shot back instantly, his voice a flat and bored. "You know, Stan—this was almost certainly a fuck-up on our end. Some contaminated batch of sugar water that turns internal organs into BBQ. And now you’re hand-delivering us the chore of burying evidence. And look—I’m not complaining. We both know that’s the business model. Just have the balls to admit it, okay?" He gave a sharp shrug, his interest in the conversation already flatlining.

Stan’s mouth curved into a thin smirk as he released a deep, unbothered exhale. Homelander's very passionate accusations had nothing to faze his composure. "Well, even if it were our mistake, I’d still need to know the specific mechanics of the failure before I decide it needs a cover-up. Wouldn't I?” He said, pointing a finger at them to emphasize his point. “Which is exactly why I’m putting our two readily available assets on the case." 

He paused for a beat, casting Homelander a patronizing, fatherly smile that was arguably the most insulting thing in the room. "And for the sake of your personal satisfaction, I’ll have A-Train sweep a twenty-mile radius of the TNT Twins’ residence. If he doesn’t find a mysterious smoking core, we’ll officially rule it a suicide. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"

Homelander didn’t even offer the dignity of a verbal response. He didn’t even look at the man. He just kept his face turned toward the shadows of the office, radiating a level of childish disrespect that would have gotten anyone else in the building fired—or executed.

Annie watched the exchange from the sidelines, her internal monologue a screaming siren of incredulity. She couldn't wrap her head around it. This was Stan Edgar, the man who signed their ridiculously large paychecks and held the leash on the most powerful brands on the planet, and Homelander was treating him like a nagging landlord.

The silent treatment didn't seem to rattle Stan, though. If anything, Homelander’s bratty defiance seemed to provide him with a quiet, private amusement. He let out a dry chuckle under his breath and finally navigated back to the leather throne behind his desk. He settled in with a practiced grace, resting his elbows on the mahogany surface.

"I’d like for the two of you to fly back to Richmond immediately and ensure that every last container of that 'beverage' has been secured by Vought's recovery team," Stan said casually, as if he weren't asking them to pull a high altitude U-turn after they’d just touched down. "And I trust you both understand that I expect absolute discretion. Direct communication with me, and only me. No leaks, no memos, no paper trail."

Homelander vaulted to his feet with a dismissive grunt. "This is fucking ridiculous," he hissed, the words a low growl as he began stomping toward the exit, his cape billowing behind him like a storm cloud.

Stan offered a thin, predatory smirk as he watched the cape vanish. “Don’t forget to take Starlight with you,” he called out, his voice a smooth blade of intentional provocation. He turned back to Annie, his tone shifting into something almost uncomfortably warm. “Again, stellar work today, Starlight. Congratulations.”

The heavy office door slammed shut with a definitive thud, a punctuation mark on Homelander’s exit. The man was fuming, his ego bruised and leaking. Being snubbed by Stan while the new girl was showered in corporate affection had triggered a hot, toxic surge of jealousy. 

It was a calculated move on Stan's part. The CEO knew exactly how to starve Homelander of the "Daddy’s approval" he so desperately craved. Unlike Madelyn Stillwell, who preferred to stroke the monster into submission, Stan found that a sharp poke to the pride usually yielded much more efficient results.

Stan lived for these moments, reminding the most powerful being on the planet that at the end of the day, he was still just a very expensive, very temperamental piece of hardware.

Annie, caught in the middle of this uninvited psychological warfare, scrambled off the sofa. She looked between the closed door and the calm, seated CEO with a look of pure awkwardness. 

“Uh—I think I should probably... follow him. Thank you, Mr. Edgar. I’ll coordinate with forensics and keep you posted. Goodnight.”

“Thank you, Starlight. I appreciate the professionalism,” Stan said, his voice dropping the theatricality for a moment of genuine sincerity.

Annie didn't wait for a second invitation to leave. She practically bolted out of the office, her heels clicking a frantic rhythm against the marble as she tried to catch up with the cape-wearing tantrum currently stomping through the halls. 

Homelander was moving with a heavy, rhythmic gait, a literal ego bruised child in a hundred thousand dollar suit.

When she finally managed to match his aggressive stride, falling in step beside him, she risked a glance at his profile. His jaw was locked so tight it looked like it might break under the pressure. 

“So… are we flying back?” she asked, her voice cautious.

Homelander didn’t even bother deigning her with a look. His patience had been eroded down to a dangerous nub. 

“Get to the rooftop,” he barked, the words forced through grit teeth. “I’ll be there in ten.”

Annie nodded, but her curiosity, or perhaps just her lingering adrenaline, got the better of her. “Where are you going?”

Homelander skidded to a dead halt, his boots screeching against the polished floor. He swung around to face her, his eyes narrowing into two slits of ugly, suppressed rage. 

“Since when,” he hissed, leaning into her personal space until she could feel his hot breath on her forehead, “does your leader owe you a fuckin’ explanation?”

Annie blinked, the "leader" comment landing hard like a slap. She wasn't necessarily surprised by the outburst. At this point, Homelander’s emotional stability was about as reliable as a weather app in the global climate change; but the prospect of another forty-minute mid air grope fest with a man currently vibrating with homicidal spite didn't exactly scream "safe travels."

Still, in the hierarchy of Seven Tower, she was a mid-tier asset and he was the nuclear deterrent. Choice was an illusion she couldn't afford. 

She gave him a stiff, resigned nod and fell back into a silent, obedient formation as they marched toward the elevator bank like two coworkers who had just survived the world’s worst HR mediation.

The wait for the elevators was another excruciating social torture. Homelander stood beside her, a living statue of toxic sulking, his hands locked behind his back. 

He stared at the brushed steel doors with a detached, thousand yard stare, mentally incinerating everyone in a three-block radius. 

Annie, on the other hand, focused very intently on the glowing floor numbers, praying for the mechanical chime of her salvation.

Thankfully, his elevator arrived first. He stepped into the box without a word, the heavy fabric of his cape brushing against her arm as he moved. As the doors began to hiss shut, Annie watched his finger hover over the console before he jabbed the button for Floor 10.

Oh, Annie thought, a cynical realization clicking into place. He’s heading straight for Madelyn Stillwell. 

It made perfect sense. After Stan Edgar had spent the last twenty minutes treating him like a particularly disappointing labradoodle, Homelander needed someone to tell him he was a very special boy. Not like Madelyn was in a speaking state at the moment, but she was the only one with the "maternal" vibe to calm him down.

A moment later, the second elevator chimed. Annie stepped into the empty box and pressed the button for 99. Rooftop it was. She leaned her head against the cool metal, mentally bracing herself for the cold wind and the inevitable round two of flying with a god who visibly had both mommy and daddy issues and a very short fuse.

——

It was well past three thirty in the morning, and the stagnant air of the Richmond venue had taken on a heavy, chemical smell signaling a long night of corporate damage control. 

Annie didn’t really feel the weight of the industrial container box in her grip, the reinforced steel digging into her palms as she carried the remainining samples. Her primary directive was to collect every last bottle of that neon pink liquid death from the surviving attendees.

Most of the general expo crowd had been processed and funneled out through medical screening over an hour ago, probably clutching their souvenir items with trembling hands. 

The workshop attendees hadn't been so lucky. They were currently being subjected to a battery of blood tests at a mobile medical unit. It was all framed as a generous gesture for their safety, though Annie knew Vought was likely just checking to see if anyone else was scheduled to spontaneously combust during the car ride home.

The survivors had been instructed to abandon their blessed snack boxes at a designated collection point. Annie had spent the last hour working alongside a silent, stone-faced agent from the Vought cleanup team, systematically fishing the soda bottles out of the cardboard boxes and lining them up in the industrial bin. 

Once the pile was fully stacked, she’d dismissed the agent with a helpful smile, claiming she could handle the heavy lifting herself. She promised to hand the haul over to the secondary team currently scrubbing the main tent of the Rebirth Workshop for any lingering evidence worth looking into.

That was where Homelander was lurking, ostensibly "overseeing" the forensic sweep but likely just standing around and looking menacing while the underpaid grunts did the actual scrubbing.

In a way, the division of labor was the only mercy she’d been shown all night. After that little flight hysteria of their two-hour round trip to New York, the last thing she wanted was to look at his face or feel the lingering, phantom pressure of his arm around her waist. She had reached her absolute limit for awkward physical proximity with a narcissistic demigod for a single twenty-four-hour cycle.

The flight had left her feeling frayed and exhausted, though not because of the physics involved. Surprisingly, her physiology had held up against the supersonic velocity without a single bruise or broken capillary to show for it. The real damage was the mental toll of a day defined by mass human combustion and the relentless, grueling task of playing the Saint in the Sludge.

As the sleep deprivation began to turn the world fuzzy at the edges, Annie tried to justify the exhaustion. Most of these people had traveled across state lines and spent their life savings just for a fleeting glimpse of Homelander, or Ezekiel or a polite nod from her. They’d been trapped in a cordoned-off nightmare until the early hours of the morning, and while she was tired, she still had the benefit of a superhuman constitution. Carrying a heavy box was the bare minimum she could offer people whose spiritual awakening had ended in a hazmat suit.

As Annie strolled toward the perimeter of the site, her boots crunching over discarded flyers and gravel, she spotted one of Vought’s covered vans; a sleek, reinforced black shadow idling near the edge of the tall grass. 

An agent from the secondary recovery team was already there, heaving backup batches of snack boxes from the original tent and crates of plausible sensitive items into the cargo hold. These were the things Vought deemed too legally compromising to leave for the local authorities to find. 

Annie slowed her pace as she reached the rear of the vehicle, catching the man’s eye and offering a weary, professional smile.

“All wrapped up?” the agent asked, his grin splitting a face that looked genuinely relieved to see a friendly mask in the middle of a literal graveyard. 

Annie gave a rhythmic nod, the heavy steel container still resting in her grip with an effortless grace that belied its crushing weight. “Yeah. This should be the last of it. Thanks a lot for the assist today.”

The man let out a short, dismissive scoff, as if the very idea of a Seven member thanking a grunt was the most ridiculous thing he’d heard all shift. 

“No, no—don’t undersell yourself. We’re the ones who should be thanking you,” he insisted, sliding the final crate into the van before turning to face her fully. His admiration was unfiltered. “Seriously, Starlight. What you did today... that was an incredible display of heroism. Not many people would’ve stayed in the thick of it like that. Thank God you were here.”

He even went so far as to extend a hand, his face practically glowing with an unrefined worship that usually made Annie’s skin crawl, though tonight it just felt heavy.

“Oh,” Annie murmured, a small, tired chuckle escaping her. She shifted the entire weight of the industrial container to her left hand, a casual feat of strength that didn't even make her bicep twitch, leaving her right hand free to accept the gesture. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“You bet. You just keep doing what you’re doing!” the man said, pumping her hand with fervor.

He finally retracted his hand, offering one last nod of personal, solemn approval before turning on his heel. As he walked away, he was already thumbing his walkie-talkie, his voice crackling over the airwaves to inform the other units that the cleanup was officially complete. The site was cleared; the sub-contractors could move in to dismantle the tents at the venue tomorrow morning.

Annie stood in the shadow of the black van, watching the agent’s retreating back for a long minute, that polite, pageant ready smile still ghosting on her lips. It was a bizarre realization to have at nearly four in the morning, but the logistical efficiency of Vought’s cleanup team was far more impressive than anything she’d seen from the Seven. These guys were professional, surgical, and possessed a level of dedication to their task that actually felt serious.

Then, the realization soured almost immediately. A subtle frown breaking through her fatigue.

If the cleanup crew was this much better at their jobs than the "heroes" they followed, it wasn't because they were overachievers. It was because they were experts in the specific art of the corporate scrub. They weren't just clearing debris, they were also sanitizing the narrative. They were the silent, high efficiency vacuum cleaners trailing behind a team of god complex toddlers who couldn't stop knocking over the metaphorical fine china.

Suddenly, the echoes of the meeting in Stan Edgar’s office started bouncing around her skull with a newfound clarity. The cigar’s smoke from that room felt like it was filling her lungs all over again.

“Vought’s forensic team is already on-site. I’ll have them sweep the perimeter and seize every last bottle before the FBI gets their clumsy hands on them.”

And then, Homelander’s bored, cynical drawl:

"You know, Stan—this was almost certainly a fuck-up on our end. Some contaminated batch of sugar water that turns internal organs into BBQ. And now you’re hand-delivering us the chore of burying evidence."

Annie blinked as the gears finally locked into place in her mind. If this really was a slip from Vought’s end, some catastrophic failure in a beverage recipe lab that turned a promotional soda into a liquid explosive, there wasn't going to be an investigation. There was only going to be a burial. The moment Vought’s lab coats confirmed their own fingerprints on the disaster, the lead would be buried so deep it would hit the Earth's core.

The case would remain an unsolved "tragedy," the victims would be written off as statistics, and Homelander’s assessment would be vindicated: Mr. Edgar wasn't asking his heroes to solve a mystery, he was asking for an assist in the cleanup. 

So, in the grand corporate ecosystem of Vought, Starlight and Homelander were just the premium tier custodians of the cleanup crew.

A small, sharp intake of breath hissed through Annie’s teeth as the full weight of her complicity settled in. If she handed this box over, she was an accessory to a mass casualty coverup, and the case would never see the light of day again.  

So, Annie decided to do something genuinely audacious.

She hoisted the industrial container onto the bed of the truck, the metal clanging softly against the floor liner. Her eyes did a predatory sweep of the perimeter, tracking the distant, bobbing flashlights of the remaining cleanup crews and the silhouette of the gantry. The coast was basically clear. Desolate, even. 

With a practiced, lightning-fast motion, she snatched a single 250ml bottle of the neon pink liquid and shoved it deep into the pouch on her hip. She slammed the van’s rear doors shut with a definitive thud and turned away, forcing her pace into a casual, nothing to see here stroll.

She’d barely made it fifteen feet when her hip erupted in a frantic vibration. The phone rattled directly against the plastic of the stolen bottle, a sound that felt loud enough to wake the dead. Annie flinched, her heart hammering a manic rhythm against her ribs. She fumbled with the pouch, her fingers dancing a panicked ballet to retrieve the device without letting the bottle slip out and reveal itself.

When the screen finally met her gaze, her face contorted into a slow motion grimace of pure, unsullying dread.

Alex.

Right. That. 

In the backdrop of supersonic flights, the exploding civilians, and the corporate espionage, Annie had completely neglected to excise the cancer from her personal life. The "Good Guy" was calling to check in.

She let out a long, tired sigh that seemed to drain the last of her adrenaline. She swiped the screen with a numb thumb and pressed the phone to her ear, maintaining a stony, heavy silence.

“Hey, Annie—” Alex’s voice flooded the line, thick with a breathy, performative huff of relief. “God, I’ve been staring at the news for hours. I was so worried. Are you okay? Talk to me.”

He used that signature tone; that calculated, lover-boy warmth that used to act like a local anesthetic on Annie’s heart. It would have smoothed over her doubts and made her feel safe if she weren't aware of his acts. So it just sounded like a poorly recorded script tonight. 

Annie simply rolled her eyes at the empty night sky and let out another heavy, audible exhale that probably sounded like a balloon deflating. “Hey… yeah, I’m fine. Just spent an hour playing janitor to a tragedy.”

“I saw that on the news. You’ve been at it all evening and all night, haven't you?” Alex’s voice was smooth, hitting that practiced frequency of a concerned boyfriend. “Did you even get a chance to eat? Where are you now? You sound exhausted.”

Annie let out a soft scoff that caught in the back of her throat. “Are you telling me you watched me working my ass off on national television—in the middle of a literal human combustion event—and it didn't occur to you to pick up the phone until 3:50 in the morning?”

The line went silent for a second. Alex was clearly fumbling for the right script, blindsided by the sudden, sharp edge in her voice. 

“Uhh…” he hesitated, the confidence in his tone wavering. “I—I wanted to call, Annie. Really. It’s just, we were right in the thick of rehearsals, and I got so caught up in stuff. You know how the schedule gets.”

“Mmhmm,” Annie hummed, her tone teetering on a razor’s edge between absolute sarcasm and a flat, dangerous sincerity. “Tell me, Alex. What kind of ‘stuff’ takes priority over your girlfriend potentially blowing up?”

The silence stretched out again, thick and uncomfortable. Alex was likely doing the mental math, chalking her hostility up to the trauma of seeing civilians turn into red mist. He let out a soft sigh of affection, the kind designed to de-escalate a woman he thought he still had under his thumb.

“Hey,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a gentle, more soothing register. “I’m sorry, babe. I know today was a nightmare. I should’ve been there for you. I should’ve called the second I saw the ticker on the news.”

Annie’s face contorted into a grimace of pure revulsion. She wasn't moved by his sudden epiphany of basic human decency. If anything, the calculated timing of his apology made her stomach turn faster than the flight with Homelander had.

Then, Alex shifted gears, his voice taking on that low, pampering purr he usually reserved for bed. It was the lover voice, thick with unearned intimacy. “Okay, tell you what. I’ll clear my schedule for a couple of days and grab a flight to New York. Let’s have a real reunion when you’re back in the city. Just the two of us. What do you think?” He prompted, his tone bright and nauseatingly lovey-dovey.

“No!” Annie blurted out, the word hitting the air with more force than she’d intended. Her eyes widened for a fleeting second, a sharp frown settling over her features. “Please, don't. You really don't have to do that.”

“Why not?” Alex asked, his voice dripping with that confused, hurt puppy sincerity that usually worked like a charm. “Didn’t you just say you were missing me? That you needed me there?”

“Yeah, well—not anymore, I guess,” Annie muttered, the words directed more at the grass beneath her boots than at the man on the line. She took a breath, the cold night air stinging her throat. “Look, Alex, it’s better if I just say this now. We’re in very different places in life. Very different. It’s simply not working out anymore.”

A stunned, wet huff of air erupted from the other end of the call. “What are you even talking about, Annie? Are you… are you seriously breaking up with me? Over the phone? Right now?”

Annie’s shoulders slumped, a defeated shrug rolling through her frame as the last of the emotional tether snapped. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“But… why? Give me something, Annie. This is coming out of nowhere.”

“I don’t know…” Annie’s voice trailed off, turning cryptic and hollow. “I guess I’m just not the person I thought I was. And neither are you.”

As she spoke, her jaw locked tight, her mind involuntarily flashing back to the grainy, flickering horror of that video. Supersonic, the "hometown hero," engaged in stomach turning acts with minors. The memory felt like acid in her stomach, pressing against her chest until she could barely breathe the air.

Alex let out a high, nervous laugh that bordered on a frantic giggle. “But Annie… what—what exactly went wrong? What did they do to you in New York? Who did you meet up there that changed you like this?”

Annie’s lips thinned into a hard line, and she let out one final, terminal exhale. “Bye, Alex.”

She didn't wait for the inevitable begging or the predictable gaslighting. She tapped the red icon, cutting him off mid-sentence, and immediately navigated to his contact info in her device. 

One tap to block, and the digital ghost of Alex was exorcised. She slid the phone back into the pouch on her hip, feeling the cool plastic of the stolen soda bottle press against the device.

Annie stood there for a long moment, the silence of the Virginia night rushing in to fill the void Alex had left behind. Five years of her life, an entire history of sweet romance, stolen make-out sessions, and hometown promises, had just been incinerated in a one-minute phone call. 

A sharp ache bloomed in her chest, a phantom limb of a relationship she’d outgrown three nights ago. The early morning breeze tousled her tangled hair, making her feel small and devastatingly alone under the vast, uncaring sky.

“Trouble in paradise?” The voice came from behind, basically a breezy, patronizing smirk made audible. 

Annie flinched, her shoulders jerking as she spun around to find Homelander looming a few feet away, looking entirely too satisfied with himself.

“None of your business,” she snapped, the words coming out more stern than she’d intended. She immediately crossed her arms over her stomach, a defensive reflex that felt pathetic in the face of a man who could see through her ribs if he felt like it.

Homelander let out a low, musical chuckle, clearly delighted by the sass. He didn't give a fuck about her emotional well-being, but he was a connoisseur of other people's misery; and seeing his disillusionment session with her from three nights ago finally bear fruit was the highlight of his long-ass shift. The breakup had done something nice to his mood all of a sudden. 

“Well, the circus is officially packed up,” he said finally, his tone shifting into a bored lilt. He gestured lazily toward the dark tents with one hand, the other resting cockily on his hip. “Forensics will report their findings directly to Stan’s desk. As far as I’m concerned, we’re pretty much done with this case.”

Annie’s brow furrowed in genuine confusion. “Wait—what if the forensic team actually finds something? Something we’re supposed to be investigating?”

Homelander fanned his hand dismissively, letting out a sharp sputter of reluctance. The idea of staying on this case a second longer than Vought required was clearly offensive to him. 

“Not our problem, Starlight. Honestly, I’m sick of the smell of barbeque hair.” He gave a small shrug, his smirk widening as he gave her soot-stained suit one final, insulting once-over. “I’m flying back to New York now. Alone. You’re not coming with me, obviously—I’ve had quite enough of you tonight…”

He met her eyes, his expression turning into a mask of professional detachment. “We’ve got the rotation this weekend. I’ll be buried in paperwork up at the space station, so don't expect a welcoming committee. We’ll huddle up for the briefing once you’ve dragged yourself back to the city. Try not to get lost on the way.”

Annie raised a brow, the gesture so faint it was basically a skeletal twitch. The sheer reluctance in him to treat a mass-casualty event as anything more than a clerical error was staggering, even for him. But she kept her mouth shut. She’d already secured her own little piece of the evidence in her hip pouch, and she’d do her own investigation into it, whether or not he was interested.

Besides, at this hour, engaging with him in a dialogue was basically an open invitation for him to perform more unwanted brain surgery on her psyche. Her energy reserves weren't just low at this point, she was running on the fumes of a soul that had been through an industrial grade shredder.

She gave him a curt, robotic nod. “Fine. See you at the Tower.”

Homelander simply flashed her a look of mock, wide eyed excitement, as if he was definitely excited to catch up at the Tower again. He pivoted on his heel and sauntered off. 

He paused a short distance away, his head tilting back as he scanned the ink black sky with a casual boredom. Then, with a bone shaking thump that kicked up a cloud of red clay, he punched into the stratosphere, disappearing into the clouds within seconds.

Annie stood in the sudden, ringing silence for a few more minutes. 

The Light of the World tour was officially dead on arrival. In the grand, twisted ledger of the last forty-eight hours, the fact that the tour was over before it could properly begin was likely the only mercy she’d be granted.

With one final sigh, she turned and began the long trek back toward the production buses. She could already smell the phantom scent of the shower she desperately needed; something to scrub the soot, the dirt, and the lingering touch of a god off her skin before they packed up the whole crew and headed back to New York.

Chapter Text

Annie hid behind the cool marble of the corridor junction, her eyes performing a practiced sweep of the ceiling. There were two surveillance units perched onto the corners of the hall, their little red pilot lights blinking like judgmental eyes. 

She couldn't afford to be a guest star on a security monitor, so she let a surge of heat bloom behind her retinas. Golden rings flared in her irises for a fleeting second, and the cameras died with a silent, electrical whimper as she drained their juice. Once the hallway was officially blind, Annie stepped out and made her way toward the far end of the corridor.

In one hand, she clutched an A3 envelope between two fingers; and from her index finger dangled a small, zippered pouch on a threaded hook, swinging like a pendulum of contraband. Her other hand stayed loose beside her as she moved. 

The placard on the door was embossed in bold all caps: PHARMACEUTICAL COMPOUNDING & ANALYSIS. 

Annie gave the text a brisk nod to confirm she hadn't accidentally wandered into the Vought accounting department, then reached for the handle. But the door didn't budge. 

That's when she noticed it, a sleek biometric scanner embedded in the frame.

She felt an internal groan produce in her chest. The security theater on this floor was getting ridiculous. 

Floors eight through twelve were ostensibly the medical wing for Vought employees, with the actual hospital beds located on floor ten. It made her wonder how they ever managed to actually save a life if reaching a single room required navigating a maze of three security checkpoints per hallway. If someone was flatlining, they’d probably be long gone by the time a doctor cleared the second firewall.

Her patience was thinning into a very fine, very dangerous wire. With a sharp exhale, she pulled the electricity straight from the scanner’s heart. It died with a satisfying, low frequency crackle, and the magnetic lock disengaged with a heavy thunk. The door drifted open just enough for Annie to slip inside.

The atmosphere in the lab was a contrasting departure from the frantic energy of the rest of the tower. It was serenely quiet and smelled aggressively of sterilants and floor wax. 

Racks and ledges lined the walls like a library of chemical casualties, housing rows of medicine bottles and industrial sized containers of crude medicinal compounds. In the gaps between the shelves, workstations were outfitted with computers, centrifuges, and diagnostic machines that looked expensive enough to fund a small country’s school system. 

The overhead lighting was a soft, bluish white glow that felt oddly meditative. It was the kind of place a person could easily disappear into for a nap if they didn't mind the lingering scent of bleach.

It was currently the peak of the lunch hour, which was the only reason Annie had risked the visit. Most of the lab’s white-coat residents would be up on floor twenty, shuffling through the staff cafeteria and pretending to enjoy Vought's salads. She didn't need the whole team anyway. She just needed one or two overworked souls with enough curiosity to look at her sample and enough fear to keep their mouths shut about it.

Annie’s gaze swept the room with a clinical focus. The silence was almost total, save for the hum of the ventilation and a distant, rhythmic clatter coming from a workstation deep into the rear corner of the lab. She followed the sound, walking through rows of high density shelving and stainless steel counters until she found him.

The chemist looked like he’d been aging in dog years, probably somewhere in his mid-fifties with hair that had surrendered to a metallic grey. A foil-wrapped sandwich sat neglected on the corner of his desk, cold and sweating in the air. 

He was hunched over a spectrophotometer, peering through his safety goggles at a glowing digital readout while he adjusted a set of micro-pipettes.

He heard the soft scuff of her sneakers on the linoleum and looked up, his eyes squinting through the plastic lenses. In her civilian clothes, no cape, no glowing embroidery, he didn't place her immediately. He just hovered there, hands still poised over his samples, wearing the universal expression of every person whose lunch break had been rudely interrupted by a stranger.

“Hi,” Annie said, projecting an unsettling warmth. She dialed up the charm, flashing a smile so bright it felt like it should have its own PR budget. “I’m Starlight. If you recognize me?” She gave him a sheepish tilt of the head, her hands tucked neatly behind her back while the envelope and the pouch dangled hidden from her grip.

The man blinked, processing the fact that a member of the Seven was standing next to his half-eaten turkey club. He pulled back from the equipment, peeling off his latex gloves with a sharp snap before pushing his goggles up onto his forehead. A faint, disbelieving smile began to fight with the confusion on his face.

“Starlight? As in… from floor 99?” he asked. His voice was low and raspy, carrying the kind of stunned sincerity you’d expect from someone finding a unicorn in a parking garage.

Annie’s nod was enthusiastic, punctuated by a soft chuckle that made the whole encounter feel like a happy accident. “Yes! That’s us. It’s so nice to find you. And you are—?”

“Uh, Fred. Fred Nelson,” he stammered. His smile widened by cautious degrees, though the ingrained Vought-employee paranoia never quite evaporated from his expression. He shot a quick, instinctive glance over Annie’s shoulder toward the door she’d just "cleared," then looked back at her. “Uh—I’m sorry, Ms. Starlight. How did you… I mean, is there something I can help you with? We don’t usually get visitors from the top floors down here.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Annie nodded again, her face obvious with faux corporate confidence. “Look, Homelander just wanted me to run this sample down here for a quick confirmation. We’re trying to figure out which floor this actually belongs to. Apparently, one of your guys wandered up to 99’s dining hall because the cafeteria on 20 was a madhouse, and they must have left this behind.”

She garnished the lie with a weary, casual chuckle, rolling her eyes as if she were just another overworked assistant dealing with a messy roommate.

Fred blinked, his brain clearly struggling to reconcile the "Girl Next Door" charm with the sheer absurdity of the story. He processed the words like a slow loading bar on an ancient computer. “I’m sorry... so, Homelander sent you down here? Personally? To return a chemical that he thinks a scientist accidentally carried into a secure superhero dining hall?”

“Precisely.” Annie nodded again, unabashedly confident about her lie. She didn't give him room to raise further questions. She brought her hands forward, unzipping the pouch and pulling out the neon pink soda bottle. 

She set it on the workstation with a definitive clack and flashed him another sunshiny grin.

“He’s the one who caught it—Homelander. He took one look at it and told me it wasn't a 'normal beverage'—probably some proprietary compound someone tried to sneak out in a soda bottle. He said he smelled traces of Pyridine on the cap, so he figured it had to have come from the Synthesis Suite.” She punctuated the lie with a casual shrug, gesturing to the bottle as if it were a lost umbrella. “So... do you think you could run a quick diagnostic? Just confirm if it’s one of yours so I can tell him the 'mystery' is solved?”

It was remarkably easy to spin the bullshit. Annie wouldn't know Pyridine if it hit her in the face, but Google was free and remarkably thorough about what these labs used to cook their high-end batches. Apparently, it was pungent, industrial, and exactly the kind of stench Homelander would complain about.

Fred just stared at the bottle, then at her, his eyes wide and vacant. He looked like he was trying to solve a complex equation where the math didn't add up. The problem wasn't just the story; it was the protocol. Every Vought lifer knew the golden rule: if you aren't in Superhero Management, you don't talk to the 'Talent.' And you certainly don't perform unofficial favors for them.

“But...” he managed, his voice hitching with a heavy dose of hesitation. “We’re technically not allowed to have direct contact with the Seven. It’s a massive HR violation. Are you... are you sure he wanted you to come here? He usually knows the chain of command, he should've known we can't really—”

“Sir,” Annie cut him off, her voice dropping into a register of forced, conspiratorial urgency. “We are very well aware of the HR handbook, which is exactly why Homelander wanted this kept strictly between us. Off the books. No paper trail.” She gave a performative shrug, her expression twisting into a mask of relatable, entry-level misery. “I’m the new girl, remember? I’m basically the Seven’s fancy janitor. I do the cleanups, I do the paperwork, and I run the errands nobody else wants to touch.”

She paused, letting the silence of the lab add weight to her words. “Homelander was dead serious about this, Fred. He smelled something… off. Something that didn't belong in a breakroom. So, if you could just…” She nudged the soda bottle an inch closer across the laminate surface, her gesture an silent command to stop talking and start grinding.

But Fred wasn't a total pushover. He was a man who had survived decades in the Vought machinery by following the lines, not crossing them. He offered a polite, twitchy smile and shook his head, his hands retreating toward the pockets of his lab coat. “I’m truly sorry, Starlight. I just don’t think this is a good idea. Protocol is protocol. Maybe I should just give my supervisor a quick call and—”

“No!” Annie’s voice snapped like a whip, the America's Sweetheart charm dissolving instantly to reveal something much more stern. She took a step into his personal space, her head performing a quick, predatory swivel to ensure the lab remained empty of returning lunch-goers. When she turned back to him, her palms were flat on the workstation, leaning in until she could smell the stale coffee on his breath.

“Dr. Nelson, I hear you. I really do,” she whispered, her tone dropping into a grim, hushed warning. “But if I don’t walk out of here with an answer ASAP, Homelander is going to be beyond upset. And we both know what ‘upset’ looks like for him.”

She let the implication hang in the air, thick and suffocating. She watched the color drain from Fred's face as she twisted the knife of corporate dread. “When he asks me why there’s no answer behind this drink, I’m going to have to be honest. I’ll tell him the staff in the Synthesis Suite refused to cooperate. At that point, it becomes a matter for him and Mr. Edgar to settle. My job will be fine—I’m a brand. But you?” She let out a short exhale that sounded like genuine pity. “I’m not so sure your pension plan is designed to survive a personal inquiry from the CEO.”

She watched his eyes widen briefly. Mentioning Stan Edgar was the nuclear option, the one name that carried more weight than a supe’s fist. 

Fred swallowed hard, a visible tremor hitting his Adam's apple as the reality of his situation set in; he had no choice. 

He let out a defeated sigh that deflated his entire posture. His gaze drifted from Annie’s hard, brown eyes to the glowing pink bottle on his desk. “So,” he started, his voice sounding like it had been dragged over gravel, “I’m supposed to analyze this... and then we pretend this conversation never happened?”

Annie watched the flicker of terror in Fred’s eyes settle into a grim, defeated acceptance. She’d been reading his face like a diagnostic report the entire time, and the Success light had finally blinked on. She flashed him a wide grin and gave him a conspiratorial nod. "Exactly. You're a lifesaver, Fred. Seriously."

To seal the deal, she slid the A3 envelope across the laminate surface, centering it perfectly next to the bottle. "There’s a limited-edition Homelander poster in there. Hand-signed. I figured if you have a teenager at home—or maybe a very enthusiastic nephew—this might make you the hero of the weekend."

The tension in Fred’s shoulders crumbled by fractions. He let out a dry, raspy chuckle, as if he’d just been handed a stay of execution. He reached for the envelope with trembling fingers, peeking inside with genuine curiosity. The man had never touched anything from the "Inner Circle" before. "Thank you. Really. My son... he’s a huge fan."

"You bet!" Annie’s smile widened, but her eyes remained sharp, tracking the clock on the wall. "I also slipped a scratch-off code for my secure VoughtChat channel in there. Just plug that into your app and your messages will bypass the standard filter and land straight in my inbox. Send the results there the second the readout is clear." She gestured toward the bottle one last time, her tone casual but the instruction absolute.

Fred glanced between the Holy Grail of autograph in his hand and the girl standing in his quiet little world. He gave her a slow nod, the fear finally replaced by a sense of professional purpose. "Alright. I’ll get the machine spinning. I’ll get back to you as soon as the molecular mapping is done. And... thanks again for the poster. This means a lot."

Annie offered him one last nod and began to pivot, but she stopped halfway, her expression shifting into one of mock serious corporate concern. "Oh—one more thing, Sir. You can’t put that poster on eBay or redistribute it for commercial gain. It’s a personal gift, strictly for you and your family. If the Vought tracking department sees it on a secondary market, they’ll have both our heads. You understand?"

"Ah, yes. Of course. Strictly personal," Fred stammered, giving her a curt, terrified nod of loyalty.

With a final 'thanks' mouthed toward the chemist, Annie turned and strolled away. She kept her pace rhythmic and casual, the sound of her sneakers a steady thump against the linoleum that broadcasted a complete lack of guilt. She maintained the charade until the heavy lab door shut behind her and the suite was a past already.

The second she was back in the hallway, the charming mask dropped. Her stride lengthened, turning into a brisk power walk as she navigated toward the emergency exit. She hit the stairwell and took the steps two at a time, climbing upward toward Floor 10.

Floor 10 was a place where Supes were a common sight; now more than ever because Madelyn Stillwell was receiving treatment on that floor. So Starlight being seen on the medical floor wouldn't raise a single eyebrow. It was a clean pivot—if security checked the logs, she was just a concerned colleague doing her rounds in the hospital wing.

Once on the tenth floor, Annie smoothed her features into a high functioning professionalism. She kept her pace brisk, her gaze fixed straight ahead, and her hands shoved deep into her pockets to hide the slight tremor of a lingering adrenaline spike. 

“Starlight?” a voice called, cutting through the regular murmurs of the floor.

Annie nearly overshot her mark, her sneakers barking against the polished marble as she skidded to a halt. She turned, forcing a bright, slightly weird laugh. “Oh, hey! Tilda.”

It was the head nurse whose entire career currently revolved around the grueling schedule of Madelyn Stillwell’s treatment. Tilda grinned, closing the distance between them with an easy familiarity.

“Hey! I didn’t realize you were back from the tour,” Tilda said, her eyes scanning Annie with maternal curiosity.

“Yeah, yeah. We touched down late last night,” Annie squeaked, nodding with enough enthusiasm to hopefully ward off any follow-up questions. “I slept like a literal baby. Just getting my bearings back. So, how’s the boss? How’s Ms. Stillwell holding up?”

Tilda’s expression shifted into a professional neutral, the smile fading from her face. She gave a non-committal shrug that didn't exactly scream optimism. “She’s alive. We’ve already cycled through four rounds of dialysis. Her one good kidney is basically doing the work of an entire team right now, but it’s holding. For now. We’re just observing at the moment.”

Annie mirrored the nod, her sympathy feeling a bit clunky and vacant given the neon secret sitting in a lab two floors down. “Right. Of course. Well, keep me in the loop, okay?” She gave Tilda’s arm a quick, sisterly pat. “I’d stay and chat, but I really need to go squeeze back into the suit before Ashley sees me in civilian clothes and has a cardiovascular event.”

The joke landed perfectly, coaxing a genuine chuckle out of the nurse. Annie offered a quick, breezy wave and pivoted, heading for the elevator bank already.

The moment Annie stepped out onto Floor 99, her phone let out a demanding chime. She fished the device from her pocket while marching toward her penthouse, thumbing the screen awake.

A notification from Ashley. Naturally.

It wasn't a private scolding, though. It was a group text, a digital summons blasted to every member of the Seven. URGENT BRIEFING. CONFERENCE ROOM. 15 MINUTES. Ashley was even demanding a digital RSVP, her desperation practically bleeding through the sans-serif font.

Annie let out a sharp, unsurprised huff, the blue light of the screen reflecting in her tired eyes as she rolled them at the notification. She had been back in the tower for less than twenty-four hours, yet the glass walls already felt like they were shrinking. 

With a robotic flick of her thumbs, she navigated to the RSVP confirmation and watched the digital tally climb with grim synchronization; all seven confirmations. The whole dysfunctional family was expected at the table.

Her momentum broke abruptly when the heavy oak door to Maeve’s penthouse swung outward. She skidded to a halt, stumbling back half a step to avoid a collision with the Queen herself. Annie blinked, her attention suddenly split between her phone and the woman standing in the frame.

"Oh. Hey," Annie managed, recovering her cool with a casual, upward jerk of her chin.

Maeve leaned against the doorframe, looking remarkably unbothered. Her usual layer of professional cynicism was still there, but it was dampened by a rare, relaxed sort of lethargy. 

"Hey," Maeve echoed the gesture, then jerked her thumb over her shoulder toward the dim interior of her suite. "You want one of those?" she asked, her voice flat but surprisingly sincere.

Annie’s brow knitted in genuine confusion. "I’m sorry? One of what?"

"Those." Maeve gestured again, stepping aside just enough to invite a look into her penthouse. "I’m finished with them. You want 'em? They're yours if you do."

Intrigued and slightly wary, Annie leaned forward, tilting her head to peer past the threshold. 

The view led straight to the sprawling, king-sized bed. And sprawled across the silk sheets were two men built like Michelangelo had chiseled them himself; bronzed, muscular, and currently snoring with a rhythmic intensity, like exhausted toddlers. Professional escorts, clearly human, and very much indecently exposed in the aftermath of satiating a Supe's appetite.

Annie’s eyes rounded into dinner plates. A hot, prickly flush climbed her neck and bloomed across her cheeks instantly. She recoiled, a nervous giggle escaping her throat as she stepped back into the hallway. "Oh, no—I—thank you, but I don't really—"

She trailed off, unable to find a professional way to finish that sentence. Another coy laugh bubbled up despite her best efforts to remain the serious hero. For a fleeting, intrusive second, the idea of letting a handsome stranger distract her from the Vought nightmare actually sounded tempting, but the filmy absurdity of the offer was enough to keep her grounded.

Maeve watched her for a second, sucking her teeth in a display of pure amusement as she caught the frantic crimson blooming on Starlight’s cheeks. She pulled the door of her penthouse shut behind her, silencing the heavy snoring from within. 

Then, with a flick of her chin, she signaled for the new girl to fall in step as she began her casual, effortless stride down the hall.

"You really need to up your game, kid," Maeve teased, her voice dripping with a lazy, older-sister sort of mockery. "This whole monastic, sexless-martyr routine you’ve got going is going to bore you into an early grave."

Annie let out a breathy laugh, mildly embarrassed, her shrug feeling small and defensive. The heat in her cheeks hadn't quite subsided yet. "I don't know... I just broke up with Supersonic literally thirty six hours ago, you know."

Maeve let out a dismissive scoff that echoed off the empty halls. "All the more reason to fuck some sexy guys." She punctuated the advice with a conspiratorial wink, forcing a fresh, genuine burst of laughter from Annie.

"Alright, fine.” Annie nodded, “Let’s see how this 'single lady' era treats me first. But for the record? I’d much rather start with one of those martinis you’re always shaking up."

Maeve’s chuckle was louder this time, a rare, husky sound that actually reached her eyes. "Don't get ahead of yourself. We aren't friends, remember?"

"Right. Because God forbid we actually enjoy each other's company," Annie shot back, her sarcasm perfectly tuned to Maeve’s frequency. 

They reached the junction where their paths diverged, both women still wearing the remnants of a shared joke. "I’ll see you at the table. I have exactly eleven minutes to squeeze into the swimsuit," Annie called out with a final wave, turning toward her own suite to change into that skimpy one-piece suit that revealed more skin than her personality.

Maeve offered a lazy nod of acknowledgement as the new girl hurried off. The smile hadn’t quite vanished even after Annie left her line of sight, which was a departure from her usual default setting of total apathy. 

There was something undeniably cute—though she’d never admit to using that word—about the way Starlight kept stubbornly colonizing Maeve’s personal space this past month. It was a wide  radius that most people knew better than to cross, yet she seemed to treat it like a neighborhood park.

The truth was, the tower had felt remarkably quiet while the Light of the World tour was out in the sticks. Over the last month, Maeve had developed a cynical, booze fueled habit of using Starlight as a sounding board. She’d spent hours drunk-venting about the corporate rot, the terrifying trajectory of Homelander’s ego, Stillwell’s clinical manipulation, and the general uselessness of the rest of the Seven. It was a relief to have someone who actually listened, and even better to see that Starlight was finally developing a thick enough skin to throw a punchy quip back every now and then.

Maeve found herself wearing a genuine smirk as she crossed the threshold to the conference room, her eyes briefly scanning the empty chairs inside.

——

By the time Annie had returned in her gleaming new suit, the table was already a full house. Even Ashley was standing at the tail, looking like she’d spent the last twenty minutes vibrating out of her skin; business as usual.

“Starlight!” Ashley beamed, the corporate politeness a thin veneer over a core of pure stress. “What is it with you always being the last to arrive in meetings? Traffic in the hallway a bit much?” She flashed a wide, toothy grin that didn't reach her twitchy eyes, the kind of smile that was more of a jab than a greeting.

Annie didn't give her the satisfaction of an apology. She just fired back a sugary smile, then looked away as she sauntered toward her chair. She pulled out her seat and sank into it, performing a quick, bored sweep of the room.

Translucent and the Deep were huddled together, snickering over some braindead anecdote about Translucent’s latest film shoot. They’d paused for a split second when she’d walked in, tossing a couple of low effort smirks her way, but the novelty of hazing the rookie had clearly lost its luster. Between the general workload and that little "heart to heart" Homelander had forced on the Deep, the direct bullying had dried up during business hours.

Annie had made sure of it, too. She’d put enough distance between herself and the Megadouche Trio to ensure they couldn't get a grip on her. After that whole fake undercover stunt they’d pulled on her, the lesson had been hammered home: they were just a bunch of dimwitted psychological sadists. She didn't take a single thing they said seriously anymore.

A-Train sat across from her, leaning back and swaying his chair from side to side with a smug, untouchable confidence. The man was buzzing on a different frequency than the rest of the room, toxic masculine ego rolling off him in waves. When their eyes met, he gave her a cocky flick of his chin.

Annie stared right through him, treating him with the same icy silence she reserved for the other two. They were just background noise at this point. 

Down at the far end of the table, the power dynamic was on full display. Homelander was half-crouched beside Black Noir’s chair like a bored predator, all shoved up Noir's personal space. They were huddled over a tablet, Homelander’s gloved fingers stabbing at the glass while he muttered something low and indistinct. 

Every few seconds, Noir would offer a sharp, robotic nod or physically swat Homelander’s hand away to scroll back to a specific file. They hadn't even glanced up when Annie came in, a snub that she found genuinely refreshing. 

It was nice to be invisible for once.

Maeve was already three-quarters of the way to a blackout. She was slumped so deep in her chair she was practically horizontal, nursing a glass of amber liquid and staring at the ceiling like she was trying to manifest a structural collapse. She did, however, cut a quick, knowing look toward Starlight; the universal "here we go again" signal.

Once the room reached a simmering level of compliance, Ashley clapped her hands together with a smack. "Alright, everyone—if I could just have your attention for five minutes, please."

Her grin was a masterpiece; a wide, blindingly white, and trembling expression of high voltage panic with professionalism. 

Homelander finally pulled his attention away from Noir’s screen. He straightened up at a slow pace, and performed a lingering sweep of the table. His gaze caught Annie’s for a beat too long before he looked away. He planted his hands on his hips and let out a heavy, theatrical exhale, finally ready for the drama.

"Right," Ashley started, her jaw clenched tight. She shot a quick, nervous glance at Homelander. "Okay, guys, I know this past week has been... well, 'eventful' is putting it mildly." She let out a sheepish cackle, an obvious nod to the string of spontaneous combustions and the TNT twins’ messy exit. "And I’m genuinely sorry to be the one dropping more bad news on the pile, but we’ve got a situation. Gunpowder had been found murdered in a public toilet at a nightclub last night."

Ashley went quiet, her eyes darting around the room to see who was actively listening and who was just waiting for the catering to arrive. 

The news hung there like a bad smell, disgusting and undeniable.

But the atmosphere in the room remained ironically unchanged. The collective reaction was a vacuum of empathy, as if Ashley had just announced a slight delay in the quarterly earnings report. 

The only one who looked even remotely bothered was Annie, her brow knitting together as she tried to process the sheer brutality of it while the others just stared blankly at their reflections in the obsidian tabletop.

Homelander didn’t even blink. His face was a frozen mask of porcelain indifference, his blue eyes vacant and cold as he waited for further explanation to actually give a shit.

When the silence stretched long enough to become uncomfortable, Ashley pushed forward, her sheepish grin flickering like a dying lightbulb. "The M.E. Report is... it's a disaster. They’re saying someone sexually assaulted Gunpowder before beating him into a pulp in the stall. We’re currently operating under the assumption that—"

"A Supe did it," Homelander interjected, his voice flat and drained of any surprise. It wasn't really a guess, more like a bored observation.

Translucent let out an unsurprised scoff, leaning so far back in his chair the front legs hovered off the floor. "Smells like a revenge hit to me. My money is on Monolithica’s boyfriend. What the hell was his name again?" He tossed a glance toward the Deep, looking for a bit of assist on the gossip.

"You mean Monolith?" the Deep chimed in, a greasy smirk spreading across his face. "That’s her twin brother, you moron. Not the boyfriend."

Translucent only shrugged with an impressive level of apathy. "Same fucking difference. Aren’t they into some weird incestuous shit anyway? Everyone knows those two are 'close.'"

While the idiots bickered, Homelander sauntered back to the head of the table, his movements fluid and predatory. He grabbed his cape with a gloved hand, feeding the heavy fabric through the gap in his chair's handle before sinking into his seat. 

He turned his chillingly blue gaze back toward Translucent. "Why would Monolith bother? Those twins are pretty fucking slutty as far as I know. They aren't exactly picky about who they’re with."

Maeve, who had been staring into the bottom of her glass, suddenly barked a short, serrated laugh. "Please. You clearly missed the shitshow Gunpowder caused last year in Costa Rica."

"Exactly!" Translucent chimed in, leaning forward as the gossip finally trumped the grim reality of the body count. "The guy wouldn't take no for an answer. He wanted a piece of Monolithica while she was already ‘busy’ with Tek Knight. Total lack of etiquette. The prick started rubbing himself on her right there in the middle of the floor. Things got messy the second Monolith stepped in to play hero, and we had to physically scrap them off each other to keep the walls from coming down."

Homelander blinked, the expression flat and vacant. It was the look of processing data that had zero impact on his own godhood, though even he could see the tactical value in a good motive. He turned his head toward Ashley, his gaze sharpening into something cold and dismissive.

"Ashley," he said, his voice a bored drawl. "Send the full forensic spread to my tablet when it's ready, and get the fuck out." He punctuated the command with a flippant wave of his gloved hand; a dismissive, "queenly" gesture that told her she was officially polluting his importance.

"Absolutely! On it!" Ashley’s head bobbed like a dashboard ornament as she turned on her heels. She was out the door before the sentence even finished, her thumbs blurring across her screen as she pinged some of the classified files over to his device, her heels clicking a frantic retreat down the hall.

The heavy doors hissed shut, sealing the Seven into their private bubble of sociopathy. Homelander watched the exit for a beat, then turned back to the veterans of the team, a genuine frown creasing his brow. 

"Wait a second. Where the hell was I when all that was going down?" he demanded. The curiosity was real. He’d cleared the room of the corporate baggage because the annual Herogasm in Costa Rica last year was strictly off the books, a cocktail of depravity that the PR slugs didn't have the stomach to hear about.

Translucent opened his mouth to fill in the blanks, but Homelander shot up a gloved finger, cutting him off with a sharp snap.

"Wait. No. Don't answer it. I remember," Homelander said, a slow, predatory chuckle bubbling up from his chest. The memory hit him like a warm wave of nostalgia.

He’d been knee deep in a literal pile of supes, specifically a handpicked collection of women with various heat and fire-based abilities. He had spent months wondering what a little thermal friction would actually feel like on his indestructible dick, and he’d spent that weekend conducting a very thorough, very enthusiastic scientific exploration. It had been surreal, a blur of flickering orange light and searing skin, and he had savored every scorching second of it.

He leaned back in his chair, the ghost of a satisfied smirk playing on his lips while the women in the room waited for him to get back to the matter of the dead guy in the toilet.

The men around the table exchanged a series of knowing grins, their collective focus momentarily hijacked by the shared, filth stained nostalgia of last year’s retreat. They sat there like a pack of predatory frat boys, already mentally salivating over the next "crossover" event while the memory of the last one hung there like a sweet memory of fraternity.

"I’m telling you, it’s always those Payback oldies stirring up some prehistoric drama during the crossovers," A-Train cut in, his voice airy with a smug chuckle. He leaned back, his chair creaking under his ego. "Honestly? I think we all owe Monolith a fucking drink for finally taking out the trash. One less fossil to babysit." He shot a casual, dismissive glance toward the end of the table where the silent shape of Black Noir sat. "No offense, bro. I know you used to run with those losers."

Noir didn’t react. He didn't even look up. He was hunched over a sketchpad, his charcoal pencil scratching a rhythmic skritch as he sketched something indiscernible, completely insulated from the conversation by his own silent bubble.

Annie watched the display with a rising sense of nausea. She wasn't naive, she knew these people were moral voids, but the sheer casual cruelty of it was breathtaking. A man had been assaulted and killed in a filth-crusted bathroom stall, and they were treating it like a punchline to a joke told a year ago. 

And on top of that, her mind was racing. She remembered Homelander mentioned this "crossover" to her mid-air, right after he’d basically cheered over the TNT Twins’ death. They weren't just ignoring the murders, they were ignoring the pattern.

"Guys? Is that seriously it?" Annie blurted out, her voice cutting through the room’s toxic levity like a bucket of ice water. She leaned forward, her eyes scanning the table with a mixture of disbelief and genuine horror. "The members of Payback are dropping like flies. Gunpowder was raped and murdured. Are we really just going to sit here and talk about who fucked who in Costa Rica?"

"Hah!" Translucent barked, the sound sharp and grating. He looked at her like she was a talking dog. "Please, newbie. Give the conspiracy theories a rest. You’ve been reading too many of those dogshit comics we license. Reality isn't a four-color crossover event. It’s just people being shitty."

Annie’s jaw tightened, “I don’t give a flying fuck about comics. I care about the fact that someone is out there hunting Supes," she snapped, her voice dropping into a dangerous register that actually made the Deep stop smirking for a split second beside Translucent.

She cast Translucent a sharp glare before shifting to the head of the table. She pinned Homelander with a worried stare, refusing to blink.

"Someone didn't just kill him, they sexually assaulted him. Doesn't he deserve some semblance of justice? Or are we just going to keep victim-blaming every corpse we find? We blamed the combustions on the people who blew up, we blamed the nuclear crater on the TNT Twins, and now we’re saying Gunpowder basically invited his own murder? How the hell is any of that fair? How is that 'heroic'?"

"Gee," the Deep drawled, a greasy, self-satisfied smirk splitting his face. "That 'assault' part really struck a nerve there, didn't it, Starlight? You getting flashbacks or something?"

"Shut the fuck up, needledick!"

The words whipped across the table like a live wire from Annie's mouth, a loathing frown carved across her face. 

The silence that followed lasted exactly one second before the room detonated. 

The Deep sat there, mouth agape, looking like a fish gasping for air as the insult bypassed his two remaining brain cells. 

Across from him, A-Train erupted into a synchronous howl of laughter with Translucent at the Deep's side, slapping the black tabletop and pointing at the Deep’s mounting humiliation.

Maeve didn't even look up from her glass, but a deep smirk had sliced across her face as she took a slow sip of scotch. "She'd know," Maeve remarked into her drink, her voice dripping with dry malice. "She was an eyewitness."

Homelander leaned back, a single brow migrating toward his hairline. A crooked smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth as his gaze flickered between Starlight and the Deep, clearly entertained. It was like watching a boring pet suddenly grow fangs. Miss Goody-Two-Shoes was finally growing a spine, molding herself into a younger, blonder version of Maeve. He found the transformation unexpectedly delightful.

The Deep finally found his voice, his face flushing a mottled, angry purple. He let out an offended huff of breath, his hands trembling on the table. "What the fuck did you just call me? You lying little bitch, I'll—"

"You heard me," Annie cut him off, her jaw locked tight, her eyes radiating a cold agitation. "Needledick. Do I need to spell it out for you?"

"Okay, okay. That’s enough," Homelander interrupted, his tone laced with a paternal sort of amusement. He raised a hand to quiet the braying laughter of the other men, then turned his focus toward the Moronic Trio. "Look, as much as I’m enjoying the internal monologue here, she’s right. Payback really are dropping like fucking flies, and she has a point."

He turned back to Starlight then, the amused glint never quite leaving his blue eyes. His tone shifted into something conversational, almost reasonable. "Someone clearly walked away from Herogasm with a massive hard-on and a throbbing grudge. We need to scrape this problem off the shoe before this year’s crossover kicks off, and I want this year’s event to be uninterrupted."

Maeve gave a microscopic tilt of her head, a silent concession to the logic buried in Homelander’s bored decree. Even she couldn't argue with the body count.

Across the table, the heat finally began to bleed out of the Deep’s face. He exchanged a seeking look with A-Train and Translucent, who were now bobbing their heads with a rhythmic shrug of agreement. If Homelander said the new kid was right, then by some transitive property of corporate sycophancy, the kid was right.

Annie, however, was stranded in the dark. She looked from one smug face to the next, her confusion mounting. “Wait... what the hell is this Herogasm?” she asked, the question coming out too naive for a room full of predators. 

The Megadouche Trio didn’t even try to hide it this time. They burst into a fresh round of laughter. 

"Nothing, newbie," Translucent chimed, leaning over the table until he was nearly wheezing. "Just a little annual tradition. We all get together for a 48-hour prayer circle at a local church. Very wholesome. Lots of... laying on of hands." They roared again, the sound hitting the walls like a physical punch.

Homelander's smirk deepened as he released a sigh through his nose, eyes rolling wearily. “Guys... stop snickering like a bunch of Japanese schoolgirls.” He flicked a dismissive hand at the trio, his gaze drifting from Maeve’s stone-cold indifference to Noir’s silent sketching, and then back to the idiots.

“Speaking of Herogasm, the countdown is officially at fourteen days. Mark your calendars. And since the quarter was decent, I’m personally sponsoring the bar this year.” Homelander added, his tone almost endearing at this point. 

“Hell fucking yeah!” A-Train hollered, throwing his hands into the air and performing a mock bow across the table. 

The Deep and Translucent followed suit, cheering like they’d just been told the war was over. It was the only thing that could ever unify this collection of sociopaths; the promise of a week-long, drug fueled fuck-fest where the laws of physics and morality were both suspended for 48 hours.

Homelander basked in the noise, a small, satisfied chuckle vibrating in his chest as he soaked up the primitive adoration of his subordinates. He loved being the benefactor of their depravity. But the high didn't last. His eyes eventually drifted back to the far end of the table, where Starlight sat.

She was fuming. Her entire posture was a rigid monument to virtuous disappointment, her jaw set so tight it was almost funny. The "hero" act was back in full swing, and it was clearly grating on his nerves.

A quiet, tired sigh escaped Homelander’s lips again. He shook his head ever so slightly, raising a hand to settle the room's manic cheering. When the noise finally decayed into a thick, expectant silence, he leaned forward, his tone shifting into something that sounded ironically like a peace offering.

“Starlight,” he said, his voice smooth, rich, and terrifyingly sincere. “Since you’re so eager to ‘bring justice’ to a dead man in a toilet... why don't we put that energy to work? You and the Deep can team up. You’re the lead on the Gunpowder investigation. How does that sound, Detective?”

Annie’s head snapped toward Homelander, her neck tendons pulling taut with pure horror at the suggestion. "You’ve got to be shitting me," she blurted out, her voice cracking in contempt. "Why the hell would I ever want to team up with him?"

"Why not?" Homelander countered, already pushing his chair back with a smooth, predatory grace. He stood up, looking down at the table like a king bored with his court. "It’s blatantly obvious you two have zero rapport. A little quality time in the trenches is exactly what’s needed to mitigate that pathetic friction. Don’t you think?"

"But—"

"No more fucking tantrums, please," Homelander cut her off, leveling a gloved finger in her direction. His cadence wasn't even aggressive, it was chillingly professional, delivered with a casual detachment despite knowing full well exactly how much Starlight wanted to vomit at the prospect. "You two are going to solve your little back-alley murder mystery before the 14-day clock runs out—before Herogasm. We clear?"

He let his gaze drift between the Deep’s smug face and Starlight’s vibrating rage, his eyes twinkling with a patronizing paternal malice.

"Aye, aye, Captain!" the Deep chirped, snapping a mock salute that made his shoulder joints click. He turned his head toward Annie, his smirk widening into something greasy and triumphant.

Annie just sat there, blinking slowly as the irritation flared white-hot behind her eyes. It was a bleak epiphany, hitting her like a slap to the face. These people didn't give a single shit about the bad things happening in the world; they were the bad things happening in the world. They were the chief arsonists in a world that still called them the fire department.

Her jaw tightened by agonizing degrees, her teeth grinding together as she mentally burned a hole through the Deep. Finally, she snapped her head back toward the head of the table. "Yes, Homelander. Understood."

"Good. Glad we could have this little heart-to-heart." Homelander huffed a short breath of relief, the sound of finally checking a tedious chore off his to-do list. "Class dismissed!"

He clapped his palms together with a loud thwack and stalked away from the table, his cape billowing behind him as he washed his hands of the petty, bottom tier drama that was officially beneath his pay grade.

——

The elevator chimed with a melodic ping, and as the brushed gold doors parted, Homelander stepped out into the lobby of floor 55. 

The space always smelled of expensive eucalyptus and hyperfiltered air. The entire level was designed to mimic a luxurious Zen retreat while maintaining the corporate flavor of Vought. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, the New York skyline had begun its nightly transformation into a sprawling, glittering carpet of light under the darkening sky.

At the reception desk, two attendants stood with a stiff posture, looking like two wax figures in a museum. They didn't speak as Homelander approached, mostly because the silence here was a requirement, actually. 

One staffer held a silver tray draped with a plush, silk lined navy blue robe and a stack of Egyptian cotton towels. The other waited with open arms, ready to receive the most expensive laundry in the Western hemisphere.

Homelander grabbed the robe and disappeared into the private changing stalls without a single word of acknowledgment. A few minutes later, he emerged with the iconic suit replaced by the simple blue robe, which he tied loosely over a pair of dark boxers. He wordlessly handed over the suit, the cape, and the boots to the waiting attendant.

The staff exchanged a microscopic glance, clearly surprised. 

The fact that he had actually donned the robe today meant he was planning to get into the water. Usually, he would simply stalk through the facility in full, intimidating regalia to hover near Noir, never once bothering to touch the pool. 

It was an objectively bizarre sight for them to process. Here was the most powerful man on the planet, stripped of his patriotic garment and standing in a bathrobe, yet he still radiated enough latent energy to make the fine hairs on the staff’s arms stand straight up. 

This break from the routine was staggeringly new for them, but they maintained their professional masks of blankness with meticulous care.

Homelander snatched a heavy towel from the tray and began the long, echoing trek toward the pool wing. 

The "Pool" was a corporate misnomer actually. The space was an engineering marvel, a sapphire abyss that carved through one entire side of the level and plunged deep into the structural guts of Floor 54. It was a pressurized titanium tank designed to withstand the physical displacement of gods who needed more than just a place to do laps.

He bypassed the heavy glass partitions and the humidity hit him like a warm damp cloth. The air was a thick, swampy cocktail of industrial grade chlorine and topshelf gin.

​Maeve was already a fixture of the landscape, a  dark silhouette framed against the glow of the water. She wasn’t exactly swimming. Instead, she drifted with a lazy boredom beside the submerged poolside bar, one hand planted on the marble ledge while the other manipulated a silver shaker, her focus razor sharp like a chemist. She watched the crystal clear martini cascade into a chilled glass as she began the pour. 

Maeve had a notorious habit of physically throwing out any professional bartender Vought sent her way. Unless there was a party, she preferred to be the one handling her poison.

​Meanwhile, Homelander paced to the very edge of the drop-off and stared into the depths of the pool. 

Far below the shimmering surface, in the high pressure zone of the lower level, a dark shape sat perfectly motionless on the floor. Black Noir was down there, settled cross-legged at the bottom of the tank, his silhouette warped and bloated by fifteen feet of chlorinated water. He looked like a discarded bronze statue someone had forgotten to bolt down.

​“He’s doing it again,” Maeve drawled from her corner. She didn't bother lifting her eyes from the olive she was skewering. “My money’s on oxygen deprivation training. Or he’s finally trying to drown himself. What’s your take?”

Homelander let out a short amused breath, his eyes never wavering from the motionless shadow of Noir.

"He’s not training," he said, the words carrying a flat finality as he took off the robe, draping it over a lounging chair, and sauntered toward the pool ladder. "It’s a meditative exercise. Sensory deprivation. He’s tuning out the world because, frankly, who wouldn’t?"

​He began to lower himself into the water, the surface breaking with a rhythmic slosh that echoed through the humid chamber. 

The sound was enough to make Maeve’s eyes snap up from her martini, her professional apathy momentarily faltering by a genuine spark of shock. A quiet, raspy huff of surprise escaped her lips as she watched the bare back of him lowering into the water.

​“Holy shit,” she drawled again, her voice dripping with a fresh coat of sarcasm. “The mighty Homelander touches the peasant waters. What happened? Are the dry cleaners on a strike?”

​A subtle yet dangerous smirk tugged at Homelander’s mouth as he drifted further into the blue, closing the distance between them with a lazy stroke. He kept his head high, ensuring his hair remained perfectly styled and dry, his blue eyes fixed on Maeve with an unblinking gaze.

​He parked himself directly beside her at the submerged bar, his gaze dropping briefly to the depths where Noir remained a silent gargoyle. He then turned his attention back to Maeve, watching her with a bored intensity as she took a slow sip from her glass.

​Maeve didn't look away this entire time. She was still recalibrating the sight of him actually submerged for the first time in recent memory. Usually, he’d just haunt the poolside lounging chairs, sulking about Stan Edgar’s icy dismissal or Madelyn Stillwell’s latest manipulation of his ego. 

More often than not, Maeve and Noir were his involuntary therapists, the unfortunate victims of his need to vent his bitter, hateful frustrations to the only two people he considered even remotely close to his level in some fucked up sense of amity. 

​The Moronic Trio never had the privilege of hearing him speak his mind; if you could call the unfiltered toxic waste of his inner monologue a "mind", that is. The thought of A-Train or the Deep trying to handle a Homelander therapy session brought a genuine chuckle to Maeve’s lips.

​“So, what’s the occasion?” she asked, a teasing smirk finally surfacing. “Anything special today?”

Homelander narrowed his eyes, his face settling into a mask of mock innocence that wouldn't have fooled a toddler. 

"What? I can't take a dip every once in a while?" he asked, punctuated by a flippant one-shouldered shrug that sent a small ripple through the sapphire water.

​Maeve’s smirk only dug deeper into her cheek. "Sure, you can. It’s just that you don't. Ever."

​"Well, I’m doing it now, aren't I?" Homelander countered with a dismissive dry scoff, the sound echoing off the damp marble.

​"Okayyy," Maeve sang out playfully, the word stretching out with a bored musical indifference. She turned her face away, focusing her entire being on the rim of her martini glass as she took a long sip.

​A heavy silence settled over the wing, broken only by the rhythmic muffled hum of the filtration system deep in the walls. 

Homelander had gone still, his gaze drifting aimlessly across the surface of the pool. He watched the overhead lights swirl and fracture against the moving water, the neon blues and soft whites dancing in a hypnotic loop.

The tension seemed to bleed out of his shoulders in the meantime as his superhuman physiology finally adjusted to the cool embrace of the pool, his muscles unclenched by the mindless pressure of the water.

​When the silence stretched too long, Maeve cut a sidelong glance at him, a single brow creeping upward as she studied his distracted profile. 

The man looked genuinely troubled; not the typical, vein-popping rage she was used to seeing, but something quieter and more corrosive. It was the specific kind of brooding he displayed for when the world wasn't bending to his will quite fast enough. Usually, he’d hover in this state of prickly silence until either she or Noir propped him up and invited him to dump his psychological baggage on them.

​She felt a familiar weary roll of her eyes and exhaled a sharp breath through her nose. Yeah, absolutely not. She wasn't in the mood to play the therapist tonight. She had enough of her own bile to swallow without adding his to the mix.

​So, instead of taking the bait and asking what was eating him, she decided to hijack the silence with a topic she actually gave a fuck about.

​"You really shouldn't be so hard on Starlight, you know," Maeve said abruptly. Her voice was conversational and stripped of any sentimental warmth, sounding more like an exhausted project manager giving a factual performance review than a mentor sticking up for a protégé.

Homelander remained perfectly motionless, a submerged monument of muscle and ego. He only blinked once, breaking his hypnotized gaze from the swirling light show on the water's surface. Then, with an intent tilt of his head, he cast a look toward Maeve, a faint frown creasing his brow.

​"Well, at least I’m not hard for her. Just on her," he quipped, his voice a dry drawl. He offered a dismissive shrug before turning his face away again. 

​Maeve didn't laugh. She didn't even acknowledge the pathetic juvenile wordplay, offering instead an unsurprised grimace. She took a slow methodical sip from her glass, her eyes fixed on the far wall. "Why'd you partner her with the Deep? He's an idiot. You know that better than anyone."

​A sharp, almost offended scoff escaped Homelander’s throat in immediate dismissal. 

"Just because she has a hysterical little allergy to the man, doesn't mean she’s immune to his exposure. It’s part of the job. Like the rest of us. We all find him revolting, don't we?" He flashed her a blindingly white grin, a manufactured expression of camaraderie that demanded she play along.

​"No," Maeve said, shaking her head as she watched the last of the gin swirl in her glass. "That’s not what I’m getting at. She's reaching her limit. Deep is going to get himself killed if he keeps trying to pull her leg.” She took another sip, a dark, razor thin smirk ghosting across her lips. "No puns intended."

​Homelander turned to look at her again, letting out a sudden delighted chuckle, visibly energized by the realization that Maeve was actually showing a flicker of concern for the Deep's safety, not the new girl. 

"You say that like it’d be a tragedy," he said, his tone a toxic blend of playfulness and grim sincerity.

​"I mean—fuck, I want to cave the idiot's face in half the time myself," Maeve admitted with a heavy sigh. She tipped her head back and downed the remainder of her martini in one long gulp, the ice rattling against the crystal.

​Homelander laughed then, a proper, booming sound that bounced off the high marble ceiling and vibrated through the humid air. He leaned over the edge of the bar, his eyes dropping back to the silent tomb where Noir remained grounded to the floor.

​"What’s the verdict, Noir?" he called out, his voice echoing through the chamber. "Am I being too 'hard' on the new kid? And more importantly—should we let Maeve finally rearrange the Deep’s features?"

Noir didn't break the surface with a splash so much as he haunted his way out of it. Within a minute, the dark shape drifted upward until his mask breached the water with a heavy slosh. The kevlar of his suit clung to his frame, slick and shimmering under the neon ambient lights.

​For a moment, it looked as though he’d actually surfaced to weigh in on the Deep’s impending facial reconstruction. Instead, Noir simply drew in one long breath, exhaled it with a slow hiss, and took another deep lungful of oxygen.

Then, he tipped backward. The man vanished into the blue abyss without a single gesture, the water swallowing him whole once more.

​Homelander, who had been leaning back with an expectant, almost boyish tilt to his head, blinked slowly. The realization that Noir was strictly in "spectator mode" tonight hit him like an emotional slap he'd been trying to get used to lately.  

​“Urghh,” Homelander groaned, his eyes rolling theatrically. “I hate it when he does that silent monk thing. Incredibly rude.”

​Maeve didn't even look up. She was already busy at the bar, her hands moving with alcoholic grace as she began assembling her next drink. 

“So,” she said, her voice cutting through the damp air with a dry yet casual tone. “What’s actually eating you tonight?”

​Homelander’s head snapped toward her in an instant, his neck muscles corded and stiff. “What the hell makes you think something’s eating me?”

​“Well, for starters, you’re distracted. You’ve got that look—like you’re having a very loud, very annoying argument with yourself inside your head,” Maeve teased, the rhythmic sound of the cocktail mixer providing a metallic backbeat to her observation.

​“Wrong. I’m fine. You’re just projecting your own delusional misery onto me,” Homelander denied, his tone airy and casual as he flicked a dismissive hand through the air.

​Maeve’s shoulders rolled in a lazy non-committal shrug. “Mmkay. Whatever helps you sleep at night, big guy.”

​She poured the sixth martini of the hour into a fresh glass, the crystal clinking softly against the marble ledge. She began to sip in a peaceful silence, staring out at the skyline beyond the pool. At the very least, if he decided to have a nuclear meltdown later, he couldn’t claim she hadn’t offered him the floor.

The silence settled over the water with a comfortable and familiar weight, but Homelander wasn't exactly at peace. He kept cutting side glances toward Maeve, his eyes tracing the thin straps of her bikini tied at the nape of her neck. 

He waited, his ego practically straining as he held out for her to crack and probe him for more details. But when it became painfully clear that Maeve was perfectly content to let him rot in his own head, he finally caved.

​"I mean—Starlight has a point, you know," he said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial register. He looked at Maeve through the corner of his eye, his usual smugness replaced by something resembling genuine concern. "The TNT Twins are toast. Gunpowder is a grease stain in a bathroom. It’s more than a little weird that three people from the same team—the Seven before there was even a Seven—are suddenly dead. You saw the mess at the Twins' place."

​"Mm-hm," Maeve muttered. She didn't turn to look, but her face creased into a deep, thoughtful frown as she worked through the implications. "So… what? You’re implying someone has a targeted hard-on for Payback? Because if that’s the case, it means Noir has a bullseye on his back too, doesn’t it?"

​Homelander’s head jerked toward her fully this time, the suggestion that Noir might actually be vulnerable hitting him with a physical jolt he wasn't prepared for. 

He smacked his lips in instant denial, the sound sharp in the humid air, and shook his head with a frantic sort of certainty.

​"No? No way. Noir isn't some bargain-bin Supe you can just catch anywhere. You don't just 'kill' him. He’s smart, he’s competent, and he’s... he’s Black fucking Noir. He's strong." He turned back toward the dark abyss of the pool, his voice rising into a holler that echoed off the ceiling. "What’s the word, Noir? You guys leave any loose ends back in the day? Anyone from the old crowd still holding a grudge?"

The comedy of the situation wasn't lost on the room, of course. Noir began his buoyant ascent again, rising through the sapphire depths like a modern swamp monster. 

Homelander and Maeve exchanged a brief, expectant glance, suspended in the humid silence as they waited for the oracle to speak.

​But the punchline was identical. Noir’s masked head broke the surface with a wet slosh of water. He drew in a sharp, rattling breath, pushed it out, and then dragged in another lungful of air.

​“Hey, did you even hear what I sai—” Homelander started, his voice sharpening with a needy edge. But before he could even finish the sentence, Noir tipped backward. 

This time he didn't just submerge, he plummeted in a single dive all the way back down to the deepest corner of the tank.

​Interrupted mid-thought and left staring at a patch of bubbles, Homelander blinked stupidly. The amusement had officially curdled into a prickly annoyance. 

He let out a heavy sigh, theatrical in its glory, and turned to Maeve. “Is he going to keep doing that tonight?”

Maeve let out a delighted chuckle, amused not only by Noir's comical weirdness but also Homelander's grating ego crashing by the lack of adequate attention from his fuckbuddy. 

​“You tell me!” she joked, her voice bouncing off the marble. “The man never even takes off his suit. He's in the fucking pool in that suit.”

​Homelander rolled his eyes, a microscopic nod of agreement escaping him. He gave a frustrated shake of his head as if physically tossing the thought of Noir away. 

“Fuck him. If he wants to play submarine, let him.” He flicked his chin toward the heavy amber bottle on the ledge, his tone dropping into a flat and deeply bored command. “Pour me one, will you?”

​Maeve set her martini glass down on the counter with a soft clink and reached for the whiskey. She poured it neat, the liquid catching the blue ambient light as it filled the glass for him.

​“So, how was the grand tour?” she asked, her curiosity wrapped in a thick layer of sarcasm. “I’m surprised Starlight hasn't tried to quit the team yet”

​Homelander's brows knit into a curious, almost defensive frown. “Tour was a total shitshow—which I know you knew. And why the hell would she quit?”

Maeve offered a lazy shrug, her movements fluid and indifferent in the chest-high water. “Everyone tries to bail after their first field day with you. It’s a rite of passage. Then Vought’s legal team has to remind them about that lovely sixty-five-million-dollar contract they signed—the one that bars them from even thinking about the exit for at least five years of service.”

​She delivered the line with a clinical flatness, like reading it out from a textbook. She slid the whiskey glass across the marble toward Homelander, who intercepted it with a self-satisfied smirk.

​He took a slow, intent sip, the amber liquid blooming into a controlled fire that scorched his throat and stirred his hypersensitive taste buds. A microfrown had creased his brow on pure instinct, a rare sensation that actually registered against his invulnerability.

​“I don’t know—and I don’t particularly care,” he said eventually, his wrist flicking in a slow circle to swirl the whiskey against the glass. “But seriously, why does everyone have such a hard-on for leaving?” He slanted his head, his expression shifting into a look of genuine curiosity. 

It was a blind spot in his god complex. The idea that anyone would want to escape his orbit was a piece of data his brain simply couldn't process. After all, wasn't he the most magnetic man to walk the Earth? 

​Maeve barked out a sharp scoff, unsurprised by his lack of self awareness. The sound echoing constantly through the humid wing. “Well, everyone gets a little scared after getting railed by the Mighty Homelander—figuratively and literally.” 

​A small crooked smirk unfurled at the corner of Homelander’s mouth, twitching with a mix of pride and dark amusement. 

“Interesting.” He said, “I guess that explains why Starlight is still hanging around. I haven’t really… you know. Not yet.” He gave a small shrug, leaving the sentence hanging awkwardly. He hadn't bothered to establish any kind of sexual dominion over the new girl, and the admission felt strangely heavy.

​“Wait—what?” Maeve spat, nearly choking on a stray drop of gin. She looked at him with an expression of pure, incredulous shock. “That’s a fucking first for you. How come?” 

Homelander’s face soured into a deeply uninterested grimace as the line of questioning began to poke at his ego. 

"You’re asking too many questions tonight, Maeve," he muttered, the warning in his voice barely marked by a layer of bored irritation. He drained the rest of his whiskey in one aggressive swig, the glass hitting the marble bar with a loud clack before he pushed off.

​He swam away from her with a few powerful strokes, eventually settling into a lazy, aimless drift across the sapphire expanse. He floated there like a discarded buoy for a while, staring up at the vaulted ceiling. 

“Why are you so invested in the girl, anyway?” he called out after a few minutes of silence, his tone suddenly guarded. 

​Maeve didn't even bother looking up from her glass, offering nothing more than a light shrug of her damp shoulders. “She’s smart. I like her. It’s a rare find in this building.”

​Homelander sneered at the statement, pointedly ignoring the comment as he stared into the middle distance. He clearly didn't like the idea of his close circle people getting fond of the new girl. 

But in a dark and annoyingly honest corner of his mind, he knew Maeve was right. 

The new girl possessed a certain cerebral sharpness that made the Moronic Trio look like a collection of concussed golden retrievers. He’d seen the firsthand proof of her competence during the tour, but there was no way in hell he was going to dignify Maeve’s observation with a verbal agreement.

​He was well aware that Maeve and Starlight had been hanging out more frequently lately. He also knew that Maeve had a chronic tendency to let her true opinions leak out once the peg count hit the double digits. If he gave her even a shred of validation, she’d undoubtedly spill the beans to Starlight; letting slip that the great Homelander actually thought she was capable.

​He had absolutely no intention of pumping a rookie full of unnecessary encouragement. The girl was already a self-righteous little bitch as it was. The last thing she needed was the confidence to match her moral compass.

Homelander decided to cut the cord on any further verbal sparring, drifting further away from Maeve and the silent gargoyle at the bottom of the tank. He spent the next few minutes drifting through the sapphire water with a deceptively easy grace. It was peaceful—until it wasn't. 

The second he allowed his head to dip fully beneath the surface, the present dissolved, replaced by an unpleasant and completely unwanted flash of a life he’d spent decades trying to bury.

​The memory struck him like a deadly lightning. He was back in the lab, a terrified boy suspended in a reinforced glass tank full of toxic chemicals. 

Back then, he used to be submerged in those fluids for days on end for stress testing. The silence of the tank had an incessant ringing to it, a memory absorbed deep in his muscles. He’d survived it, obviously, but he had never quite purged the marrow-deep horror of sensory deprivation, the feeling of the world being erased by a suffocating silence.

​Under the surface of the pool, Homelander gasped.

​The reflexive inhale pulled a lungful of chlorinated water into his throat. His eyes shot wide, white-rimmed with a sudden primitive panic as he realized he was sinking—slowly, helplessly—toward the dark floor at the bottom.

​He recalibrated himself hastily, like a firing synapse, forcing his limbs into a controlled motion before either of his teammates could register the lapse. 

He broke the surface in a neglected corner of the pool, his blonde hair finally losing its perfect structure and plastered to his forehead in wet golden streaks.

​He huffed a series of loud, ragged breaths, followed by a few violent coughs as he blinked the stinging water from his eyes. He shook his head with a frantic intensity, trying to physically dislodge the ghost of the lab from his skull. He didn't even realize he was sneering, his upper lip curled in a hateful snarl at his own body for betraying him with such a pathetic trigger of trauma. 

This was exactly why he never got into the pool. He hated this sensation of fear induced by bad memories. 

​“You okay over there? Out of practice?” Maeve called out from the bar.

​She didn't even bother to turn her head, her focus remaining entirely on the olive at the bottom of her glass. The question was an empty courtesy, a low effort play to prevent the inevitable sulking fit Homelander would throw if he felt ignored. She couldn't have cared less if he’d actually started to drown, but a little verbal maintenance was a small price to pay for the staggering paycheck Vought deposited into her account every month.

Homelander didn't bother offering Maeve the satisfaction of a response. He spent a few more seconds aggressively blinking the sting of chlorine from his eyes, waiting for the mental static of his laboratory childhood to fade into the background. 

Once he felt the familiar cold mask of his public persona slide back into place, he cut through the water with a slow but powerful stroke, returning to the center of the pool.

Almost as if on cue, the dark shape at the bottom of the tank stirred for the third time. Noir drifted upward with a spectral grace. By the time Homelander reached the center, Noir had already breached the surface, the water cascading off his plated shoulders in thick sheets. 

This time, however, the routine changed. Instead of the breathing exercises, Noir paddled over to a stainless steel ladder and began to climb out of the pool.

The shift in behavior acted like a magnet for the room’s attention. 

Homelander and Maeve watched with a shared and silent curiosity as the mute ninja hauled his saturated frame onto the marble floor. 

He left a wide, glistening trail of water in his wake as he strolled over to the row of lounging chairs with a heavy squelching gait. He snatched up a plush robe, sliding it over his dripping suit and yanking the belt into a tight knot at his waist. 

He stood there for a beat, his masked head swiveling from Homelander to Maeve like a curious owl, leaving them both suspended in a state of confused expectation.

Noir reached for the legal pad resting on his lounging chair. He plucked a pen from the wire binding with a metallic click and began to flip through the damp pages. After a frantic moment of scribbling, the sound of the nib digging into the paper audible even over the pool’s filtration system, he turned back to the pair and hoisted the notepad high.

The message was scrawled in aggressive block letters:

“YOU DIDN'T FUCK STARLIGHT BECAUSE YOU HAVE A CRUSH ON HER”

Yes. All caps and no punctuation. Just a blunt-force psychological assessment.

Homelander’s face underwent an instantaneously violent transformation. His brow furrowed into a tight knot and his mouth pulled back into a scowl of pure offense. 

“What the fuck are you even—wait, why the fuck would you even say that?!” he demanded, his voice rose and cracked with a sincere incredulity that lacked its usual murderous edge, replaced instead by a frantic defensiveness. It was almost like a teenager was caught with a naughty magazine.

In the background, the silence of the room was demolished by a booming explosion of laughter. Maeve had leaned back against the submerged bar, her head turned toward the ceiling as she surrendered to a fit of unbridled amusement. 

She was deep enough into her sixth martini for the filter between her brain and her mouth to have dissolved entirely. The sight of the most feared being on the planet getting called out by his silent fuckbuddy in a bathrobe over his suit was, in her professional opinion, the funniest thing to happen in the Tower all year.

Homelander whipped his head toward her, leveling a raging glare in her direction, but Maeve was far too gone to care about the imminent threat of laser vision.

Before Homelander could even open his mouth to reiterate his outrage, Noir had already flipped the page over and scribbled on the paper again. The scrawl was even more aggressive this time, the ink bleeding into the damp paper. 

Once done, he held it up again:

“YOU DON'T DISAPPOINT WHO YOU ADMIRE”

Homelander froze, his eyes widening as he read the words over and over. He blinked, momentarily stunned into a rare silence by the sudden soul-baring from his silent shadow. 

The statement carried a double-edged meaning that cut through his facade with pinpoint accuracy. Deep down, in the parts of his psyche he kept buried under layers of patriotic theater and murderous entitlement, Homelander lived in a perpetual state of terror at the thought of disappointing those he secretly held in high regard. 

It was a file he kept firmly locked in the "denial" cabinet of his brain, yet it cruelly remained the only real leash the scientists back at the lab had ever successfully used to keep their god-king contained.

The irony of the statement wasn't lost on him, even as his blood began to simmer. 

Homelander was, in his own twisted way, also a fiercely loyal friend to the man in the bathrobe. He didn't just trust Noir, he cared for him with a genuine, protective admiration that he didn't extend to any other living soul. He treated the rest of the Seven like disposable props and Maeve like a bitter ex-business partner, but he never let Noir down, never disappointed him. He'd always funneled the most critical and blood-soaked missions to Noir, trusting his competence above the rest of the team combined. 

So, of course, Noir knew what he was talking about. 

But having that reality stripped naked and held up on a cheap legal pad in the middle of a pool session was too much. The vulnerability of the observation made his skin crawl. 

What the fuck? he thought, his jaw working as he stared at the ink. 

It was one thing to have a silent bond of mutual respect, but it was quite another to have his emotional plumbing mapped out in front of a drunk, cackling Maeve.

Homelander cast another glare toward Maeve, who was still vibrating with a low chuckle, before snapping his attention back to Noir. He could feel his blood boiling, though the heat wasn't fueled by his usual homicidal impulse. Instead, it was the prickly and suffocating shame of being caught psychologically naked in a spotlight he hadn't asked for. 

He felt exposed, his mental wiring laid out on a damp paper like a biological specimen.

Rather than dignifying their playful bluntness with a defensive outburst or a calculated lie, he opted for a display of theatrical boredom. "You two are a couple of insufferable dicks," he spat, his voice thick with a scowl that didn't quite hide the tremor of irritation.

He didn't bother with the mundane dignity of the pool ladder after that. He simply rose straight out of the water, defying gravity with a casual and arrogant  power of the god he believed himself to be. 

Sheets of sapphire water cascaded off the planes of his chest and the ribbed muscle of his stomach, raining back into the pool in a rhythmic downpour. He drifted through the humid air toward the lounging chairs, finally grounding himself on the tiles with nothing but his dark boxers clinging to his frame.

In a fit of performative pique, he snatched up his navy blue robe, the silk snapping through the air as he shoved his arms into the sleeves. His movements were jerky and petulant, the physical manifestation of a silent tantrum. He yanked the belt into a loose, lopsided knot over his waist and began a stomping march toward the exit. 

He kept his chin cocked at a smug angle, blue eyes turning flat and glacial as he retreated into his preferred shell of superiority.

Behind him, Noir remained a silent sentinel on the pool deck, the notepad still clutched in his hand like a smoking gun. 

At the bar, Maeve was already reaching for the gin again, her shoulders shaking with the remnants of her amusement as she prepared to construct her seventh martini of the evening.

After a moment of staring at the retreating back of the world’s most powerful toddler, Noir gave a small, indifferent shrug to himself. He turned and began to follow after the captain, his waterlogged footsteps tracing a glistening path on the floor in their wake.

Chapter Text

"From the final autopsy, it’s clear the victim was struck over a hundred times with something exceptionally heavy and solid," the Lead Pathologist said, the deep furrow between his brows looking like a permanent feature of his face. He didn't look disturbed; but sort of annoyed by the sheer amount of paperwork a pulverized skull had generated. "Since Gunpowder was a high-tier meta—excuse me, a superhuman—it’s a safe bet the killer was one too. Regular metal shouldn't have been able to cut through him like this."

The doctor turned toward the stainless steel table, his gloved finger hovering over the crater where the left half of Gunpowder’s skull used to be. "These specific fractures at the lateral sphenoid and zygomatic arch are perfectly consistent with the debris we recovered from the crime scene. His head was slammed into the basins at least thirty times. Honestly, the entire public restroom was a slaughterhouse."

Annie stood a few feet back, her posture rigid as she absorbed the clinical horror of the report. She was listening intently, her own frown deepening as she tried to reconcile the hero on the posters with the wet, broken thing on the slab. Her eyes kept darting around the room in sharp, cautious glances, struggling to adjust to the reality of her surroundings. She’d never stepped foot in a morgue before, let alone one buried in the bowels of a corporate skyscraper. 

It turned out the Seven Tower had plenty of sub-levels, and apparently, they functioned as a filing system for the company’s dead investments.

When Starlight offered no immediate follow-up, the pathologist cleared his throat and flipped a page on his files, moving to the next grim chapter of the assessment. 

"Then, there’s the matter of the sexual assault. We recovered viable semen samples during the intake. We can officially confirm he was systematically assaulted prior to the time of death."

Annie winced, the detail hitting her like a physical blow to the conscience. As if the bone-chilling cold of the morgue wasn't spooky enough, she was now being fed a narrative that left her momentarily stunned. She felt a wave of genuine nausea roll through her, but she forced her expression to remain neutral, masking her shock with a look of professional, thoughtful contemplation.

After a long, heavy beat, she finally exhaled a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. She glanced one last time at the remains of Gunpowder before looking back at the Pathologist. 

"Thank you for being thorough," Annie said, her voice steady despite the internal spook. "Do you mind if I take the file for a while? I need to review the specifics."

Before the pathologist could even open his mouth to answer, the heavy steel door to the morgue swung open with enough force to slam against the wall, the metallic bang echoing through the room like a controlled explosion.

Both Annie and the doctor jerked at the noise, their heads snapping toward the entrance.

“Sup, guys?” The Deep called out, stepping into the sterile chill with a wide, self-satisfied grin and his hands planted firmly on his hips. 

He looked like he was auditioning for a cologne commercial, his suave setting dialed up to an obnoxious ten, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was standing ten feet away from a pulverized skull.

Annie didn't even try to hide her reaction. She rolled her eyes, her head shaking in a slow display of disappointment that had become her default setting whenever he was around. “Did you get it? The surveillance footage from the nightclub?”

Deep let out a sharp, mocking scoff. “What do you think, newbie?”

Annie didn't give him the satisfaction of a comeback. She just grimaced, ignoring his existence entirely as she turned back to the medical staff. “I’m sorry about him. You were saying?”

The pathologist was still blinking, looking genuinely scandalized by the obscenely loud intrusion. In a room this quiet, the noise was essentially a physical assault. It was a miracle the racket hadn't woken up the dead in the room. 

Once the shock settled into a cold, professional disdain, he cast a long, judgmental glance at Deep. Then, with a sigh of mild irritation, he turned back to Starlight and held out the thick manila folder containing the autopsy report.

“Here you go, Starlight,” he said, his face already pivoting away as he dismissed them both from his workspace.

“Thanks,” Annie muttered curtly, snatching the file before spinning back toward the door. “Let’s get out of here. This place is depressing enough without the soundtrack.”

She didn't wait for a response, brushing past the idiot in the green suit and heading straight for the hallway, her boots clicking a sharp, angry rhythm against the floor.

The Deep lingered for a second, grinning like he’d just won an award, his gaze bouncing between the annoyed pathologist and Starlight’s retreating back. It took a moment for his dim brain to realize that the audience had left the room, before he finally sauntered out after her.

They stepped into the heavy-duty cargo elevator, a spacious, industrial box designed for moving gurneys and equipment rather than people. Annie pressed the button for the top basement and then immediately staked out a corner, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Deep. 

He, meanwhile, planted himself dead center, his hands still glued to his hips in a pose that screamed "hero of the hour" to absolutely no one.

Every few seconds, he’d cast a wide, cheeky grin in her direction, a look so smug and condescending it made Annie’s blood boil.

Annie had never felt more exposed than she did in that moment, the gold and white one-piece Vought had shoved her into feeling like a vivid target. Being trapped in a confined space with the Deep was a specific kind of psychological torture. She knew Homelander had paired them up on purpose, a calculated move to remind her exactly where she sat on the food chain. 

And ironically, being with the Deep was almost more patronizing than being with Homelander; at least Homelander was a genuine threat, whereas the Deep was just a persistent, sticky headache.

The elevator doors hissed shut, and Annie turned her head just enough to acknowledge him. “So, the footage. Did you find anyone suspicious entering or leaving the place?”

“Crime Analytics pulled the exterior surveillance,” Deep said, his voice dripping with unearned pride. “There was this one guy who looked completely out of place. Figured I’d let you handle the boring legwork of looking into him.”

“Fine. Man or woman?” she asked, pulling out her phone to take notes. “Anyone we recognize?”

“Oh, you might!” Deep let out a sharp, barking laugh. “The guy looks like Jesus. Long hair, a beard, the whole Sunday School vibe.” He cackled at his own joke, the sound echoing off the metal walls of the elevator. “Maybe he was there to turn the beer into water, right?”

Annie didn’t give him a laugh. She didn't even give him a smirk. She just stared at him with a flat, weary expression, blinking slowly as if she were waiting for an unwanted pop-up ad to end.

The silence didn't deter him, though. If anything, the lack of an audience only made the Deep try harder. “Seriously, though. Do you think Jesus could've done it? Talk about a headline—'Messiah Murders Gunpowder in a Nightclub Bathroom.'”

“Can you be serious for one fucking second?” Annie snapped. Her voice was sharp and stern.

The Deep’s grin faltered, replaced by the wounded-puppy look. He genuinely believed he was the life of the party. 

“Gee… you're being incredibly rude today,” he complained, casting her a series of offended side glances. “You’ve been at it since the meeting. You actually humiliated me in front of the entire team. That 'needledick' comment? What was that even about, huh?”

Annie shot him an instantaneous glare. “Should I start an itemized list of my grievances now, or do you want to wait for the HR seminar?” She crossed her arms over her stomach, her jaw set tightly. “You got to sit on floor 60 and scroll through surveillance footage while I had to spend an hour smelling a refrigerated corpse in a sublevel morgue. Isn't that enough of a win for you?”

“Wow. You really don't get it, do you?” He turned his head, looking her up and down with a patronizing tilt of his chin. “You know why you’re actually in the Seven, right? You’re literally the variety act. We didn't bring you in because you’re special or because of your sparkling personality. We picked you because we were bored and wanted to entertain ourselves.”

Annie let out a short, dry scoff, completely unphased by the jab. It was the kind of corporate gaslighting she’d grown accustomed to within her first forty-eight hours in the building. “And how’s that entertainment working out for you so far?”

The Deep shifted his weight, his eyes darkening as his ego scrambled to regain the high ground. “Look, just because we didn't get to finish what we started that night in the boardroom doesn't mean we can't do a little catching up now. It should be fun.”

“Riiiight. I’m sure it would be a blast for you,” Annie drawled. Her tone was bitter and dangerously nonchalant, the verbal equivalent of a shrug. “Mainly because a power trip is the only way someone like you could ever get your hands on someone like me.”

The Deep blinked, the words hitting him like a slap to the face. He opened his mouth to fire back, but the bluntness of the insult seemed to have short-circuited his brain. He stood there in the center of the elevator, stunned into a rare, offended silence as he struggled to process the fact that the newbie had just diagnosed his entire existence in one sentence. 

The elevator chimed with a polite, corporate ping as it hit the top basement, the doors sliding open to reveal the sprawling, high-ceilinged grey space for the vehicles’ entryway.

Annie didn't waste a second, stepping out and leaving the Deep in her wake. 

“You’re heading back to the club to show that footage to the staff,” she called out over her shoulder, her voice echoing off the concrete walls. “I’m going to find Homelander and give him the update.”

“Good luck with that,” the Deep shouted, scurrying after her like a kicked puppy trying to regain its dignity. He caught up to her side, his stride hurried and indignant. “You’re not going to find him in the boardroom right now. He’s at the pool wing. Probably hiding out with Queen Maeve and Noir.”

Annie slowed her pace, a sharp, skeptical frown tugging at her features. She turned to him, her eyes narrowing as she tried to visualize the floor plan. “Vought has a pool? Where is it?”

The Deep let out a short, patronizing scoff, clearly enjoying the fact that he actually knew something she didn't for once. 

“Floor fifty-five. But a word of advice, newbie? Those three don't exactly roll out the red carpet for interruptions when they’re down there. It’s a private club. You’d have better luck coming with me to the club. We could grab a drink, talk shop, and have some fun, you know.” He winked. 

“Fuck no,” Annie said, the words coming out with a casual, effortless bite. She flashed him a mock sweet grin that was purely performative, the kind of smile that didn't even bother to hide the contempt behind it. “I have other stuff to get to. Let’s just catch up tomorrow after lunch when we're in orbit. I’m going to be busy until then.”

She didn't wait for his inevitable, whiny comeback. She turned on her heel and marched toward the elevator bank that serviced the upper executive suites, her hair whipping behind her like a final, dismissive wave. 

Behind her, the Deep stood in the middle of the basement, looking every bit the disgruntled sidekick whose leading lady had just written him off.

——

Homelander emerged from the elevator as the doors whirred open on floor 10, his cape trailing behind him with a heavy rustle. The medical staff scattered along the hallway froze in a synchronized display of professional terror, their bodies going rigid as they offered frantic, hushed greetings. 

He moved through the corridor like a storm front, offering nothing more than a few curt, mechanical nods or, in most cases, ignoring their existence entirely as if they were part of the wallpaper.

He reached the reinforced door of the private suite and pushed it open without knocking, his boots clicking sharply against the polished linoleum. 

The sterile chamber was bathed in a pale, sickly blue light, dominated by the periodic artificial wheeze of a ventilator, and the persistent low frequency drone of the monitors hooked to the motionless form on the bed. 

A nurse was methodically cataloging a tray of vials at the far side of the room, her silhouette reflecting in the glass of the medicine cabinet.

The woman turned as the air in the room seemed to displace with his entrance. 

"Homelander," she whispered, her voice tight as she offered a small, flickering smile that didn't reach her eyes. She didn't wait for a dismissal, slipping out of the room with a silent haste, because she valued her life more than her bedside manner.

As expected, Homelander didn't even spare her a glance, his focus narrowing entirely on the figure in the bed. He slowed his pace as he approached the mattress, the usual predatory sharpness of his features softening into something uncomfortably human. 

He reached out, his gloved hand coming to rest with a surprisingly fragile gentleness over Madelyn’s pale fingers. A small, rueful smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. His fingers curled slightly, searching for a reciprocal pressure that wasn't there.

"Hey," he said, his voice dropping into a soft, intimate register that felt deeply misplaced. "Everyone has cleared out for the orbit. Figured I would drop by and check in before I head up myself."

A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the room, broken only by the mechanical puff of the bellows keeping her lungs inflated. He watched her with a morbid intensity. 

Madelyn’s entire head was a chaotic architecture of gauze and medical tape, a necessary cover for the extensive, ruinous injuries she had sustained from the gunshot. It was a grim reality to accept that the face of one of Vought’s most powerful executives was now little more than a memory under layers of sterile cotton.

A deep sigh escaped him, his lips pursing into a thin, white line of repressed frustration. 

"I miss you when I'm up there, you know. It’s quiet. Too fucking quiet." He paused, his thumb tracing the back of her hand with a slow, hypnotic rhythm. "Teddy is fine, in case you were wondering. Stan has hired a small army of nannies to look after him for the time being. I think the little guy misses you too, even if he doesn't have the words for it yet."

His fingers tightened around her knuckles, a grip that was at once a possessive gesture and a fragile plea for her not to break. He remained in that choking silence for a moment before his gaze drifted back to her bandaged head.

"Madelyn, you gave the V to the kid, didn’t you?" he asked, his voice dropping into a low register heavy with a sudden, dark gravity. "No. I’m not saying it’s a mistake—it’s not. But did you ever stop to think where that leaves him? Have you considered the possibility of him ending up at Red River, or rotting in some lab the second you aren't around to pull the strings?"

The expected deflection, the flirtatious motherly corporate rebuttal, never came. The only answer was the mocking hiss of the ventilator and her silence. 

His jaw tightened by degrees, and he wrenched his eyes away, staring at the white wall to fight back the stinging heat welling in his lids. His face became a battlefield of repressed agony, a visible, twitching struggle to process the toxic cocktail of grief and betrayal that had been eroding his mind every second since she had pulled that trigger.

Deep down, he harbored a visceral and utterly petty loathing for Teddy. The toddler was a rival for her affection, a pathetic, leaking reminder of her humanity. Yet, even in his narcissism, he understood that the boy was a target now that her shadow no longer protected him. He simply couldn't fathom the sheer, ugly selfishness of her exit. She had abandoned the script. She had abandoned him.

The battle was lost. A single tear escaped, tracing a path through the dust of his ego, followed quickly by another. 

He blinked rapidly, a small, pathetic whimper escaping his throat, a sound that would have horrified him had there been anyone else to hear it. He shook his head, drawing in a breath that rattled in his chest like broken glass.

"Why'd you do it, Mads?" he demanded, his voice cracking into a rueful plea. "Did I fail you? Was I not enough? Did you not love me—or the boy, for that matter? Why didn’t you just tell me—"

The sentence was severed by a sudden, shrill electronic scream. One of the monitors was wailing a sharp metrical noise that had instantly rendered him silent. 

He blinked stupidly, his godly reflexes momentarily paralyzed by the mundane intrusion of a failing machine. He swiped a gloved hand across his face, his superhearing already registering the frantic, heavy footfalls of the medical team sprinting down the hallway.

The door burst open, the pneumatic hiss lost under the escalating alarm. It was only then, staring through a blurred veil of salt and moisture, that Homelander realized the green line on the heart monitor had smoothed out into a flat, horizontal line of absolute zero.

He watched with a vacant expression, instinctively retreating into the corner as the staff swarmed the bed like a hive of disturbed insects. He stood there, a silent monument of grief, barely aware that the tears hadn't stopped. They tracked down his cheeks with a shameless, steady rhythm while the lead pathologist lunged forward. 

The man brandished a five-inch needle filled with clear epinephrine, and with a grunt of clinical desperation, he plunged the steel deep into Madelyn’s heart to force a restart on a soul that had already left the building. 

The epinephrine surged into her stagnant heart, a chemical lightning bolt intended to kickstart the stalled engine of her biology, but the monitor offered no reprieve. The agonizing shriek of the EKG continued unabated, a digital funeral dirge that filled every corner of the room.

"Start compressions! Now!" the doctor barked, his voice tight with a frantic urgency in trying to fix a god’s favorite toy.

A nurse stepped up, hands locking as she began the violent rhythm of CPR. It was a sickening sound, the wet thud of bone against a collapsed chest, a desperate mimicry of a pulse that the expensive monitors refused to acknowledge.

They worked in a feverish, almost mechanical synchrony, swapping out as the minutes ticked by, their brows slick with sweat under the harsh LED halo.

"Still nothing. No sinus rhythm. Increase the voltage and clear!"

The paddles hit Madelyn's skin with an electronic snap, her body jerking in a grotesque spasm before dropping back into the sheets like a discarded marionette.

Homelander watched the display, his blue eyes wide and vacant, fixed on the red line that refused to budge from its horizontal grave. The room had become a cacophony of failing biological systems and the hushed panicky whispers of the staff already preparing for the inevitable.

"It's been twelve minutes," the pathologist finally murmured, his hands slowing as he looked at the clock. "She’s not coming back. Brain hypoxia has almost certainly set in. Let's... let’s call it."

"Time of death," the nurse whispered, her voice trembling as she glanced toward the shadow in the corner, "One-forty-six."

Homelander remained paralyzed, his mind a static-filled void that simply refused to digest the data. The word death felt like a foreign language, a concept that didn't apply to the woman who had held his leash for two decades. He stared at the stillness of her hand, waiting for a twitch, a breath, a lie—anything to restore the status quo. 

When the silence of the room finally outweighed the scream of the monitor, the paralysis broke, replaced by a surge of suffocating pressure in his chest. 

He didn't say a word. He simply turned and stalked toward the exit, his heavy boots sounding like a death march on the floor. He hit the door with a violent, open-palmed shove that sent it slamming against the wall like a car crash, the glass shivering in its frame.

The atmospheric pressure in the corridor spiked as he breached the exterior balcony and launched for the sky.

The sonic boom shattered the windows of the executive floor, a parting gift of pure, boiling grief and rage. He was airborne in an instant, cutting through the clouds with a velocity that threatened to tear the very air apart. 

The tears he had fought so hard to contain finally broke free, whirling away into the freezing, whipping wind of the upper atmosphere as he shot upward toward the orbit. He flew blindly, his throat tight with a wretched sob, heading for the only place left where no one could see the king of the world fall apart.

——

Annie had already swapped into her one-piece, her boots hitting the metal floor with a rhythmic clack as she navigated the station’s halls. 

They’d docked maybe thirty minutes ago. This was her first time back in orbit since the tour ended, and honestly, she’d actually been looking forward to it. After a week of dealing with trauma and the general nightmare of being on Earth, a quiet, pressurized tube in space felt like a decent place to hide.

She reached the conference room, expecting the usual wall of corporate egos, but the heavy doors slid open to a room that was completely empty. 

The space was all silver, blue, and white—very on-brand—but there wasn't a single person in the chairs. Usually, the team huddled for a strategy meeting the second the rotation started, but even Eli wasn't around to hand out tablets.

Annie turned on her heel and started walking the halls, looking for anyone with a pulse. The corridors were strangely quiet until she finally ran into Ashley, who was power-walking in the opposite direction.

“Oh, hey, Ashley,” Annie said, keeping her tone casual. “Where is everyone? Did I miss something?”

“Starlight!” Ashley chirped, her eyes glued to her tablet. “Well, Homelander isn't here yet. We’re all just waiting on him. I’ll blast out a text to everyone the second he docks.” She gave Annie’s arm a quick, patronizing pat, and hurried past before Annie could ask anything else.

Annie stood there, watching her go. 

It was weird. Homelander was famous for beating the shuttle to the station by hours just to show off his flight speed. The fact that he wasn't here yet felt like a bad omen, and in this company, that usually meant someone was about to have a very long day.

Her phone buzzed in her palm, the vibration suddenly bringing life to the quiet hallway. She lifted the screen to her eyes and squinted at a message from the Deep.

“We found a facial match. U gotta check it out. I’m at the deployment bay.”

Annie blinked at the text, the missing piece of her to-do list slotting home. “Oh, right,” she muttered. 

She’d almost forgotten that the Deep was supposed to spend his night playing detective, harassing the nightclub staff to identify the mystery man from the surveillance footage. Apparently, he’d actually done something useful for once.

Well, at least it beats standing around here waiting for Homelander to show up, she thought.

She turned and headed for the deployment bay, the high-tech hangar where Vought kept the specialized jets for urgent missions or quick runs for the teams. It was a completely different wing from the massive docking station where the passenger shuttles arrived. This place was rather built for speed and quick exits, not corporate comfort.

She reached the heavy pressure doors and waited as the red laser of the biometric scanner swept over her irises. 

With a mechanical hiss, the doors slid open, letting her into a cavernous and cold space lined with rows of pitch-black jets. At the far end of the bay, a massive rectangular opening looked out into the void of space, a literal hole in the wall designed for the jets to slide out into the vacuum.

Annie’s eyes scanned the room, her boots echoing against the metal floor, until she spotted the Deep.

He was leaning casually against the wing of a jet, one hand planted on his hip in that trademark pose he probably practiced in front of a mirror.

He spotted her and gave her a wide, enthusiastic wave, acting as if their little toxic elevator ride from the day before had never happened. “Hey, Starlight! Over here!” he hollered, his voice bouncing off the high metallic ceiling.

Annie didn't rush. She sauntered forward, closing the gap with a steady, almost unimpressed pace. When she hit the ten-foot mark, she slowed to a halt and crossed her arms over her stomach, forming a human barrier between herself and whatever mood he was in today.

“So?” she prompted, skipping the small talk. “Who was it? One of the minor league Supes? What did the people at the club tell you?”

The Deep threw his hands up in a mock surrender, a greasy smirk plastered on his face. “Whoa, hey! Slow down with the interrogation, lady. Can we at least grab a coffee at the dining hall or something first? I’ve been working.”

“Nope,” Annie said. Her voice was flat, the verbal equivalent of a dial tone. “We’re having a perfectly good conversation right here.” She gave him a sharp 'get on with it' flick of her hand, signaling him to spill the name and move on.

The Deep let out a dismissive bark of a laugh, his hands migrating back to his hips. “Seriously—what is up your ass? Why are you always giving me so much attitude? I'm trying to be a teammate here.”

A subtle crease formed between Annie’s eyebrows, bored and uninterested. “As if you don’t know exactly why.”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river!” the Deep spat. He rolled his eyes so hard, even a hormonal teenage girl wouldn’t be able to mimic it. “I took my fair share of shit when I first got here. It’s part of the job. I don't see why you think you’re any different.” He gestured at her, as if they were both just two victims of the same corporate hazing.

He took a few steps toward her, the fake friendliness transforming into something bitter and sharp. He spoke in a tone that was terrifyingly chill, his hands punctuating every insult with theatrical gestures. 

“Remember what I said yesterday? About selecting you for the entertainment value?” He cackled, the sound echoing uncomfortably in the empty bay. “We literally looked at every wannabe ‘superhero’ team from the ass cracks of the country, and we asked ourselves: who’s the most Goody-Two-Shoes, virgin, stuck-up little twat who’d do anything to get ahead? Who’d look best with a load of cum all over her stupid whore face? And lo and be-fucking-hold—” He swept his arms out wide, presenting Annie to the rows of jets like she was a prize on a rigged game show.

Annie’s brow ticked, a small, violent twitch that was the only crack in her composure. Her jaw tightened until her teeth were audibly gritting. She didn't yell, though; she kept her voice low and unbothered. “Done? Did that make you feel better?”

"You know what would actually make me feel better?" the Deep countered. He closed the remaining gap, looming over her until he was practically in her personal space. His shadow stretched over her face, his height making her feel small for the first time since the conference room at the tower. "If we finally put you in your place."

Annie didn't flinch, though. She just let out a dry scoff and started to pivot on her heel to walk away. 

She didn't even get a full step in before his hand shot out. He grabbed her gloved hand with a sudden, violent strength that caught her completely off guard, yanking her back. 

The immense force sent her heels sliding out from under her, and she hit the metal floor with a loud metallic thunk that vibrated through her spine.

The impact knocked the wind right out of her. Annie coughed, her lungs struggling to pull in the recycled station air as she blinked, trying to process the sudden shift from a verbal spat to a physical assault.

When she finally looked up, the Deep was standing over her, hands back on his hips, looking incredibly proud of himself.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Annie barked, her voice raspy. "Why would you do that?"

She started to scramble up, but the Deep was faster. He lunged forward and delivered a deft, expert kick directly to her jaw. The blow sent her sliding back across the floor like a puck on ice.

"Nothing's wrong with me," he said, stalking toward her. His shadow fell over her again, dark and suffocating. "I’m just taking your advice. After all, a power trip is the only way someone like me could ever get my hands on someone like you, right?" He threw her own words from the elevator back at her, his voice dripping with a smug satisfaction.

Annie’s eyes widened, her brain finally catching up to the fact that he wasn't just posturing anymore. "What the—"

A heavy punch caught her across the mouth before she could finish, her head snapping back against the floor. She felt the sharp sting of a cut inside her lip and tasted the ferrous tang of blood almost immediately. She spat a red glob onto the pristine floor and barely managed to get her arms up to cover her face as the next few kicks rained down. 

The force was immense, enough to dent the hull of a ship, and she found herself pinned in a desperate, defensive shell. She’d clearly underestimated him. She’d spent so long thinking he was a joke that she’d forgotten he was still a Supe, and a strong one.

The Deep finally dropped his weight, straddling her with his knees pinned on either side of her ribs. He was heavy, a dead weight of muscle and ego that crushed the breath right out of her lungs. 

He reached down and tangled a fist into her blonde hair, his knuckles scraping her scalp as he yanked her head back against the cold floor. 

With his free hand, he started a cyclic, ugly assault; punch after punch catching her across the cheek until the skin split, a dark bruise blooming under the surface like spilt ink.

Annie let out a series of breathy, pained grunts with every hit, her vision swimming in a haze of white light and metallic-tasting blood. She reached up, her fingers clawing at his forearm, trying to pry his hand out of her hair, but his grip was like a vice. It felt like her scalp was going to tear clean off her skull. 

When he gave her hair another violent, upward yank, the pain was too much to swallow, and a raw scream tore out of her throat. Annie swung a desperately blind fist at his face, but he leaned back just enough to let it whistle through the air, laughing at the effort.

He finally stopped the punching, but the pressure on her hair didn't let up. Instead, his hand drifted down to the gold zipper at her chest.

“Stop! Deep, stop it!” Annie choked out, her teeth gritted so hard they felt like they might shatter in an instant. “Get off me! Now!” She thrashed beneath him, her body arching in a futile attempt to buck him off, but he just leaned in closer, the zipper sliding down her chest with a sharp hiss until it reached her navel.

“You stuck-up little cunt,” the Deep growled, his breath hot and smelling of cheap mints. “I’m going to give you exactly what you want. I’ll give it to you right here.”

“Get the fuck off me!” Annie screamed, her voice cracking with a mix of rage and genuine terror. She kicked her legs violently, her boots scraping uselessly against the polished metal of the bay.

The air in the cavernous room suddenly began to buzz, a low-frequency vibration that made the hair on her arms stand up. 

High above, the massive industrial lights began to flicker and sizzle, drawing energy toward her in an invisible tide. A couple of the overhead bulbs gave out entirely, popping under the surge of pressure as Annie began to drain every nearby power source, the partial darkness of the bay closing in around them as she prepared to blow.

The Deep didn’t even react at the flickering lights; he was too busy fumbling with his own belt, the metallic clink of the buckle sounding loud and clinical in the darkening bay. 

Annie’s palms began to crackle, a harsh, unstable glow bleeding through her pores as her survival instinct overrode every other thought. The second he exposed himself and reached down to grab her ribs, she let it all go.

The blast was a physical shockwave, an explosive burst of channeled light that turned the entire hangar into a sun for five violent seconds. The sheer output was so blinding it bleached the world white, erasing the jets, the floor, and the man on top of her in a single, searing flash.

The Deep was launched off her like he’d been hit by a freight train, his body skidding across the metal floor several feet away. 

He didn't stay down for long before the screaming started; a high, manic sound of pure agony. He clutched his face, his fingers digging into his eye sockets as he rolled blindly on the ground.

"Ahhhhhh! My eyes! My fucking eyes!" he shrieked, his voice bouncing off the high walls of the bay. He started crawling in an aimless circle, his hands waving frantically in the air as if trying to swat away the darkness. "I can’t see anything! You bitch—you fucking blinded me, you whore!"

"You tried to rape me, you disgraceful pig!" Annie screamed back. 

She scrambled to her feet, her hands shaking so hard she could barely find the tab of her zipper. She yanked the suit shut, her chest heaving as she wiped a smear of blood from her split lip with the back of her glove. 

She stumbled back a few steps, her eyes wide and wet with a mix of shock and pure horror. She stared at him, her brain struggling to process how close she’d just come to the edge.

The Deep wasn't interested in a moral debate, obviously. He kept thrashing, his superhuman biology already fighting the cellular damage. Slowly, the world began to bleed back in for him; a blurred, watery mess of gray shapes and stinging light.

"You fucking bitch," he spat, his voice cracking as he squinted through the haze. "Oh god... I can't see. Everything's a blur."

"Good!" Annie spat back, her face twisting with raw disdain. "I’m glad. You deserved it."

The Deep let out a desperate, guttural groan, his hands still hovering near his ruined vision. "You fucking bitch, what have you done to me? I can't see the floor. What have you done?"

Annie let out a sharp scoff, using the back of her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead now. She only succeeded in smearing a fresh streak of blood across her brow, the metallic scent of it filling her nose as she tried to steady her breathing. 

"You're lucky I didn't burn them out of your—"

She stopped dead, her voice dying in her throat as her eyes locked on the massive rectangular opening at the far end of the bay.

The silhouette of a man rose slowly from the vacuum, his boots touching down on the metal floor with a heavy thump. Homelander stepped into the hangar, his cape snapping and whipping behind him in the artificial downdraft of the station’s vents. 

He looked like a statue brought to life, his entire physique stiff with a terrifying, vibrating tension. He didn't look at them; red-rimmed eyes fixed on some distant, invisible point of rage, his jaw set so tight the muscles in his neck were bulging.

"Oh," Annie whispered to herself. She glanced down at the Deep, then back at the approaching nightmare in the stars-and-stripes.

Homelander kept walking, his strides predatory and machine-like. He didn't offer a glance toward the blood on the floor or the half-dressed disaster that was the Deep, scrambling to his feet in the center of the room. He looked right through them, as if they were nothing more than furniture.

At the same time, the back doors hissed open and Eli, Madelyn's second assistant, stepped through, looking every bit the polished Vought lackey. His face was set in a mask of professional panic as he bypassed the chaos, making a beeline for Homelander.

Annie’s eyes darted back and forth between the two men, a cold knot of dread forming in her stomach. Something was very wrong. 

The atmosphere in the bay had shifted from a violent brawl to something much more suffocating all of a sudden.

The Deep, meanwhile, had finally managed to steady his feet. His vision was still a watery, blurred mess of blue and red, but he recognized the color palette of the man approaching. He staggered forward, tripping over his own boots as he tried to intercept Homelander.

“Homelander!” the Deep yelled, his voice cracking with a desperate tone, like a kid trying to snitch to a parent. He pointed a shaking finger toward Annie. “You see this? You see what this bitch did to me? She used her fucking powers on me, man! She attacked me!”

Annie’s head snapped toward him, her mouth falling open in pure, incredulous shock. “But he started—!”

“Fuck you!” the Deep cut her off, his voice rising to a frantic pitch as Homelander drew closer. “She’s fucking blinded me! I can’t see a thing through my left eye! She’s out of control!”

Eli, in the meantime, stepped into the middle of the delirious and bleeding mess, clearing his throat with a calm that felt entirely out of place. 

His voice was steady, a thin veneer of corporate professionalism covering something much bigger. “Deep, let’s handle this later, shall we?” it wasn't really a suggestion; more like a warning.

“Oh, fuck you too, Eli!” the Deep shrieked, his finger jabbing wildly in the assistant’s general direction. “She burned my eye out! I want to know what you’re going to do about this, Homelander! Look at me!” He turned his blurred gaze toward the blonde titan, his voice peaking with the self-entitled whine. He truly believed he was the victim here.

Annie’s head whipped between the three of them, her heart hammering against her chest like a trapped animal. She was a dead woman today. She was certain of it. 

She saw how Homelander’s face was contorting into a mask of pure, localized instability as he closed the final few feet. A sneer pulled at the corner of his mouth, and Annie felt the air in the room vanish. She swallowed hard against the dry lump in her throat, her boots scraping back a half-step as she braced for the inevitable.

But Homelander didn't even break stride.

To everyone’s absolute horror, he shoved past the Deep as if the man were a ghost. He reached out and grabbed the nose of a carbon-black stealth jet, his fingers sinking into the reinforced hull like it was wet cardboard. 

With a sudden, violent grunt of effort, he wrenched the multi-million dollar craft off the floor and hurled it toward the launch hatchway.

The jet didn't even glide. It tumbled through the air like a discarded toy, slamming into the reinforced ceiling with a bone-shaking boom. The station’s structural integrity held, but the jet didn't stand a chance. It crumpled and ignited instantly, a fireball blooming in the hangar as scraggy shards of wing and landing gear rained down on the far end of the bay.

The silence that followed was deafening. 

Annie and the Deep both stood frozen, their mouths hanging open as they stared at the burning wreckage of the Vought interceptor.

Eli was the only one who didn't look shocked. He watched the flames with a weary, knowing sort of calm, as if he’d seen this rehearsal a dozen times. He glanced sideways at the two Supes, a slow, disappointed shake of his head the only reaction as he used one finger to nudge his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

“Fuck…” the Deep whispered, the sound barely audible over the crackle of the fire. The bravado had drained out of him, replaced by the realization that they were currently standing in a room with a version of Homelander who was in a dangerously bad mood.

Homelander was simmering now, the raw fury replaced by a cold pressure behind his eyes. He stalked toward the Deep, the metallic floor groaning under his boots. His hand shot out like a strike from a viper, snagging the Deep’s collars and yanking him forward until their noses were inches apart.

“You pull another stunt like this with her—or with Maeve, and I will fucking kill you,” he hissed, his voice an intimately angry rasp that sounded more like a leak in a pressurized tank than a human sentence. 

He held the stare for a second too long, his jaw muscles twitching with enough force to snap the bone, before he shoved the Deep away. He exhaled a sharp, angry breath through his nose and took a step back, finally turning his head to look at Starlight.

His eyes ran a slow and clinical lap over her from head to toe. He took in the split lip, the blood smeared across her forehead, the wild nest of her hair, and the gold zipper that was still low enough to tell the whole sordid story of what had been happening on the floor.

A single, disdainful scoff broke from his lips. Without a word of comfort or even a second look, he pivoted on his heel and stormed away, his heavy cape billowing behind him like a funeral shroud.

The Deep, finally recalling exactly where he sat on the food chain, just stood there blinking like an idiot. He watched the blurry retreating figure of his leader in a state of catatonic horror, the vision in his right eye finally clearing enough to see the man who had just promised to end him.

Annie, meanwhile, was frozen for an entirely different reason. It wasn't just the unhinged spectacle of the jet; it was the threat. Homelander had just drawn a line in the sand over her.

But... why? she wondered, the thought spinning uselessly in her head. Homelander didn't protect people. He didn't care about her "safety" or her dignity. 

The adrenaline from the fight finally dissolved, leaving her feeling cold and hollow. She turned her gaze toward Eli; a deep, suspicious frown cutting across her face. 

“Wha—what’s going on?” she demanded, her voice shaking with the need for an actual answer.

Beside her, even the Deep managed a weak, almost pathetic nod of agreement. He looked at Eli, then caught Starlight’s eye for a split second before looking away, both of them waiting for the man in the suit to explain why the world had just tilted on its axis.

Eli let out a long, heavy sigh that seemed to deflate his entire posture. 

He shook his head slowly, the clinical detachment in his eyes finally flickering with something like genuine grimness. “Ms. Stillwell passed about six minutes ago,” he said, his voice dropping into a professional monotone. He jerked his chin toward the doors where Homelander had just vanished. “He’s coming straight from Floor 10. I'd stay out of his flight path for the next... well, forever.”

“Oh my god…” Annie breathed. The words felt small in the wake of the news. Her frown deepened as she tried to reconcile the image of the influential Madelyn Stillwell with a body in a drawer. Before she could process the power vacuum that had just opened up, a muffled buzz vibrated against the metal floor.

Her phone. 

It was lying a few feet away, a survivor of the scrap with the Deep. She moved toward it, her boots clicking softly as she crossed the bay to retrieve her lifeline.

In the background, the Deep let out a frustrated huff, as if he’d just realized he was the least important person in the room. He didn't say a word, already storming off toward the crew quarters to nurse his ego and his blurry eye in the dark.

Eli watched him go with a look of mild distaste before cutting his eyes back to Annie one last time. “You okay, Starlight?” he asked, his body already angled toward the exit, his mind clearly on the corporate firestorm waiting for him in another compartment.

“Yes! Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,” Annie managed, giving him a quick, reflexive thumbs-up as she crouched to scoop her phone off the floor. She watched Eli disappear through the hydraulic doors following a curt nod of acknowledgment.

Left alone in the cavernous, now smoke-filled bay, she swiped the screen to unlock it. It wasn't a text. The screen was pulsing with an incoming call on her encrypted channel, the ID labeled as 'Unknown.'

She hesitated, her thumb hovering over the green icon. Usually, unknown meant trouble in a secure line. But in this building, everyone was trouble. 

She swiped to answer anyway, pressing the cold glass to her ear while her free hand wiped the last of the grimy sweat from her forehead.

“Hello?” she said, her voice sharp and guarded, echoing into the empty hangar.

“Hi, Starlight? This is Fred—Fred Nelson from Floor 8,” the voice on the other end crackled with a slightly nervous edge. “You came by yesterday about that... beverage you found?”

“Ah, Fred. Right, right,” Annie cut in, a small exhale of relief escaping her. Finally, something that wasn't a death threat or a physical assault. “So? What’s the word? Did you find anything in the soda?”

“Yes, well—it’s not exactly an ‘ingredient’ in the traditional sense, but I managed to trace the source,” Fred said, his tone shifting into a professional low-register hum. “The thing is—this is a proprietary compound from Vought pharmaceutical labs. It’s a cocktail. We’ve got multiple teams across half a dozen floors working on different recipes just to cook up the raw materials that eventually get bound together for the final product. Honestly, my team actually makes one of the base compounds for this specific chemical, but this is the first time I’ve seen the finished version.” 

He let out a soft, almost impressed chuckle. “We usually just ship the materials down to the Sub-Six lab. That’s where the heavy lifting happens. See, Starlight—I don't think the staffer who left that bottle on Floor 99 was from my department. My guess is they’re from the sublevels.”

Annie blinked, her mind racing to connect the dots. 

A religious expo of Vought, the combustion deaths of attendees, Stan Edgar’s seriousness in collecting the soda samples, and now a trail leading into the guts of the building. 

“I see... but why would anyone put a pharmaceutical compound in a soda bottle?” She asked, mildly surprised. 

“Oh, no, they didn’t,” Fred clarified quickly. “The bottle was the delivery method. They spiked a regular soda—looked like A-Train Fizz—and the sugars or the carbonation must have interacted with the compound. That’s what gave it that neon pink hue you saw.”

Annie straightened her back, her eyes darting across the hangar. The wreckage of the jet was still crackling in the corner, a small, stubborn fire licking at the blackened hull, but she was definitely alone. 

“I see,” she murmured into the receiver, the knot in her stomach tightening. 

“Yeah,” Fred said, his voice trailing off as if he were checking over his shoulder on the other end. “So, uh—what would you like me to do with the rest of the sample? I can’t exactly keep it in the communal fridge.”

Annie sucked in a cold breath, her mind racing through the logistics of keeping a glowing chemical cocktail under her roof. 

“Can you box it up?” she asked, her voice dropping to a cautious tone. “Label it as something else and send it anonymously to my penthouse. I’ll handle it from there.”

“Sure thing. Consider it done,” Fred said, his tone shifting back to that helpful, mid-level drone frequency. “Is that it? Anything else I can help the Seven with today?”

“No, that’d be all for now,” Annie said. She forced a drop of professional sweetness into her voice, the kind of pageant-girl charm she usually hated but knew worked like a charm on the nerds. “Thank you so much, Fred. Seriously, you’re a lifesaver.”

“You bet. Bye, Starlight.”

“Bye.”

She clicked the phone off and stood motionless, her thumb tracing the edge of the cracked screen protector. The silence of the bay was heavy now, broken only by the intermittent ping of cooling metal from the wreckage. Her head was spinning. 

How the hell did a proprietary Vought pharmaceutical compound end up being served at an expo?

The math wasn't that hard to do, but the answer was terrifying. 

The combustion deaths during the Light of the World tour weren't some tragic accident, or a freak Supe-terrorist attack or worse, “sinners combusting for having unclean souls”. It was looking more like an inside job with every lead she followed. 

But now the problem was, she couldn't exactly run a solo investigation into the very company that signed her checks and owned her image. That wasn't just career suicide; it was literal suicide.

She needed an ally. But the list of trustworthy names was non-existent. 

Stan Edgar? Absolutely not. The man had been way too surgical about sweeping the venue that night, vacuuming up every scrap of evidence before the local cops could even put up tape. He was likely the architect, not the whistleblower.

Then who? Queen Maeve? Annie shook her head. Maeve was already drowning in her own cynicism. Asking her to help take down a Vought conspiracy was too big an ask from her. And they weren’t exactly best friends despite their improving rapport. 

That left one option. The only one with enough power to actually do something, even if the thought of it made her stomach turn.

Homelander. 

He’d been there on the ground at the venue, albeit not for the gory part. But he was the first one that night to jump to a conclusion prematurely and confidently—to declare to Stan Edgar that he was certain the whole thing was an error on Vought’s part. 

It had sounded like a hateful corporate retort at the time. But now, standing in the wreckage of a hangar he'd just gutted, Annie wondered if he’d actually been onto something back then. 

And more importantly, he was the leader of the team.

Whether or not he dismissed her or threw her into the vacuum, at least she could tell herself she’d tried to follow the chain of command.

But was it wise? After what she’d just witnessed him do to a multi-million dollar jet?

Annie cast one last, wary look at the burning wreckage, the orange glow of the fire reflecting in her tired eyes. She let out a heavy sigh. It suddenly felt like she carried the weight of the entire station on her shoulders. 

She turned and started toward the exit, her boots clicking a lonely rhythm against the floor as she headed for the medical wing to get her face looked at before the swelling turned her into a car crash victim. The throb in her jaw was a dull reminder of the Deep’s handiwork, a mess of split skin and blooming bruises that definitely wasn't in her contract. 

On her way out, she paused by the control panel and jammed the emergency toggle with a stiff finger, triggering the overhead sprinklers. 

A heavy, industrial hiss filled the bay as a localized deluge of chemical suppressant rained down, dousing the orange glow of the wrecked jet and leaving the remnants of the fire smoldering in her wake.

Chapter Text

Annie moved through the silent corridors of the station, her sneakers making faint, rubbery squeaks with each step. 

It was Sunday, which meant it had been exactly two days since the incident with the Deep at the deployment bay. In the Vought clock, two days was a generous window for the legal team to lobotomize witnesses and scrub the evidence clean, but it wasn't nearly long enough for Annie’s growing homicidal impulses to reach a manageable point. But on the plus side, her bruises had healed entirely.

Her pace faltered as she reached the conference room, her shadow stretching long and hesitant across the threshold. 

The room was a vast, cold expanse of mahogany and steel, looking mostly abandoned except for Black Noir. He sat at the far end of the table like a silent monument to corporate violence, his graphite pencil scratching a feverish percussion against a sketchpad. In the background, a Mozart concerto played at a volume so low it was practically a taunt, providing the soundtrack for whatever fever dream Noir was currently committing to paper.

Annie scanned the rest of the room with a practiced paranoia, quickly realizing that Noir wasn't actually enjoying a solo retreat there. 

Translucent was also occupying the space, though he had clearly opted for his preferred state of total, invisible nudity. 

A high-backed chair was angled away from the table in a slouching posture. Clearly the man was far too comfortable with his lack of clothing and the ass shape the chair’s leather has taken under his weight. 

The only other physical proof of his existence was a pair of reading glasses floating steadily in mid-air and a Sunday newspaper that occasionally crinkled as an invisible finger turned the page. 

It was a classic Seven tableau: one man drawing death and another sitting naked in a public boardroom.

“Oh, hey, Starlight,” Translucent’s voice drifted out from the empty air behind the floating lenses, sounding far too casual for someone whose current outfit was a light coating of oxygen.

Annie straightened her spine immediately, shedding her hesitation like a discarded skin as she stepped into the light of the boardroom. She shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans, offering a curt flick of her chin toward the general vicinity of the invisible man’s face. 

“Translucent,” she said simply, her voice dropping into a professional tone, almost flat.

“I gotta say, the general consensus is that we’re all massive fans of your work on the Deep,” Translucent remarked, his voice dripping with sardonic amusement. “I mean, we love the kid—he’s family—but that badass bitch move you pulled? Truly inspired.” He let out a chortle that echoed off the cold steel walls, clearly deriving an indecent amount of joy from a situation that involved a teammate’s temporary blinding.

Annie maintained a small sacrificial smile pinned to her face, though it did little to hide the underlying grimace. Refusing to offer the man even a shred of conversational leverage, she gracefully pivoted away from the topic of the Deep. 

“Where’s the rest of the team?”

Translucent shrugged, an action that Annie could only infer by the way the floating glasses dipped and rose. 

He folded the newspaper with a crisp, authoritative snap and leaned back, the leather of the chair groaning under his invisible weight. “Well—Deep is sulking in his chamber. His little fan club of groupies arrived last night to hold his hand. Queen Maeve and A-Train are somewhere over the Atlantic, halfway to Mozambique for a final venue check on our crossover next weekend. And you’re already seeing Noir and me—well, technically you’re not seeing me, but you get the gist.”

“Oh...” Annie offered a single, robotic nod, her gaze drifting momentarily toward the far end of the table where Noir remained a silent fixture. She forced her attention back to the floating lenses, trying to sound like she was just checking off a mental to-do list. “And... where’s Homelander?”

“Uhh... not sure.” The glasses turned toward Noir, a gesture of seeking confirmation that felt absurd given that Translucent was essentially a talking set of frames. “Probably at the analytics room. Right, Noir?”

The frantic scratching of the graphite pencil finally ceased. Noir tilted his masked head upward, his featureless face slowly swiveling between the empty air where Translucent sat and Annie’s expectant expression. 

He lingered on Annie for a beat too long, long enough for the environment in the room to feel a few degrees colder, before offering a decisive nod of confirmation.

“Okay,” Annie replied, already shifting her weight toward the exit. “Thanks.” She was halfway through a graceful pivot when Noir’s hand shot up, a silent command for her to stay put. 

She froze, her eyebrows knitting together in a mix of curiosity and the instinctual alarm one feels when a silent predator finally decides to acknowledge your existence.

Noir rose from his seat with a fluid grace, and as he closed the distance between them without a sound, his gloved fingers flicked through the sketchbook, pausing at a specific page to rip it along the perforated edge with a clean snap.

Ah, Annie thought, a faint, lopsided smile pulling at the corner of her mouth. 

This was apparently becoming a thing now. It was only the second time the silent enforcer had acknowledged her existence, and both times it had been through the medium of art. There was something bizarrely, darkly wholesome about it, a scrap of human connection in a place designed to strip it away, and it stirred a little spark of genuine curiosity in her chest.

Even Translucent had abandoned his slouch in the background, his floating spectacles bobbing as he leaned forward to get a better angle on the exchange.

Noir came to a halt a couple of feet away, his presence a wall of black Kevlar and absolute mystery. He tucked the sketchbook into a back pocket with a practiced motion, extending the loose leaf toward her. His posture remained a total vacuum of emotion, offering no hint as to whether this was a gift, a warning, or a joke at her expense.

Annie’s smile widened as she took the paper, bringing it up to eye level. 

The shock hit her instantly. It wasn't just a sketch, it was an evocative, stylistically aggressive piece of pop art.

The charcoal was laid on thick, a horizontal composition of Annie in her skimpy little Starlight suit. She was depicted low to the ground, legs braced and hands thrust forward in a jagged, cinematic explosion of light. 

On the receiving end of the blast, the Deep was mid-flight, his body (thankfully clothed) stunned in a pathetic, high impact blow of failure. Unlike the realistic and rather moody sketch from their previous encounter, this one was rendered in a sharp gritty comic book style. The final jarring punctuation was the bold, hand lettered caption at the bottom that read: “BADASS BITCHLIGHT”

Annie blinked, her brain momentarily short-circuiting as she tried to decide whether she should be offended by the portraiture of a sensitive memory or flattered by the craftsmanship. She stood there in a stunned silence, her eyes darting over the intricate details with a mix of genuine awe and visceral disdain. 

It was the kind of moment she desperately wanted to excise from her memory, and seeing it immortalized in Noir’s ink felt like a direct assault on her mental health. It was literally the highlight of her worst day of life.

“It’s a compliment, in case you were wondering,” Translucent’s voice materialized directly into Annie’s ear. 

The phantom heat of his breath sent a few stray strands of her hair fluttering, a visceral reminder of just how little personal space the invisible man felt obligated to respect.

Annie jerked away, her heels skidding against the floor as she staggered out of the sensory splash zone. She hadn't even heard him get out of the chair, but there he was, a literal void in the room standing inches from her shoulder to critique the art. 

The realization that he’d been looming over her to get a better look at the sketch made her skin crawl in a way that even Vought’s synthetic fabrics couldn't match.

Translucent let out a low and vibrating chuckle at her frantic reaction. It wasn't malicious, just the casual amusement of knowing he was a walking privacy violation. 

“Relax, Starlight. I was just curious,” he drawled, his floating glasses bobbing with a mock offended tilt. “It’s a solid piece, though. You’re becoming something of a legend, ya’know. Like a real legend in the making.” He presumably winked at her, an entirely useless gesture that Annie could only guess at by the smug lilt in his voice.

Annie’s gaze darted between the silent wall that was Noir and the hovering glasses of the exhibitionist, her expression flickering with pure incredulity. This was her life now apparently: receiving fan art from a silent assassin while being mildly harassed by a naked ghost. 

With a heavy, lung-clearing sigh, she squared her shoulders and forced some courage back into her spine, turning her attention back to Noir.

“Uhm... thanks?” she managed, the word coming out as a shaky cocktail of hesitation, social awkwardness, and a tiny, traitorous spark of flattery.

Noir offered a singular nod, almost robotic, before turning away. 

He drifted toward the grand piano tucked into the corner of the boardroom, his daily quota for human interaction visibly exhausted. 

Annie watched him settle onto the stool with a deliberate, somber posture, leaving the rest of the world to deal with the fallout of his "Bitchlight" piece.

She cast one final look toward the space where Translucent was likely still smirking, gave a nod of departure, and beat a hasty retreat from the room. 

The sketch dangled from her grip until she reached the corridor, where she folded the paper and shoved it into her back pocket right next to her phone.

Her next destination was the analytics hub, obviously. The place was a high-tech nerve center where Vought’s digital eyes watched the world in real-time. She had to pause briefly in front of a glowing, interactive map embedded in the wall, her finger tracing the blue lines of the station’s layout to find the chamber. Once she had the coordinates locked in, she set off with a purposeful stride, the squeaks of her sneakers echoing in the halls.

The analytics hub was in a separate hull of the station, requiring Annie to navigate a series of pressurized junctions. The final corridor was a gauntlet of reinforced titanium leading to a set of biometric doors. 

She slowed her pace as the red glow of a retinal scanner washed over her face, reading her irises with a clinical sweep. 

The system chirped a submissive green, and the doors hissed apart with a pneumatic sigh, granting her entry into the nerve center.

Annie’s eyebrows shot up the moment she crossed the threshold. The room was a sprawling, arena-like expanse dominated by a massive analytics console. Behind it, a transparent bulkhead offered a dizzying panoramic view of the infinite void with Earth in the middle. If not for the blue rock, the interior would have looked like a glass cage suspended in a sea of ink. 

Across from the main console, rows of workstations were arranged in five sweeping arcs, their screens flickering with a periodic digital pulse.

Homelander was a solitary caped silhouette against the stardust, hunched over a monitor at the primary console. His gloved fingers danced across the keyboard with a frantic intensity, probably several layers deep into something he wasn't supposed to be touching.

Annie hesitated at the edge of the room, her internal monologue debating the wisdom of poking a grieving god. 

She had spent the last forty-eight hours treating him like a skin disease, keeping her distance to allow him to process the untimely death of Madelyn Stillwell. The last time she’d seen him was on Friday, when he’d flung that stealth jet like a plastic toy at the deployment bay. 

Ultimately, her curiosity outweighed her survival instinct, and she forced her feet to carry her toward the glow of his terminal.

“What do you want?” Homelander demanded, his voice a flat, distracted rasp through the hum of the servers. 

He didn’t bother turning around, though. He’d likely tracked her heartbeat from the moment she’d opened the hatch three hulls away.

Annie didn’t offer an immediate defense. She simply closed the distance, coming to a halt a few feet away where she could catch the sharp edge of his profile in the monitor's blue light. 

“Hey,” she said, her voice a careful blend of professional courtesy and the kind of caution one uses when approaching a wounded apex predator.

Homelander’s fingers froze over the keys, his silhouette stiffening before he finally offer her a partial view of his face. 

His gaze performed a slow, insulting inventory of her wardrobe, eyes traveling from the soles of her sneakers to the collar of her jacket with a casual distaste. 

A faint, twitching grimace tugged at his lips as he processed the fact that she was once again entering his space in civilian clothes—a pair of tragically washed-out jeans, a bodycon crop top, and a denim jacket that looked like it'd been acquired from a suburban garage sale.

“Did I say you could come in?” he asked, his voice a flat and detached monotone that carried the undercurrent of a death warrant.

Annie offered a single nod, almost unbothered. “You didn't, and I’m sorry,” she said, shifting her weight to lean against the edge of the console. She crossed her arms over her stomach, mirroring his defensive tone with a casual defiance. “But I was wondering if you could spare a couple of minutes to talk?”

He maintained a predatory stare, his eyes narrowing into blue slits of calculation before he finally blinked and turned back to the monitor. With a flicking motion, he locked the screen and turned his entire body toward her. 

He offered a curt flick of his chin then, the universal "get on with it" gesture.

“Right,” Annie said, drawing in a sharp lungful of breath before letting it out in a slow hiss. “So... don’t get mad,” she began, gesturing vaguely with one hand to de-escalate the tension she was actively creating. “But while the forensics team was sweeping the scene back in Richmond, I may have... well, I essentially stole a bottle of the soda that was making people spontaneously combust.” She offered a small, sheepish shrug, keeping her eyes fixed on the console rather than making direct contact with the volatile god standing in front of her.

Homelander’s brow creased into a small, genuinely curious frown, but the anticipated explosion didn't come. Instead, he shifted his stance, straightening his spine and locking his hands behind his back.

Sensing the window was still open, Annie pressed on before the silence could turn lethal. “I had the sample analyzed through a private channel, and it turns out the stuff was A-Train Fizz laced with a proprietary Vought compound currently in development. You know... the pharmaceutical stuff.” She gave a sharp nod to punctuate the reveal. “Apparently, they’re brewing and testing this drug in one of the labs at the Tower. So... yeah. That’s the mystery solved.” She shrugged, tossing the floor back to him as if she hadn't just admitted to corporate espionage and evidence tampering in the same breath.

One brow cocked on Homelander’s face, his expression remaining insulated by a layer of professional detachment and genuine boredom. 

After an excruciating stretch of silent staring, his shoulders finally rolled into a dismissive shrug, his hands staying locked firmly behind him. 

“Why?” he demanded. “Why would you risk stealing a sample to keep tinkering with a corpse of a case that Vought already buried? We closed that investigation a week ago.”

“I know, and you’re right. We did,” Annie conceded with a quick, tactical nod. 

She took a single step closer, her eyes performing a cautious sweep of the yawning room to ensure their privacy remained absolute. She dropped her voice as she leaned in, maintaining a respectful distance from the man who could end her with a literal slap. 

“But I couldn't stop thinking about what you told Mr. Edgar that night. You seemed so sure it was just a batch of contaminated soda—a mistake on Vought’s end—and that he was just sending us in to mop up the mess. It made me realize that if it really was a corporate slip-up, the second they found out their own drug was the culprit, they’d kill the inquiry immediately. Hence... my independent investigation.”

Homelander’s frown deepened, his features twisting as he struggled to find the point in her conspiracy theory. 

“So?” He shrugged again, the weary boredom never quite evaporating from his face. “I mean—what else is Vought supposed to do? Hand the DOJ the handcuffs and ask to be indicted?”

Annie blinked, only half-surprised by the blunt cynicism of his counter question, but she found herself momentarily grasping for the right words to logically navigate a moral argument with a corrupt god. 

Eventually, she sucked in a bracing breath and released it, nodding slowly as if conceding a point in a deposition.

“No, I hear you. I really do,” she said, her voice steady as she fought to keep her composure. “But the way those drinks were distributed so perfectly in that specific batch of snack boxes feels a bit too meticulous to be a coincidence, don't you think?” She took another step into his personal space, her tone dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “What if it wasn't a mistake at all? What if it was an inside job? What if—”

Homelander clicked his tongue, the impatient sound cutting her off like a physical slap. His hand flicked through the air in a gesture of total dismissal. 

“I’m sorry—how the fuck is any of that your business?” he demanded, his voice rising with a sudden edge of irritation. “Weren’t you assigned to track down Gunpowder’s killer? Why are you wasting my time on random side quests like this?”

Annie’s mouth remained open, the sudden interruption leaving her mid-sentence and looking slightly winded. She blinked, trying to regain her footing. “Right... about that. The Deep lied to me the other day about securing a facial match for our suspect. I checked with Crime Analytics, and it turns out he never even bothered to follow up.”

“Then you go and secure the match yourself. Leave me alone,” Homelander said flatly. He was already pivoting back to his monitor, his interest in her existence vaporizing the moment the conversation required actual effort.

Annie stood there for a useless second, watching him unlock his terminal with a practiced indifference. A quiet, frustrated sigh escaped her lips, and she finally turned, her sneakers squeaking against the floor as she made a retreat toward the exit.

She reached the threshold of the doors but paused, her hand hovering near the sensor. She turned back, staring at Homelander’s broad, caped back for a long moment. 

The thing was, Annie knew she was out of her depth. Digging into Vought’s basement was a suicide mission without some heavy-duty cover. Having the most powerful being on the planet as a shield was the only play that made sense, but the man was currently more interested in his screen than the fact that his employers were turning people into human confetti. Corporate negligence was simply too boring for his self-importance.

She pursed her lips, her hesitation flickering like a dying bulb before she decided to take one final shot at his ego. 

“You know,” she started tentatively, her voice echoing in the vast space, “you don’t even have to investigate this out of some misplaced sense of noble duty. But doesn’t it bother you? Don’t you want to know what exactly causes a human being to violently combust like that?” She took a small step back toward the center of the room. “Aren't you even a little curious about what Vought is cooking behind your back while you're up here? Oblivious to it all?”

There it was. 

She had bypassed the moral lecture and gone straight for the jugular: his ego and his paranoia. She had framed the mystery not as a tragedy to be solved, but as a secret being kept from him.

As expected, Homelander’s fingers stilled. He didn't turn fully, but his head tilted, offering her a glimpse of his right profile in the cold blue light of the hub. A heavily silent second stretched between them, thick with his ego beginning to stir.

Sensing the shift, Annie delivered the final, calculated stroke. “Come on, Homelander. I actually need your guidance on this. Let’s just investigate it together. We can let the whole thing go the second we find out what’s actually going on.”

One of Homelander’s brows arched at that. He turned slowly, his expression shifting into something cocky and genuinely intrigued.

“Why would you let it go once you know?” he asked, his head tilting with a predatory curiosity.

Annie offered a fluid shrug, her words sliding out with a practiced, manipulative grease. “Because it might be incriminating for Vought, and we are Vought. You are the face of it. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't have knowledge of things going on inside, if only for your own knowledge.”

Homelander blinked, his pupils constricting as he performed a silent, invasive audit of her biology. He was likely cataloging her heart rate and the microscopic tremors in her hands, hunting for the lie. But the girl remained an island of composure, meeting his gaze with a brand of sincere urgency that was difficult to dismiss as mere theatrics.

It was a persuasive bit of advocacy, he had to admit. She’d successfully framed her curiosity as a form of loyalty to his own supremacy.

Eventually, he exhaled a heavy breath and turned his back on her once more. “Trust me, Starlight. You don’t actually want to find what’s waiting at the bottom of that particular hole,” he tossed over his shoulder, his voice dropping into a register of grim and uncharacteristic sincerity.

“There are already a hundred things I’ve discovered about this place that I wish I hadn’t,” Annie countered, her tone devoid of malice but firm in its defiance. “What’s a few more for the collection?”

Homelander shook his head, his focus already drifting back to the digital glow. “Just go. Get that facial match from the Tower and drop the rest. Consider that side quest officially unapproved.”

The decree was absolute. He was already lost to the rhythmic clicking of the keys, effectively erasing her from the room’s census.

Annie let out a defeated huff, shaking her head at the floor in a moment of quiet disappointment. She was mostly annoyed with her own failure to reel him in. 

She turned and retreated through the threshold, her presence vanishing into the silence of the corridor as the doors hissed shut behind her.

The moment the seal was airtight, Homelander’s mask of bored superiority crumbled. 

He couldn’t care less about explosive soft drinks or the collateral damage of a botched pharmaceutical trial. He was currently being haunted by a much larger, more problematic concern that had been gnawing at his insides for the past week. He had replaced his grief with the TNT Twins’ case, deciding that a focused obsession was a much better look than wallowing in the wake of Madelyn’s death. Grief was for the weak; he had work to do

It was either that, or a casual spree of mass murder to process his grief. He chose the work, because the "consequences" of the alternative were the only thing in the world that still gave him a headache, unfortunately. 

He leaned into the console, pulling up the orbital thermal-rad sweep of the TNT Twins’ coordinates. The data was a week old, cached in Vought’s secure cloud, but the resolution remained disturbingly crisp. 

He watched the playback in a blur of neon heat signatures.

And then, the anomaly appeared.

It was a tiny, localized pulse of angry orange, a mobile hot zone that defied every law of the local climate. He tracked it as it drifted toward the Twins’ property with an odd lack of haste. A few minutes into its entry at their residence, the screen suddenly whited out for a single, jarring frame as a spike of ionizing radiation blossomed like a lethal flower.

The truly nauseating part, however, came in the aftermath. The hotspot didn't vanish after the blast, it began to migrate. 

Homelander’s brows furrowed in mild intrigue, fast-forwarding the feed. His eyes locked onto the thermal specter as it crossed state lines, eventually settling squarely into the GPS coordinates of the Light of the World expo in Richmond. 

He blinked, a rare moment of genuine, stupid shock washing over his features. He watched the timestamps tick by with clinical dread. The "ghost" had spent the entire morning drifting through the expo; an invisible, walking reactor mingling with the faithful.

Then, he hit the timestamp for Psalm Siren's headlining set.

The air stayed trapped in his lungs, his breath catching in his throat before he could even think to exhale. 

On the thermal map, the hotspot was a brilliant, pulsing sun in the center of a blue tinted crowd. The exact microsecond this mystery anomaly brushed against a cluster of concert attendees, their signatures detonated—Psalm Siren included. A surge of thermal energy reduced dozens of people to streaks of radioactive sludge in under a minute.

Homelander huffed a short breath of dumbfounded astonishment, frown deepening in expanding shock. 

The combustion deaths weren't just the result of a botched chemical recipe in a soda bottle. They were likely a radiological bypass; a violent, localized reaction to the sheer presence of whatever, or whoever, this mystery hotspot actually was. 

He snagged a chair from the periphery and sank into it, the flickering blue light of the monitor dancing in his wide, unblinking eyes. 

He'd just realized that the "suicidal accident" of the TNT Twins and the "Richmond tragedy" weren't just a pair of unfortunate PR nightmares for the legal department to juggle. They were… related.

The odds were astronomical, even by Vought’s distorted standards of probability. 

Starlight had just waltzed into the room begging to investigate a mystery drug, something he’d internally dismissed as a boring, garden variety Compound V leak; only for him to discover that the Twins might as well have been incinerated by the exact same radiological signature that liquidated the Richmond victims.

The only logical explanation for a heat source that moved with such predatory, sentient intent was that it was a supe. 

Vought had clearly fumbled the ball in a spectacular, potentially world-ending fashion. Perhaps the pharmaceutical cocktail Starlight was obsessing over wasn't just a variant of the blue stuff, maybe it was something far more volatile.

For the first time in decades, a cold, microscopic prickle of sweat stung the back of Homelander’s neck. He realized, with an ego bruising irony, that he’d just unceremoniously kicked out the only person on the station who actually had her finger on the nerve of the disaster. 

How ironic was it that he was the most powerful man on Earth, and he was currently the second to know which way the wind was blowing? 

He moved with frantic motion then, purging the search history with a few sharp keystrokes and snapping the windows shut on the monitor before lunging out of the chair. 

The biometric sensors chimed a submissive greeting as the doors hissed apart to accommodate his exit.

He stormed down the corridor with long strides that made the floor plating groan. He didn't just need to investigate anymore, he needed to catch up to the girl he’d just treated like a nuisance before his ignorance became a permanent liability.

——

Annie was sprawled across her mattress, the glow of her phone hovering inches above her face like a digital life support machine.

She was currently busy replaying her failure in the analytics hub, convinced she should’ve pushed harder. Tomorrow, first thing, get the facial match, identify the mystery man who’d unalived Gunpowder at the club, and then drag that lead back to the station as leverage. 

If she could hand Homelander a finished puzzle instead of just a handful of pieces, maybe he’d stop treating her like a persistent telemarketer.

The internal monologue was cut short by a sharp pounding on her door. It wasn't necessarily a polite knock.

Annie sat bolt upright, blinking at the door. Before she could even find her voice, a second round of pounding rattled the frame. She scrambled off the mattress and moved, hitting the wall switch next to doors.

The door hissed open to reveal one of the Vought Response Team guys, the fancy corporate janitors they send in when things get messy. The man was clad in a ballistic uniform, every inch of skin covered by charcoal grey plating and tactical nylon. 

A heavy-duty short barreled rifle hung from a single-point sling against his chest. His face was a void, buried behind a high cut helmet and a mask that stopped just below his eyes, making him look like a piece of breathing government hardware.

Before Annie could even offer a confused greeting, the man shoved a heavy, overstuffed duffel bag into her chest. Annie caught it with a grunt, the leaden weight of ceramic plates nearly pulling her off balance.

"Put this on," the man rasped, his voice filtered through the mask into a metallic growl. "Get to the deployment bay. Drain every surveillance feed on your way as you go. Do not get recorded."

Annie’s eyebrows shot up, her fingers digging into the coarse nylon of the bag. The voice had a familiar, grating authority to it, but the "secret agent" cosplay was a bit much for her on a Sunday afternoon.

"I’m sorry, who are you?" she demanded, her confusion sharpening into a defensive spike. "And what is this? I already have a suit."

The man didn't give her the satisfaction of a snappy comeback. He just turned on a heavy heel and vanished into the corridor, his boots making remarkably little noise for a man carrying forty pounds of hardware. He left her standing in her own doorway like a confused delivery driver holding a bag of black-ops gear and a set of very illegal sounding instructions.

She stood there for a moment, staring at the empty hall, before hauling the bag into the center of her room and pressing the door shut. The curiosity was nagging at her, sure, but it was also being drowned out by a sudden sense of urgency that usually preceded someone getting fired or blown up.

She ripped the zipper open.

Inside was a similar but sized-down version of the man’s uniform. It was a Vought Response Team "Tier-1" kit; matte-black plating, a reinforced combat vest, a rifle, a high cut helmet and a ballistic face mask that looked like it belonged in a riot.

Annie stripped out of her civilians and suited up in a blur of practiced, annoyed motion. The carbon fiber plates snapped over her shoulders with a clinical clack, and she tightened the nylon straps until the air in her lungs felt like a luxury. 

When she finally pulled the mask over her face and clicked the helmet into place, the America's Sweetheart brand disappeared entirely. In the mirror stood a faceless VRT staff, just another anonymous ghost in the Vought machine, ready to do the kind of work that didn't get a press release.

Annie snagged her phone from her discarded jeans, shoved it into a thigh pocket, and stepped into the hallway. Her nerves were suddenly buzzing with tension. Every time a camera lens swiveled her way, she simply drained its life support.

And each time, a soft golden flicker danced behind her eyes, the overhead units dying with a series of faint pops. 

By the time she reached the bulkhead of the deployment bay, she’d become a moving blind spot to Vought’s surveillance system. She didn't even glance at the biometric scanner. Using her thumbprint would be like leaving a signed confession at a crime scene.

Her eyes flared again, two gold rings burning through the darkness of her visor. The digital interface sizzled in a brief, angry burst of static before the electromagnetic bolts clicked open with a heavy and industrial thud.

The doors hissed open. Annie stepped into the cavernous bay, her lungs filling with that familiar cocktail of jet fuel and recycled ozone.

Her gaze swept the vast, shadowed hangar, hunting for a reason she was currently dressed like a mercenary. She advanced deeper into the room, the silence of the bay amplified by the occasional groan of cooling metal.

Then, she spotted him. At the far end of the bay, framed by the massive rectangular that opened into the vacuum, stood the same black clad silhouette from her doorway earlier.

Annie tightened her grip on the rifle that had come with the kit, mostly because it gave her hands something to do besides shake. 

“Hello?” she called out, her voice echoing off the titanium rafters.

The figure turned, his face a featureless ballistic plate. He didn't say a word. He just lifted a gloved hand and gave her a sharp, "get-your-ass-over-here" wave.

Annie’s pace quickened, though she kept a thumb near the safety of her rifle. A paranoid part of her wondered if this was just the Deep's latest attempt at another malicious prank. Because if so, she’d just have to blind the douchebag again and leave him to wander into a turbine.

She closed the final gap in a quick jog. The moment she was within arm's reach, the silent guard didn't offer a briefing; his arm simply shot out, wrapping with terrifyingly absolute authority around her waist.

“What the—” Annie jerked against the impact, her boots skidding on the floor. She tried to wedge an elbow into the charcoal plating to break the seal, but his grip was a total lockdown, the kind of strength that made her own supe physiology feel like wet paper.

“Hang on tight,” the man ordered. Then, it was simply a blur of a second. 

Annie sucked in a sharp breath, her vision blurring behind the visor as the floor of the deployment bay was replaced by a dizzying, vertical drop. Her head spun, trying to find a horizon that wasn't currently screaming past her at terminal velocity.

They were diving headfirst into the atmosphere, sure, but the physics were all wrong. They weren’t dropping at the regular speed, but with a controlled grace that defied the standard laws of gravity. 

Annie’s eyes snapped to the gloved hand gripping around her waist, the realization hitting her harder than the wind. She looked up at the featureless mask inches from her own.

“Homelander?!” she spat, the name coming out as a strangled, stunned gasp. “How did you—where the hell are we even going?”

“Seven Tower,” he answered gruffly. His tone was flat, bored, and unsettlingly relaxed considering the fact that he was currently playing lawn dart with the Earth’s crust.

Annie’s head tilted as she squinted through the rushing air, her brain struggling to reconcile the mercenary suit with the man inside it. “Wh—why?”

“To fucking investigate. Why else?” he snapped, the familiar smug impatience bleeding through the filter of his mask. He sounded like a parent who’d finally agreed to a road trip after being asked forty times, and he clearly intended to make her suffer through every mile of it.

Annie’s brows climbed up behind her visor, a small, triumphant smirk tugging at her mouth. The manipulation had landed after all; she’d successfully baited a god into the mud. 

"Oh, okay," she managed, trying to sound professional while her ego took a victory lap. "Thanks."

He didn't give her the satisfaction of a reply. If anything, he seemed physically agitated by her visible streak of smugness. The idea that a junior supe had effectively maneuvered him into a midday field trip was clearly grating against his self-importance. He wasn't about to dignify her "lead" with a verbal pat on the back, so he opted for a stony silence for the rest of the descent.

They touched down with a synchronized thud at the rear of the Seven Tower, standing in a secluded alleyway facing a set of nondescript vent hall doors; the kind of entrance used for smuggling in escorts, college students, or the occasional shipment of extracurricular drugs.

Homelander’s arm finally retracted from her waist, and he stepped back with a dismissive movement. He jabbed a gloved finger toward the door. "So? Which floor?"

Annie adjusted her helmet, pulling the mask higher to steady her breathing after the dizzying drop. She scanned the grim, oil-stained brick of the alley through her visor, only just realizing this particular backdoor even existed. Vought really did have a layer of grime for every floor of the building.

"Could you fast-track your processing time?" Homelander prompted, his voice a muffled, impatient rasp through the mask.

Annie turned to him, her eyes performing a slow, involuntary sweep of his silhouette. The man was already a walking nightmare in primary colors and a flag. But draped in black gear, he looked like a contained apocalypse. It was Black Noir’s aesthetic, but with an undercurrent of mental instability. 

This was the first time she’d ever seen him in something other than his patriotic pajamas. 

A younger, more naive version of Annie might have actually found the look attractive in a dark, terrifying way, and honestly, even through the cynicism, she had to admit he filled out the Kevlar well.

A soft sarcastic chuckle escaped her lips as she finally moved. She hauled the heavy exit door open and disappeared into the HVAC halls.

Homelander trailed her into the gloom, his footsteps eerily quiet and acutely alert.

"Did we really have to go full Call of Duty for this?" Annie whispered, her head moving from side to side as she crept forward. The sturdy boots felt alien, making her movements feel more like a prowl than a walk. "I thought 'undercover' wasn't in the Vought vocabulary."

"Exactly," Homelander’s voice came back, a flat, metallic tone. "Which is why nobody’s going to turn a head on us. Now, shut up with the 'recon' and hurry the fuck up. You don't need to scout the corners; I’m already looking through the walls."

He punctuated the command by planting a heavy palm between her shoulder blades and giving her a light shove that sent her stumbling.

Annie staggered, her boots skidding on the concrete before she whipped her head back in an irritated glare. "Hey—watch the hardware—"

"Move," he repeated, his gloved hand gesturing forward with a flick of pure, dismissive impatience.

Annie rolled her eyes, a gesture entirely lost behind her visor, and picked up the pace. She hugged the short-barreled rifle to her chest, a ridiculous irony considering she could punch through a tank, but the weight of the gun felt like a grounding prop in this game of pretense.

They navigated the service guts of the building until they hit the cargo elevators at the basement. It was a grim, industrial cul de sac tucked into the literal ass crack of the tower. Four massive, dented lift doors lined each side of the corridor, smelling of hydraulic fluid and overtly stale coffee.

Just as they approached, one of the lifts groaned open. A handful of workers began trundling trolleys stacked with biohazard bins and lab supplies into the hall before they moved to exit. 

Homelander went still, his head tilting with a predatory curiosity as he surveyed the grimy transit hub.

It was clear he’d never descended this far into the digestive system of his own kingdom. These elevators were a closed loop, shuttling exclusively between the top basement floor and the sub-levels.

Annie stepped up to a terminal across from the workers, her posture snapping into a rigid straightness. She slammed the downward arrow and stood there, a perfect imitation of a bored grunt on a long shift.

They stood side by side, two charcoal statues waiting for a ride to the basement. Every few seconds, their visors would lock; a silent, tense exchange between a god in a mask and the girl who’d indirectly dragged him there. 

The cargo elevator arrived with a heavy mechanical groan shortly after the lab techs vanished around the corner. Annie stepped into the large dented box and turned to face Homelander as he followed, his presence instantly making the elevator feel like a claustrophobic cage.

The moment the doors hissed shut, sealing them in a vacuum of industrial silence, Homelander finally let go of his rifle. It dropped against his chest, dangling from its sling with a dull sound against his armor.

"How do you even know about this elevator?" he asked, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls. "Or this particular corner of the basement, for that matter? It's not exactly on the tourist map."

Annie kept her posture military straight, her knuckles white around the grip of her weapon. "Sub-two has the morgue. Gunpowder’s remains were being processed there," she explained, her voice remarkably steady despite the fact that her internal wiring was currently short-circuiting. The proximity, the disguise, and the sheer illegality of the moment were finally starting to pile up into a pack of anxiety attacks she hadn't seen coming.

Homelander didn't offer a word immediately. Instead, his head tilted slightly, gaze dropping to her chest to monitor the frantic, rabbit-like hammering of her heart against her ribs. He was reading her panic like a ticker tape.

Annie reached out and punched the button for Sub-Six. She stepped back into the corner, exhaling a long, shaky breath in an attempt to manually override her own nervous system.

The moment the "6" illuminated, Homelander’s head snapped toward her with the speed of a closing trap.

"Wait," he said, his tone shifting from bored curiosity to something machine-like and dangerously alert. "Sub fucking six??" he hissed, his eyes widening behind the dark visor of his helmet.

Annie nodded, confused by the sudden spike in his temperature. "The logistics reports showed raw materials and experimental compounds being diverted from the upper labs down to sub-six," she explained, trying to regain her footing. "There’s a black-site lab down there. It’s where they’re cooking the—"

"Okay. Abort," Homelander cut her off before she could finish the thought. His voice was final, vibrating with a kind of caution she’d never heard from him. "We’re done. We’re not doing this anymore."

"Wait—what?" Annie spat, her stunned indignation momentarily eclipsing her fear. "Why? I just survived a swan dive for this. You can't just quit because of a floor number!"

Homelander shook his masked head, a frantic motion that looked uncharacteristic in the dim light. He lunged, slamming a gloved fist into the emergency stop. 

The elevator halted with a sickening, metallic screech that vibrated up Annie’s spine. He pivoted on her, his presence suddenly doubling in volume.

"Why the fuck didn't you lead with the fact that we were dropping into Sub-Six?" He demanded, his voice a low and angry rasp. 

Annie’s brow furrowed, her gaze darting from the glowing emergency "STOP" button to the all-covered wall of a man in front of her. 

"I don’t follow the panic, Homelander," she said, her confusion fighting through the mounting dread. "You hijacked us off a space station to find out who’s brewing this stuff. Now we're at the kitchen door and you’re having a breakdown?"

"Yes!" he hissed. He closed the distance in a blur, his hand clamping around her upper arm and yanking her toward his visor with enough force to make her ceramic plates grind. "Do you have even the faintest fucking clue what you just invited me to? What you just dragged us into?"

It was like a breaker had flipped in his skull. The bored, untouchable god had dissolved, replaced by a version of Homelander that was twitchy, feral, and radiating a low-frequency energy of genuine and unfiltered terror.

Even through the mask, the serrated edge of his tone was enough to send a cold ripple of goosebumps down Annie’s neck. She winced as his grip tightened, the reinforced nylon of her suit the only thing keeping her humerus from snapping like a dry twig. She had two choices: fold like a cheap piece of paper, or treat him like a spooked horse. 

Given the lack of exits, she chose the latter.

"Look, I get it," she said, her voice a flat, steady anchor against his stormy energy. "Judging by the way you're losing your mind, I'm guessing whatever is down there, is not so gratifying. But we’re already here. Might as well see what’s up."

Homelander let out a sharp scoff, shoving her back as he released her arm with a flick of pure disgust. He stabbed an accusatory finger at her before spinning around to the control panel. He punched Sub-Four to reset the logic of the elevator and then hammered the Sub-Six button to override the earlier lift call. 

"This," he grumbled, the elevator jolting back into its downward plunge, "is officially the stupidest fucking thing you’ve ever done. And in this company, that’s a goddamn gold medal of stupidity."

Annie offered a grimace to his back, her eyes rolling with a weary rhythm. Typical. A cosmic-level entrance from the stratosphere just to suffer a mid-mission meltdown in a service lift.

But she was Donna’s daughter, raised on a diet of relentless persistence and pageant circuit grit. Quitting wasn't in the manual. She drew out a long breath, forcing her pulse to downshift into a manageable beating. Someone had to be the adult in the room, even if that room was a plummeting metal box.

The elevator chimed at Sub-Four, the doors sliding apart to reveal a dim, industrial purgatory. 

As Homelander coiled to storm out, Annie’s hand shot forward. She clamped onto his forearm, a firm, grounding grip.

“Hey,” she murmured, the word cautious but magnetic.

Homelander froze. His head swiveled, tracking the path from her fingers on his sleeve up to the dark visor of her mask. An agitated crease deepened between his brows, his entire silhouette radiating a pressurized and volatile static.

“We’re the fucking Seven,” Annie said, her voice a velvety layer of manipulative encouragement behind the filter. “We can investigate what we need. We have that legal right as a team and as individuals. If we get caught, we get a stern memo and a slap on the wrist. We're the definition of untouchable. So let’s just go down there and see the goddamn receipts. Please.”

She didn't let go. The plea was blunt, stripped of corporate polish, and laced with a raw sincerity that seemed to pin him to the spot.

He blinked, his jaw locking into a rigid line. The sheer audacity of the touch, the physical claim she was staking on his attention, had clearly sent a jolt through his system. It was a cocktail of offense and something far more primal, a flicker of intrigue buried under layers of ego.

But the habit of supremacy won out. 

He wrenched his arm back with a contemptuous snap. “I’m not fucking worried about a lecture from the C-Suite, Starlight. We’re scrubbing the mission. That’s final.”

He stepped out into the floor of Sub-Four, his boots thudding against the concrete as he headed for the emergency stairwell. The floor was a graveyard of silent machinery and flickering amber lights, the air heavy with the Sunday afternoon lethargy of a billion-dollar tomb. 

When the expected shuffle of her boots failed to follow, Homelander slowed, his capeless shoulders tensing before he threw a glance back at the elevator.

Starlight hadn't budged. She was propped against the threshold, one gloved hand jammed against the "door open" sensor. Her posture was a defiant wire of persistence.

“I’m going to Sub-Six,” she called out, her voice a sharp, echoing whisper. “I’ll see you in orbit.”

Homelander’s features contorted into a mask of incredulous irritation. He offered the empty hallway a theatrical roll of his eyes, a silent prayer for patience in a situation where lasering her skull into a steaming puddle wasn't a viable strategy. 

With a guttural groan that sounded like grinding tectonic plates, he turned, his heavy boots punctuating a defeated storm back toward the elevator car.

Annie watched his approach, a spark of triumph dancing in her eyes. A faint, knowing curve pulled at her lips behind the ballistic mesh; she’d successfully eroded his god complex with nothing but a well-timed bout of stubbornness. He’d officially run out of dignified exits.

The moment his armored frame crossed the threshold, she hammered the "Close Door" button with a proprietary flourish.

“For the record—” he snapped, his voice a blend of smug fury and hilariously transparent surrender. He jabbed a gloved finger toward her nose, the proximity between them suddenly electric, thick with the friction of two egos grinding together in a confined space. “I’m not here to hold your hand. I’m here because I think the TNT Twins’ death and those human barbecues in Richmond are related.”

Annie’s head snapped, her brow knitting in a genuine spike of intrigue. “What? How could they possibly be—”

“Shh!” He cut her off with a patronizing hiss, pressing a finger to his own masked lips. He turned his back on her as the doors sealed, his shoulders a high-tension rigid posture of discomfort.

Annie just blinked at his nape, wondering how a man with the power of a sun could have the emotional stability of a caffeinated toddler. She shook her head in the heavy silence, her own gaze drifting over the broad, charcoal grey expanse of his back every so often.

The final leg of the descent was a suffocating vacuum of tension. They stood like two statues carved from the same dark stone, vibrating with a shared and unspoken displeasure at their forced partnership. 

When the elevator finally signaled their arrival at Sub-Six with a soft, yet ominous chime, Homelander turned to her. The air around him felt cold, his own nerves clearly fraying beneath the Kevlar.

“You absolute fucking idiot,” he grumbled, the insult landing like a death sentence. He leaned in, his visor inches from hers, his voice dropping into an intimate growl. “Before you step out of this box, understand one thing: you’ve just dragged us both past the point of no return. And by tomorrow morning, you’re going to wish you’d stayed in bed.”

Annie offered a final, tired roll of her eyes, effectively tuning out the leader of the Seven. 

It was a bizarre moment of cognitive dissonance. For once, his warning lacked that theatrical cruelty he usually weaponized. Instead, he sounded genuinely pissed; as if she’d tricked him into stepping into a sewer he’d spent a lifetime trying to pave over.

The doors groaned open, and a wash of arterial red light flooded the cabin.

Annie stepped out first, her boots crunching on the concrete floor. She paused, glancing back at the dark monolith still lingering in the elevator. 

"Come on," she prompted, her chin tilting in a playful beckoning gesture. "You plus me equals two." 

She turned away before he could snap back, her silhouette swallowed by the crimson haze of the corridor.

Behind her, Homelander remained rooted to the spot, his gloved hands curling into tight tremors. He was currently performing a manic mental audit of the last forty minutes of his life, wondering how a girl who’d been in the building for only two months had successfully led him by the nose into his own personal hell.

This wasn't just a sub-level floor. It was the floor. The guts of the tower where he’d been cooked, raised, and systematically broken. He’d walked out of these doors twenty years ago with a silent vow to never look back.

And yet, here he was. Standing on the threshold of his own origin story, dressed like a mercenary and following a girl who had no idea she was walking through a graveyard of his memories.

Eventually, the internal friction peaked, and he forced himself to step out. The doors whirred shut behind him with a finality. He shot one last, lingering look at the steel barrier before turning his gaze to Starlight’s back, watching her advance into the flickering red dark.

Chapter Text

Annie’s boots should’ve echoed; this place begged for it. But her steps landed and died on the matte concrete like even the floor had signed an NDA.

The rifle hung off her single-point sling, resting against her chest with a lazy kind of familiarity. Her head moved in slow, measured sweeps, taking inventory, mapping exits, noting blind corners, the way a person does in case something goes wrong.

The lab stretched out in an aseptic grid that tried very hard to look organized and failed in the way all human systems eventually do. At the far corners, racks stood loaded with chemical barrels and glass bottles, labels turned outward in neat rows. On the opposite end, equipment storage units were stacked tight beside a switchboard and a fire alarm.

Seven long tables cut across the room, each one spaced with careful symmetry, each one set up for multiple employees. Monitors, instruments, trays of tools, half-finished notes. It had that familiar workplace clutter, as if there was nothing suspicious at all about this place.

Warning signs dotted the walls. Bright, insistent, and corporate approved panic in bold fonts. Each one carried a different instruction. There was even a kitchenette set into one corner, absurd in its normalcy. A small sink, a microwave, a coffee machine that had probably witnessed things it could never unsee. A laminated sign hung above it, politely reminding employees not to wash lab equipment in the kitchen sink.

Annie’s gaze lingered there at the kitchenette for half a second longer than necessary.

Behind her, Homelander moved like he had all the time in the world, which, for him, was not really a metaphor and more of a scheduling issue. He kept a deliberate distance, far enough to not look like he was following her, close enough that the illusion didn’t quite hold up under scrutiny.

His pace dragged just behind hers, unhurried, almost bored. His eyes flicked upward, across corners, along beams and ceiling lines, scanning for cameras with a guarded focus. Then back to her. Then forward again. A quiet loop of suspicion. He’d remembered not ever having cameras around this outer room of the floor. He just didn’t realize they still hadn’t installed any cameras here. Likely for confidentiality purposes, he’d reminded himself.

Annie, meanwhile, moved through the aisles between desks, her shoulders squared, posture loose but not careless. She didn’t look back when she spoke. “I don’t see a camera here.”

Her voice carried just enough to reach him, but not enough to bounce.

“That’s because there isn’t any.” His reply came flat, stripped of anything resembling comfort. “They’re all upstairs, upper sub-levels. You took the elevator that bypasses them.”

That made her slow, just enough to let the thought catch up to her. She turned her head slightly, masked profile angled toward him while her body stayed facing forward. “Wait. So nobody’s supposed to know about that elevator shortcut?”

He gave a small shrug, casual in a way that felt curated, like he’d practiced not caring. One hand lifted, gesturing loosely in her direction. “You do—apparently,” he said with a skeptical edge. 

Annie let out a quiet, thoughtful huff. It almost passed for amusement. “Huh.”

She turned away again, the sound of it lingering more than the word deserved. Her hands came up to her helmet, fingers finding the clasps with an unhurried pace. The high-cut shell came off first, lifted cleanly, then the ballistic mask followed, dragged down to rest around her neck.

“I guess visiting the morgue wasn’t such a bad part of the job, after all.” She mumbled, chuckling to herself. There was a faint edge of dark humor under it. Visiting the morgue was how she knew about the elevator in the first place. 

She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as she freed her ponytail from where it had been trapped under the suit. Strands of blonde hair fell back into place, a small, human detail in a space that had gone out of its way to feel anything but. Then she turned to look at him, fully this time.

Homelander had stopped a good ten feet away from her. He’d watched her comfortably remove the gear as soon as she heard there was no camera. 

There was no hesitation, no awkwardness, and no second-guessing in her. Even two weeks ago, it wouldn’t have been considered a regular sight to see Starlight confidently removing her gear in that Seven-typical nonchalance in an unknown place. And now it settled over her like something she’d grown into. 

Funny what wonders a little trauma could do. 

The thought curled into a faint smirk as Homelander reached up and removed his own helmet. A few strands of his pale hair slipped loose, falling across his forehead like they had somewhere better to be. He fixed them with a slow brush of his gloved hand, more out of habit than necessity.

The rifle sling followed, unhooked and set down on the nearest desk without any sound. Nothing he did felt rushed. Even the smallest movements carried a kind of silent intention. 

When he looked back at her, the overhead red lights swallowed the blue in his eyes entirely, leaving something darker behind. 

Annie noticed that eerie look on his face, of course. And because she noticed, she mirrored him. 

The rifle sling slipped off her shoulder, dragged over her head, then placed neatly on the desk beside her. It was a strange, unspoken alignment somewhere in between imitation and submission. 

“So?” Annie shrugged, casual on the surface, her lips pressing together as if holding something skeptical beneath. “Where could they keep the drugs? The pink stuff.”

He raised a brow, slow and unimpressed, or at least playing the part. “I don’t know.” The shrug that followed was almost lazy, as if the question hadn’t earned more. But he didn’t linger on her long enough. Instead, he pivoted and crossed the room, boots making the faintest sound now against the floor. 

He reached the wall and flipped a series of switches with quick, decisive motions; almost as if he knew exactly which switches to go for.

The red lights died, and the overhead fluorescents took over, washing the space in a pale, clinical light. It wasn’t necessarily too bright or too warm. Just enough to expose everything. 

Under it, the room finally lost its theatrical red filter. What remained was cleaner, more typical of a laboratory.

Annie’s gaze followed him, slower this time. Obviously, he’d been here before. The man moved like he didn’t need to think about where things were. There was no searching, no signs of confusion, and just that simple familiarity masked by indifference. 

She had clocked it the moment they stepped inside, and his warnings back in the elevator hadn’t exactly been subtle either.

She leaned back against the desk behind her, arms folding across her stomach. “You’ve been here before,” she said bluntly. “You look like you know what goes where around here.”

Homelander didn’t offer so much as a grunt in response, opting instead to burn an imaginary hole through her with a lingering, silent glare. 

He pivoted with a sweep and stalked toward a heavy door at the far end of the lab. With a heavy-handed shove, he forced the seal, the metal groaning in protest as he vanished into the gloom beyond.

Annie pushed off the desk almost immediately, the movement instinctive. Letting him out of her sight in a place like this felt like a bad idea for reasons she didn’t want to examine too closely.

The second room opened up just as wide, maybe wider, but it felt… spookier in a different way. The air carried a chemical tang, sharper here, like something had been spilled and never fully cleaned. 

The tables were cluttered with more specialized equipment, glass chambers with cloudy residue lining the interiors, sealed containers labeled in codes that meant nothing at first glance, and a series of metal trays holding instruments. 

Some machines hummed low and steady, others blinked in slow, irregular intervals. There were stains too. Faint, scrubbed down to near invisibility, but not gone. 

Massive glass vats lined the walls, filled with a stagnant, yellowish fluid as if something organic had been pickled there a long time ago. The air was colder here for sure, a mix of industrial bleach and something sickly sweet, like rotting fruit.

Annie took it all in as she moved, her pace matching his without realizing it. Every so often, she found her gaze involuntarily snapping to his back. 

It was a bizarre, almost jarring sight. 

After a lifetime of seeing him draped in that star-spangled propaganda, the black tactical gear felt strangely intimate. It hugged his frame in a way that made his power seem more grounded, more physical. It allowed for his back to be viewed in the absence of the cape. 

It was functional and unfairly effective at highlighting exactly how well put together he actually was.

She’d spent her teenage years typing embarrassing fanfictions about him in "civilian" attire, but none of those fantasies had captured the casually lethal energy he radiated in person. 

Teenage her would’ve had a field day with this. She’d written entire scenes, entire stories, imagining him like this, out of costume, sometimes even without clothes. Back then it had been harmless and safe. 

Fiction had a way of sanding down all the uglier truth.

Annie caught herself mid-thought and rolled her eyes at herself, hard enough to physically shake the thought loose. She hated how quickly her brain supplied comparisons. Hated even more that they were accurate. 

Now was hardly the time to be mentally cataloging how well his shoulders filled out the Kevlar.

She pushed forward, following him through another door at the far end of the room. It opened into a long hallway that stretched out ahead of them, branching at sharp junctions like veins through the structure. 

The red overhead lights returned, bathing everything in that same unsettling glow. The hallway seemed to stretch on forever, interrupted by heavy, windowless doors that likely hid more corporate sins that Annie had the will to know. 

Every few seconds, the red light would cycle, casting Homelander’s shadow long and distorted against the walls like some looming, ink blotted monster.

Eventually, he stopped at a door on the right, just before the far end of the hall. He pushed it open and stepped aside, enough to let her see inside.

Annie had paused just a step off the threshold, her eyes scanning the interior. This room looked like the motherlode. It was vast, echoing, and packed with the industrial skeletal remains of a mass production facility.

“This is where they ‘cook’ the compounds, so to speak,” he noted, his voice echoing flatly off the tiled walls. He gave a bored flick of his wrist toward the workstations, where glass carboys sat half-filled with murky liquids. He then pointed a gloved finger at a row of dull metal storage cabinets bolted to the far wall. “Logs go there.”

Annie blinked, her curiosity momentarily overriding her dread. “Damn… did you have a side-hustle as a lab tech or something?” She let out a small, startled chuckle, moving toward the cabinets. “Seriously, where did you even work before Vought picked you up?”

Homelander’s response was a slow, theatrical roll of his eyes, the kind that made it very clear the conversation had been dismissed before it even had started. He didn’t bother verbally answering at all. 

There was nothing in that question he had any intention of entertaining, not the highlights of his scorched-earth origin story, not the implications buried underneath. Especially not for her.

Annie didn't press the issue, though, her attention already snagged by the task at hand. The cabinet doors creaked open under her grip, and she leaned in, flipping through files with quick, practiced movements. 

Paper brushed against paper in soft whispers as she skimmed labels, dates, codes that blurred together the longer she looked. At the same time, her attention refused to stay contained. It drifted, catching on the rows of refrigerated units along the far wall, on the stacked containers behind glass panels.

Her hands went still in the drawer as a particular glow caught her eye. 

One of the refrigeration chambers sat roughly twelve feet away, radiating a pulsating, neon pink hue that looked aggressively familiar. 

The neighboring units were just as vibrant, acting as an unnatural light show for the lab. Some compartments bled a sickly, toxic green, but the vast majority were saturated in a cold, electric blue.

Annie blinked, her gaze dragging across the entire stretch of refrigeration units. The combined glow had painted the surrounding surfaces in shifting colors, bleeding into the floor, the metal edges of nearby equipment, and even the undersides of the desks. 

It had turned the room into something almost surreal, like a nightclub designed by someone with a medical license, and maybe also no moral boundaries.

Without thinking, her hands slipped out of the drawer. The files were forgotten as she moved toward the fridges, drawn in by equal parts curiosity and unease. Her steps slowed as she approached, her body lowering slightly as she leaned in to get a better look at the labels.

Her eyes scanned the seal on the pink batch first.

“V-Shield.”

Beneath it, was a dense string of alphanumeric identifying codes meant to track the specific variant.

Her brows pulled together in mild confusion, posture shifting to the adjacent compartments, checking the others. The blue vials were labeled “Compound V,” each one marked with iteration numbers and serial codes that suggested constant revision, constant tweaking. The green ones read “Temp V,” their own identifiers stamped beneath; more provisional, experimental, and disposable.

“Jesus…” she muttered under her breath, the word slipping out before she could dress it up.

Annie fumbled for her phone, her fingers clumsy and reaching into her pocket to pull out the device. The screen lit up her face as she flicked on the flashlight, angling it back toward the cabinets. 

If there were logs, they’d match these labels. They had to.

She scurried back to the storage cabinets, propping her phone’s flashlight between her shoulder and ear with a hand as she began a single-handed sift through the physical logs with the other hand. 

She could use her powers to light up the room but that would leave traces of disturbance in the systems; in other words, a trace of someone being here on a Sunday evening. 

Annie's fingers dove back into the folders, rifling through them with more urgency now, the beam of her phone jittering slightly as she tried to keep it steady.

In the process, she hadn’t really noticed the folded piece of paper slipping free from her pocket when she pulled her phone out. It had drifted down in a quiet, almost polite fall before settling on the floor behind her.

Homelander remained where he was, watching her play Miss Marple with an amusement that bordered on predatory. 

There was something almost endearing about it, in a way he would never admit out loud. Her version of control looked like focus stretched thin, like she was one bad discovery away from snapping it entirely. His gaze, however, had tracked the white scrap of paper she’d dropped.

He stared where it lay on the floor. Interesting.

So while she played detective, he sauntered towards the refrigerators with unhurried steps, his attention splitting equally to track both her and the small, accidental offering at his feet. 

He slowed as he reached it, then bent down, picking it up between gloved fingers with an easy confidence that abundantly suggested he already knew he wasn’t supposed to see it.

“Got it!” Annie’s voice rang out from across the room, bright and a little too pleased with itself for a place like this. The excitement in it was almost disarming, something genuine that didn’t quite belong around Homelander. “The V-Shield! That’s what the drug is called! I found the file.”

“Mmhm.”

Homelander’s response came out low, absent-minded, mixed with mild amusement. His attention had already drifted elsewhere. He was busy carefully smoothing out the crinkled edges of the paper he’d scavenged from the floor. As he unfolded the final crease, one eyebrow lifted as the image revealed itself.

It was a charcoal sketch. Rough in places, smudged at the spot where gloved fingers had dragged across it, but detailed enough to leave no doubt. Starlight, caught mid-blast, light bursting from her hands as it hurled the Deep backward like he weighed nothing. There was a kind of chaotic energy to it, exaggerated in all the right ways.

At the bottom, scrawled in uneven block lettering, were the words: “BADASS BITCHLIGHT.”

For a moment, he just stared at it, taking in the details. Then the corner of his mouth twitched.

Meanwhile, Annie had already pulled a stack of logs free from the cabinet, the folders fanning out in her hands as she flipped through them while struggling with her phone. Her eyes moved quickly, trying to keep pace with the dense, lifeless jargon that Vought’s R&D seemed to take pride in.

“Subject 4-Alpha,” she read aloud, her tone flattening slightly as she forced her way through it. “Exposure to localized ionizing radiation… eight point five times ten to the power of three rads. Post-administration of V-Shield compound. The log says… ‘Subject’s biology maintained homeostatic stability for a three-hour window. Minimal cellular degradation observed despite the radiological bypass.’”

She paused, squinting down at the page as if the words might rearrange themselves into something more comprehensive. A graph sat printed beside the text, a jagged line that looked like a heart rate monitor plunging off a cliff.

“Wait, I think it gets worse,” she muttered, trying to make whatever sense of it, flipping to the next page. Her voice tightened a fraction, the earlier spark of excitement thinning out as she read aloud. “‘Increasing exposure to the eight-hour threshold resulted in a thermal-kinetic spike. Subject reached a critical state of… systemic hyper-combustion.’” She stopped, blinking at the line for a second. She looked up with her face paling. “It literally says the subject combusted. ‘Spontaneous atmospheric ignition observed in less than point-four seconds.’”

Annie shook her head, more to clear it than anything else, the paper rustling as she flipped to the final summary sheet. “The last entry says they achieved ‘efficacy’ in one subject after eight hours of stabilization,” she went on, the quotation marks practically audible, “but the second one… ‘total biological liquidation.’”

She let out a quiet breath that almost passed for a laugh, except there wasn’t anything funny in it. Mostly because she barely understood half of it, and it still sounded awful. 

“What the hell is a radiological bypass?”

She turned toward him then, the question aimed directly, her brows drawn together in something between confusion and growing unease. “Why would a supe even need protection from radiation?” she added. “We’re built to handle it, right?”

Across the narrow aisle, Homelander wasn’t even looking at her. And he certainly wasn’t looking at the files. His eyes remained glued on the sheet of paper in his hand, held between two black-gloved fingers with surprising care. The man was a silent statue at this point, his attention meticulously bifurcated between the horrific clinical data she was reciting and the private burst of anger captured in his hand.

He kept on studying the sketch over and over with an intensity that bordered on invasive. The rough charcoal lines, the smudges, the way her face had been captured mid-action, the way Deep looked like an idiot. An expression of a real and very unpleasant moment of her life. 

“Homelander?” Annie called, her tone climbing an octave, a faint edge of nerves slipping in. “Did you hear me? They’re testing a drug that’s supposed to ‘insulate’ something called Compound V in the blood. What’s Compound V?”

The question sat there, unanswered. He didn’t turn; didn’t speak. The silence stretched long enough to feel intentional.

Annie let out an audible, theatrical huff and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. 

“Never mind,” she muttered, already reaching for her phone. “I’m just going to Google it.” There was disappointment in her tone, but no real surprise. She wasn’t expecting him to be helpful, not anymore.

The screen lit up her face as her thumb moved quickly, typing “Compound V” into the search bar. She wasn't a doctor, and if Compound V had been mentioned in her high school biology classes, the memory had long since been buried under pageant rehearsals or simply being the Defender of Des Moines. And since Homelander had apparently decided to be a useless, unengaging piece of furniture, she’d rely on the internet.

Behind her, Homelander finally looked up, the sketch still in his hand. His head tilted slightly toward her, and a quiet chuckle slipped out, amused and melodic.

“You’re not going to find that on Google,” he said, the words easy, dressed with that familiar patronizing delight. “Come here with those.” He gestured with a crooked finger, a condescending beckoning motion.  

Annie glanced up from her screen, her expression tightening immediately at his tone. 

She hesitated long enough for the annoyance to register, then locked her phone and shoved it back into her pocket with a bit more force than necessary. 

Grabbing the files with both hands, she pushed off from where she stood and walked over to him, her boots clicking an angry rhythm against the lab floor. It wasn’t quite a march, but it wasn’t cooperative either.

As soon as she slowed beside him, Homelander held the sketch out toward her like it was something casually retrieved from a drawer rather than something slipped from her own pocket. 

The motion was lazy, almost bored, but his attention wasn’t. It stayed fixed on her face, reading for reaction more than explanation.

“Noir gave you this?” he asked, tone light on the surface, but with something tighter underneath it. Curiosity, yes, but not the harmless kind.

Annie’s eyes dropped to the paper and she let out a short, confused huff. “Wait—how did you—”

“Fell from your pocket,” he cut in smoothly before she could finish, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “With your phone.” He gestured lazily toward her waist, the movement almost dismissive.

Annie blinked, her mouth parted with a faint frown forming as she performed the mental gymnastics of a wardrobe audit. 

She’d changed into the tactical gear in a blind rush. She must have snagged the scrap of paper when she’d fished her phone out of her jeans earlier and stuffed them both into this pocket.

“Oh…” she muttered, the realization landing late but clean. Then she shook it off, like it didn’t deserve more space in her head. “Yeah… Black Noir did that. And another before that.”

At that, Homelander’s expression shifted almost imperceptibly; a subtle, rhythmic twitch in his jaw betraying a sudden spike of territorial tension. 

For a moment, he looked like he might ask something uncomfortable. Something that would dig deeper than necessary. He tilted his face just enough to demand an explanation without having to ask for one, his brows arching in a silent, pressurized interrogation. 

Eventually, he swallowed the spike of jealousy, exhaling a hot, dismissive huff.

“Okay,” he said, too casual, too quickly recovered. “Well—don’t fall for him.” He flicked the paper lightly toward her, offering it back without looking at it anymore. “He’s mine.”

Annie felt a smirk pull at the corners of her mouth as she reclaimed the sketch. The man was hopelessly, almost pathologically attracted to Noir. It was a bizarrely human trait that felt almost endearing when it wasn't being draped in threats. 

“So, fall for you instead?” she shot back before she could stop herself, the tease slipping out faster than her better judgment. 

The second it left her mouth, her expression shifted, like she’d just heard herself from the outside. She shook her head immediately. “Sorry—no, I don’t know why I said that. That was a bad joke. I'm sorry.”

She kept shaking her head, visibly disturbed by her own lack of restraint. There was a faint touch of embarrassment now, but also a kind of alarmed self-awareness, like she’d just briefly tripped into a conversation she didn’t mean to enter.

Homelander turned his head slightly, casting her a sideways glance. 

A ghost of a smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth, dark and entirely too knowing. He didn't dignify the remark with a response. He just looked away again, letting the silence do the work for him. Mostly because a comeback would only validate Noir’s irritating theory that he harbored a schoolboy crush on the new girl. 

Annie folded the paper back with careful fingers, smoothing the crease once before slipping it into her pocket. The gesture was small, almost absent-minded, but it gave her something to do with her hands as she cleared her throat, desperate to incinerate the awkward remains of her joke. 

She needed a pivot; something workable, something that didn't involve accidental flirting with a murderous sociopath. 

When she turned toward him again, her expression had shifted slightly, the awkwardness softening into something more tentative.

“Hey, uh—I’ve been meaning to say this,” she began, her voice gentler now, less sharp than before. There was a pause where she seemed to search for the right version of herself to use. “I’m really sorry about Ms. Stillwell, and… thank you. For backing me up the other day. With the Deep.” 

She gave a small shrug to accompany it, like she was trying to make the sentiment lighter than it actually was. Her eyes didn’t fully meet his, drifting just slightly off target as if direct eye contact might turn the moment weirder.

Homelander let out a sudden bark of laughter, sharp and immediate, his head tipping back slightly with rolling eyes, as if the idea itself was entertaining enough to warrant it. 

When he looked back at her, there was already that familiar amused disbelief settling into his expression. He turned fully toward her, the grin widening in a performative way, all teeth and certainty.

“You think I was backing you up?” he repeated, like the question itself was adorable in its misunderstanding. The laugh lingered as he spoke again. “I was protecting the Deep, Starlight.”

Annie frowned almost instantly, the reaction automatic. Confusion first, then resignation following close behind, like she had already learned not to expect straightforward answers from him. “From Vought?” she asked, testing the angle.

“From you,” he corrected without hesitation, the grin still in place as if he was enjoying how easily the words landed. “And Maeve. But mostly you.” He punctuated it with a lazy point in her direction, not aggressive, but definite enough to make the distinction feel intentional.

She blinked again, holding his gaze a moment longer now, searching for some hidden layer of joke or meaning she might have missed. When none immediately surfaced, her expression shifted, processing slowly. It was actually a backhanded compliment. He wasn't being nice; he was acknowledging that she would have absolutely pulverized the Deep if left to her own devices. 

A slow, irrepressible smirk spread at Annie's lips.

“But why?” she asked anyway, lips twitching slightly despite herself. “You don’t exactly like the Deep, from what I’ve seen.” She made a small face as she said it, a faint cringe, her eyes performing their signature roll.

“You’re right,” Homelander said simply. “I don't. But—” he pointed that same finger at her, his voice dropping into a more authoritative hum, “Maeve has raised some concerns, and I took care of it. That’s it.”

He gave another small chuckle, like the entire situation was mildly amusing rather than structurally revealing.

Annie raised a skeptical eyebrow, nodding slowly as she processed the hierarchy of Vought’s internal politics. “I see. So she’s the real hero of the story.”

That earned another laugh from him, a little more open this time, less restrained. As if the petty soap opera dynamics of the Seven were suddenly endearing to him rather than a colossal drain on his patience. 

Annie shook her head, a dry chuckle of her own escaping as she tried to wrestle the conversation back to the grim reality of the room. 

“Anyway, can we talk about what we—I found in these files?” she pressed, flipping through the stack again. The papers rustled in quick bursts as she scanned them, returning to earlier pages, then jumping forward again, trying to build a pattern out of fragments that refused to line up. “I don’t understand half of this.”

Her focus narrowed as she worked, shoulders slightly hunched over the documents, eyes darting between columns of clinical language and diagrams that seemed designed to communicate everything except meaning. 

There was a stubbornness in it, a refusal to accept that the answer might not be waiting to be decoded, just hidden.

Beside her, Homelander watched in silence.

The grin from earlier had faded into something smaller, more contained. Almost… fond, if one didn’t know better or didn’t care to look too closely. 

He observed the way she read, the way her brows pulled together into that familiar “Miss Detective” expression she wore whenever she convinced herself the world could still be organized into something logical and solvable. This whole “belief in goodness” and refusal to let go was almost impressive, in a way. Almost touching.

He had already heard everything she was saying earlier when she read the logs aloud. The radiation tests, the thermal spikes, the neatly logged failures disguised as data points. 

But none of it surprised him. 

It was obvious that Vought was simply brewing another chemical to add to their century-long sin ledger. It was a regular Wednesday in his world. If anything, the only novelty was her reaction to it.

His gaze drifted, unhurried and invasive, from the curve of her jaw to the fine, golden strands of her hair. He counted the five small piercings on each of her ears; delicate little golden studs catching the dull overhead light in subtle glints every time she moved.

His eyes traced the line of her throat, X-Ray vision peering through the high tensile fabric of her tactical suit to the station necklace she always wore. 

She was entirely absorbed. Focused to the point of narrowing the world down to paper and ink and meaning she was determined to extract from it. As if her persistence might force the truth to behave.

When the stack of pages became too unwieldy to manage in her hands, Annie moved to a nearby table instead. 

She spread the files out across it, flipping them open so multiple sheets could sit side by side, forming a chaotic, overlapping map of information. Her back turned toward him now as she leaned over them, shifting her weight slightly as she tried to compare entries, cross-reference terms, connect things that weren’t designed to be connected.

Homelander’s gaze followed the movement without interruption.

It settled there for a moment longer than it should have, resting on the way the suit pulled at the sharp taper of her waist when she leaned forward, where the heavy utility belt cinched the dark fabric tight against her spine. 

There was no urgency in the thought that followed—she was attractive. 

He swallowed against a sudden dryness in his throat, the sound audible only to him in the hum of the lab.

He exhaled slowly through his nose, a sound that carried obvious identifiers to mark a shift in his attention. Then, with a languid gait, he crossed the short distance to the table. He leaned against the edge of the table, his presence looming over her shoulder, his gaze never once detaching from her form.

He crossed his arms over his chest, the plating of his suit creaking softly as a smirk played across his mouth. He watched her work through the files, stubbornly chasing meaning through layers of jargon that were never designed to be comforting.

And he looked entirely too relaxed while at it, as if they were sharing a drink at a gala rather than standing in a subterranean tomb of corporate secrets. 

“You know, I’m curious,” he said finally, tone light in a way that made the question feel almost like small talk. “Why haven’t you tried resigning yet? And why does all this matter so much to you, anyway?” His hand lifted slightly, gesturing around them, encompassing the room, the fridges, the stacked evidence of things that shouldn’t exist in polite conversations.

Annie’s eyes lifted from the papers, her brows drawing together in a frown that came more from irritation than uncertainty. 

“I saw those people die a horrible death in front of me,” she said, bluntly. “I need to know why. I guess I’m just that person.” She gave a small shrug, as if trying to minimize how firmly she meant it, but her tone didn’t soften. If anything, it sharpened with indignation. 

“And why is everyone so hellbent on kicking me out?”

There was a slight edge there now, frustration starting to settle in under the surface of her focus.

“No one is hellbent on kicking you out.” Homelander clarified, his tone hovering between genuine intrigue and patronizing amusement. “You just don’t belong here. Simple as that.” His shoulders lifted in an easy shrug, a visual punctuation of his "it is what it is" philosophy.

Annie grimaced, already half-turned back toward the files, refusing to let the comment derail her. “Look, I know you think I’m weak, but—”

“Nope,” he cut in immediately, not raising his voice, just inserting himself into the sentence like it wasn’t allowed to finish. “Not that.” He paused, then added with a faint, almost amused exhale, “It’s just you’re a… believer.” His finger lifted lazily in her direction, as if he was labeling something he’d already accepted about her. “You know, the torch-bearing, wide-eyed disciple of goodness and light—whatever you want to call it. The whole ‘goodness will win’ stuff.” A small wink followed, too playful to feel kind.

“You say that like it’s a character flaw,” Annie replied flatly, eyes already dropping back to the papers, the conversation losing priority in real time.

He gave another shrug, unconcerned. “I don’t know. Guess we’ll see.” A faint smile lingered as he added, “Since you haven’t tried quitting yet.”

Annie rolled her eyes this time, fully committed to ignoring that direction of conversation. She didn’t respond, choosing instead to sink deeper into the documents. 

The silence between them settled in, not uncomfortable exactly, but charged with competing focus.

She pulled her phone back out again; this time more methodical, scanning terms, cross-checking phrases, trying to force modern search engines into cooperating with classified corporate science. 

Nothing useful came up. 

“Compound V” refused to resolve into anything public, anything searchable, anything that made sense in the normal framework of human biology. Every result circled back to textbook general science known to the tax-paying public, clean and incomplete, like the real answer had been scrubbed from the surface entirely. 

Vought’s SEO wall was clearly impenetrable.

“Oh my god…” she muttered at one point, brow tightening as she flipped another page. “These are human subjects. Supes, to be precise. What the fuck are they even doing here?”

Homelander remained propped against the table, watching her with an expression that was almost endearingly patient, his arms still barricaded across his chest. 

For him, it was like watching a child realize the tooth fairy was a myth, and he seemed to be enjoying her yet another slo-mo collision with reality.

When he still didn’t answer, something in Annie finally snapped. 

“Why aren’t you even looking into this?” she demanded, throwing her hands up in frustration, a motion that made the papers on the table shift slightly. Her voice echoed too loudly against the concrete walls. “You wanted to look into the TNT Twins’ case, right? What’s going on? You know what they’re doing here, don’t you? You’re just standing there watching me struggle.”

The words hung between them, heavy and filled with vexation. 

Homelander didn’t even shift. The tension didn’t bother him, it entertained him. A condescendingly slow grin spread across his face, like he had all the time in the world to be unimpressed.

“Tell me. How far are you willing to go to learn what’s going on?” he asked casually then, tone almost playful, yet laced with a darker undercurrent that made the question feel like a measurement for revealing sensitive information.

Annie let out an immediate, exhausted eye-roll, the kind that came from unsurprising familiarity. “I’m not going to blow you if that’s what you’re going for.”

His grin widened at that, flashing a row of perfectly white, predatory teeth. 

“You can’t really stop that if I wanted it,” he said, tossing her a wink, clearly savoring the way she rolled her eyes a second time. Then he lifted a hand slightly, as if brushing the whole exchange aside. “I’m kidding. Lighten the fuck up.”

He rolled his eyes back at her, as if she were the one missing the joke. He exhaled a sharp, mocking breath and pushed off the table, his movements fluid and dangerously graceful. He lifted a finger, pointing at her like he was about to explain something she should have already understood. 

“Do you remember what I told you back in the elevator?” he asked, tone shifting just slightly, losing a fraction of its playfulness. “About this being the point of no return?”

His arm swept outward again in a grand, unnecessarily theatrical gesture, indicating the lab, the fridges, the files, all of it like a stage set built for a decision, and not really a discovery. 

“So I’m asking one last time,” he continued, voice calmer now. “Are you sure you want to chase this case and solve your little mystery?”

For a moment, Annie didn’t respond. The shift in him wasn’t loud, but it was noticeable. The sudden, grim sincerity in his voice was a jarring pivot from the teasing. And that malicious glint in his eyes made the "point of no return" feel like a physical cliff edge.

She blinked once, caught slightly off guard. 

Despite the cold knot forming in her stomach, Annie nodded. “Yes,” she said firmly. “And I don’t really care what I learn.” She gave a small shrug, sharper than before, like she was trying to convince both of them at once. “I’ve seen enough awful things already.”

Her posture straightened as she said it, shoulders squaring as if bracing for a physical blow.

Homelander studied her for a moment longer than comfortable, eyes narrowing slightly, not in anger, but in calculation. 

“And what happens after you find out?” he asked finally, tone quieter now, stripped entirely of its earlier lightness. “How do I know I won’t have to kill you to stop you from leaking information?”

“I guess you’d just have to trust me and see what happens,” Annie countered, folding her arms across her stomach in a defensive barrier. 

The words came out steady, but they didn’t match what was happening behind her eyes. It was a lie, of course. She had every intention of maybe one day burning Vought’s empire to the ground, but she wasn't suicidal enough to announce her revolutionary plans to the company’s crown jewel.

Homelander scoffed softly, rolling his eyes with open disdain for what he clearly interpreted as optimism dressed up as defiance. It wasn’t even interesting to him anymore. Just familiar and predictable. Another person insisting they were different right before proving they weren’t.

“Fine,” he said after a beat, as if conceding to a minor inconvenience. 

The shift was immediate. His posture loosened, then re-energized, like he’d decided the conversation was worth continuing on his own terms. He started pacing a short line before the table, hands loose at his sides, voice casual again. 

“You’re not born a superhero. They gave you that blue drug when you were a kid.” He lifted a hand and pointed lazily toward the glowing compartments in the fridge behind them, where the blue vials sat pulsing under glass. “That’s Compound V.”

For a moment, Annie didn’t react. 

It was as if the sentence had passed through her ears before her brain agreed to receive it. She blinked once, her expression briefly going blank in a way that didn’t belong in someone actively standing in a room full of classified horror. 

A strange stillness took hold of her body, like her system had skipped a step it wasn’t ready to process.

Then the meaning caught up. And when it did, it didn’t arrive gently.

A deep, agonizing frown creased her forehead, and she searched his eyes with a desperate, horrified intensity. She was looking for the punchline, for the tell that he was just being a sadistic prick, but his expression was a void of bored truth.

Homelander watched the entire process without interruption, like he’d seen it before and was simply confirming the timing.

He gave a faint, almost indifferent nod, shoulders lifting in a small shrug. “All of your parents made a deal with Vought for a successful future for their kids,” he continued, tone flattening into an almost instructional cadence. “And they let Vought inject Compound V into your veins.”

Annie let out a short, disbelieving huff, the kind that tried to pass itself off as a dismissive laugh but failed halfway through. Her frown never quite left her face. 

“What are you talking about?” she demanded, stepping forward now, closing the distance slightly as if that would force the explanation into something coherent. Her eyes searched his face, not for humor anymore, but for confirmation. She needed to see the lie on his face. “We’re born with superpowers. Jesus was a supe, the first supe.”

She said it like it was not just belief, but foundation. Something learned early enough to become immune to contradiction.

Homelander’s reaction was immediate. A quiet stifled laugh escaped him, the sound dripping with a patronizing pity that made her skin crawl. 

He tilted his head slightly, the faintest smirk forming as he looked at her like she’d just offered him a story he hadn’t already heard since forever.

“Sure he is,” he said lightly, chuckling, the words landing like a gentle dismissal rather than an argument. 

Annie shook her head immediately, the denial coming faster than thought. “That’s not… that’s not possible. My mom wouldn’t—”

“She did,” Homelander cut in, clean and final. 

He didn’t raise his voice, though. His arms folded behind his back in that familiar, almost ceremonial posture. The man was a creature of habit, even when delivering a death blow to someone's soul. 

“She already did.” His tone stayed level, almost bored by the repetition of it. “Then you blinded your dad with that power he agreed you should have.” His gaze moved over her slowly, from head to toe and back up again with clinical detachment. “All of this… it’s all made up. Vought is your creator. Not God.”

The words didn’t land all at once. They stacked, pressed, and settled in places they weren’t supposed to reach.

Annie didn’t move at first. Her arms, still loosely crossed a second ago, dropped to her sides without her noticing, dangling like useless weights. Her body seemed to forget what it was supposed to do next. She just stood there, blinking at him.

Something in her face shifted slowly, a change that didn’t announce itself but rewrote everything underneath. Her eyes glassed over before she could stop them, the sting arriving before the permission to feel it.

Her lips trembled violently then; she tried to purse them, desperate to swallow the truth and maintain some shred of the "big girl" composure Vought had beaten into her, but the lie was too massive to digest.

Her entire life had been built on a foundation of divine debt. She had been told, since she was old enough to hold an apple, that she owed the world her light because God had chosen her. 

She’d spent every waking hour trying to atone for the blinding incident that had supposedly driven her father to suicide. She’d lived in a state of perpetual, agonizing guilt, never knowing that the trigger had been pulled in a boardroom, not a church. She had believed Donna was her compass.

Donna had been the constant in all of it. The voice that framed her world, the one that told her what everything meant, what everything was supposed to mean.

She had believed it, fully and blindly. She had believed she was born to save people. That the accident with her father had been her fault, that his death had been something she carried, something she deserved to carry. 

That guilt had shaped her, guided her, kept her in line when nothing else could.

The realization fractured the last of her defenses. The tears broke through, streaming down her face in unabashed, messy tracks. She staggered back, her boots scuffing the concrete as her hand searched blindly for a physical anchor in a world that had just turned upside down for her.

Her fingers found the edge of the table, gripping it tighter than intended as her breathing turned shallow. 

She leaned against the table, trying to hold herself together, but the effort collapsed under the weight of it all. A sob broke through, sudden and unrestrained, her shoulders folding inward as she brought her hands up to her face, burying herself in them like she could block it out.

Homelander stood frozen, his mouth parting slightly as if to offer a platitude that his brain simply didn't possess. 

He wasn't exactly a fountain of empathy, but the sight of her collapse triggered a dull, unfamiliar pang in his chest.

He knew what it meant to have your origins twisted into something you didn’t choose, something you couldn’t escape. The difference was, he’d never had the illusion to begin with. Whatever had been done to him, he’d been aware of it in one form or another. There had never been a comforting story to fall back on, no lie fabricated enough to pass for truth.

The others hadn’t been that lucky.

They’d been handed a narrative that was dressed up as destiny, and they lived inside it without question. Until something like this came along and tore it open.

He shifted his weight slightly, not stepping forward yet, just watching. There was something deeply uncomfortable about the way she broke down in front of him, and not because of the noise or the tears. He’d seen worse. Done worse. But this particularly profound display of grief was something he hadn't personally engineered. 

The last time she’d been this hysterical was when he’d treated her to that snuff film of her little boyfriend, Supersonic. But that had been a performance he could enjoy. This felt different…unscripted and ugly.

He didn’t like it. And he definitely didn’t like talking about Compound V. Not the details, not the implications, not the parts of it that mirrored too closely with things he preferred not to revisit.

Still, he stayed where he was for a while, longer than he needed to, watching her sob into her hands, shoulders shaking, breath catching unevenly. The sound of it filled the room in a way the machines couldn’t compete with. It went on, relentless, the kind of crying that didn’t care who was watching.

Eventually, his feet moved before he fully committed to the decision. 

He crossed the distance between them with a tentative pace this time, stopping just beside her at the table. He leaned against the edge, close enough now to see the tear tracks slipping between her fingers, close enough to hear the uneven rhythm of her breathing. 

For a second, he hesitated, his fingers twitching, before he finally extended a hand and let his gloved palm settle between her shoulder blades. The gesture was to ground her, but it felt uncomfortably human for a man made of ego. 

“I thought you didn’t care,” he murmured, his voice dropping into a register that was almost fond, like an adult humoring a child who had finally realized she wasn't as brave as she’d pretended to be.

Annie didn’t answer. She simply couldn’t. She just continued to weep with a raw, infantile abandon. 

He watched her for another moment, his expression shifting in small, unreadable ways. His lips twitched slightly, not quite forming a smile, not quite suppressing one either, as if he was searching for the right reaction and coming up short. 

The hand on her back pressed just a little firmer without him fully noticing, grounding her in place more than soothing her.

This couldn’t go on forever. Right? He thought, eventually deciding that he’d reached his limit for sentimental displays. Excessive crying was a hobby for the weak, and they had a schedule to keep.

So he spoke again, tone shifting back toward something more conversational, like he was steering the moment back into a usable topic, though he kept his hand where it was

“This pink stuff you’re chasing,” he said, almost idly, “I believe it’s being developed to provide protection against radiation exposure. For supes.” He paused briefly, tilting his head to catch her face through the mess of her hands. “Which brings me to the TNT Twins’ case.”

Annie’s sobs finally decelerated into wet hiccups as she peeled her face away from her palms. 

She turned toward him, her expression a ruin of red-rimmed eyes, swollen skin and shimmering tear tracks. She sniffled once, blinking as if the act of focusing on him required effort, a flicker of cognitive curiosity pulling at her expression.

Homelander gave a small nod, measured and contained, as if acknowledging that she had returned to her work-mode. His hand slipped away from her back without ceremony, retreating as though it had never been there in the first place. The human comfort moment had already lost its expiration. 

He shifted slightly, settling both hands together in front of him, posture composed again, his attention fixed squarely on her face.

“There was no physical source after the nuclear explosion at the Twins’ place,” he said, tone even, sliding back into explanation with unsettling ease. “I looked into the heat signatures after you left the analytics hub today.” His gaze didn’t waver as he spoke, watching her process even as he continued. “And it seems like we have a moving leaking reactor. I’m guessing a supe.” 

His shoulders lifted in a small shrug, casual confidence drawing the conclusion of his own investigation. 

“This hotspot was at the Twins’ place first. Caused an independent explosion. Then it moved to the Richmond expo. The moment it came into contact with those people who’d drunk that soda, they combusted.” He gestured toward the spread of files behind them and then at the pink vials in the refrigerator. 

“Which lines up with what you found. Subjects combusting under extreme radiation exposure within the eight-hour window of receiving this pink drug. V-Shield.”

Annie blinked, slower this time, her frown deepening as she wiped at the remaining tears with the back of her gloved hand. Her breathing had steadied, but her voice hadn’t quite caught up. 

“I… I don’t understand,” she said quietly, the rasp in her tone still clinging to every word. “Why just supes? And why would Vought distribute this drug to the public then? To humans, not just Psalm Siren?”

Homelander shrugged again, sputtering in dismissal; the motion easy, almost careless. 

“Product testing, probably” he said, like he was naming a marketing strategy. “Seeing how the 'Shield' holds up in a varied genetic pool.”

“That’s horrible,” Annie shot back immediately, the response cutting through the remnants of her grief. 

Her spine straightened as she spoke, the earlier collapse giving way to her firmer virtues. “It’s unethical—and evil.” She shook her head once, trying to assemble the pieces into a coherent notion. “So you’re saying Vought sent this… what, nuclear ghost? To test on the TNT Twins and those people in Richmond?”

Homelander drew out a slow breath, the first sign of anything close to uncertainty crossing his features today. His shoulders dipped slightly, the energy in him settling into a less certain territory. 

Even for him, the final puzzle pieces were refusing to lock into place.

“That,” he admitted, “I don’t know.” 

The moment didn’t linger long, though. The uncertainty was replaced almost instantly by a wide, shark-like grin that made his eyes crinkle with a terrifying warmth. “Now that’s something we have to find out next.”

He pushed off the table in one fluid motion, slipping back into that predatory cadence that signaled the end of the therapy session. His hand lifted, gesturing lightly between the two of them, the reminder almost casual.

“But we had a deal, and the others in the Seven don't know about the V.” he added, voice dipping enough to make it clear this part wasn’t negotiable. “So, we find out what’s going on, and then we let it go.” His eyes held hers now, steady and unblinking. “You go an inch off track, Starlight—I’ll make sure you die a creatively painful death.”

Annie let out a breathy chuckle despite herself, the sound snapping through the heaviness that had settled in her chest. 

It surprised her as much as it did anything else. She nodded, sniffling once as she dragged her sleeve across her nose, wiping away the last stubborn traces of tears. 

“Obviously!” The word came with a faint shrug, a ghost of a smile lingering at the corner of her mouth like it had decided to stay, even if it didn’t fully belong there.

Strangely enough, his casual threat of a “creatively painful death” felt more honest and grounding than any promises about faith could ever be. In a day where everything she believed about herself had been torn apart and rearranged into something unrecognizable, the idea that Homelander might kill her if she stepped out of line felt almost… comforting. At least that rule made sense.

Homelander’s chest rumbled with a matching chuckle, his arms snapping back into their regal lock behind his spine. 

“We should get going,” he said, tone light, like they had just finished a routine task instead of dismantling her entire sense of identity.

Annie nodded quickly, lifting a finger as if to pause him. “Hang on, I’m going to take some photos of these. We'll need it for investigation.” Her voice still carried a slight rasp, but it had steadied enough to sound functional again. 

She turned back to the workbench, her phone already out as she began a systematic, rapid-fire documentation of the logs. She moved through the files with renewed focus, flipping pages, angling her phone for clear shots, making sure she captured everything that might matter later. The flash light kept blinking with her motion. 

The earlier grief hadn’t vanished, but it had been pushed aside, compartmentalized with surprising efficiency.

Homelander stayed put, watching her with an intensity that bordered on genuine intrigue. 

He found it mildly amusing, almost impressive, that she could pivot from a total psychological collapse back to her ‘Miss Detective' routine in a matter of minutes. That kind of stubborn, professional resilience was something he hadn't expected from a "believer." 

He felt a flicker of something dangerously close to respect for her work ethic, though he’d sooner lobotomize himself than voice it.

When she finished, she slipped the phone back into her pocket and began closing the files, stacking them neatly with ritualistic care. She carried them back to the cabinet and placed them exactly where they had been, restoring the room to its prior state as if they’d never touched anything.

By the time she turned around, Homelander was already a dozen paces ahead.

Annie hurried to catch up, falling into step behind him, then beside him, as they exited the lab and re-entered the long hallway. The red overhead lights bathed everything again, casting that same unsettling glow across the walls, the floor, their faces.

For a while, neither of them spoke. Their footsteps echoed faintly now, the rhythm steady as they walked side by side. 

Annie’s gaze drifted more than once, flicking toward his profile, studying him in brief, stolen glances. Not openly, and certainly not long enough to be obvious.

Everything he’d said lingered within her, replaying in fragments. She was mentally replaying the wreckage of his revelations, trying to reconcile the man who had just lent her a grounding hand with the monster who had just dismantled her entire reality.

“Are you made of it too?” Annie asked eventually, her voice rough from crying, the words barely rising above the low thrum of the cooling systems around them. “Compound V?”

“Yes.”

The answer came from him without hesitation, but it landed differently this time. It was short, heavy, and conspicuously stripped of his usual bombastic bravado. 

Annie swallowed, her throat still tight. “Do you… hate it?”

Homelander came to a dead halt. It wasn’t abrupt, but it was decisive. 

He turned his head slightly, not fully facing her yet, just enough that the red light caught his eyes at an odd angle, making them look almost glassy, like a reflective panel.

“No?” he said, the word edged with faint confusion rather than dismissal. “Why would I hate being a god?” His gaze shifted to her then, properly, taking her in with something closer to curiosity. “Do you?”

“I do now.”

The answer broke on the way out. Her lip trembled despite her effort to hold it steady, and whatever fragile control she’d managed to piece together unraveled again without ceremony. 

Tears spilled over, quieter this time, tracing uneven paths down her already flushed cheeks.

“I hate it,” she went on, her voice collapsing into something smaller, more exposed. “I’m a… freak. My mom—she put me on this filthy fucking journey. She looked me in the eye every day and told me I was gifted. And it was all a lie.” Her breath stuttered, a shaky, broken laugh slipping through that didn’t carry any humor. “I think I’d rather be an orphan.”

The hallway seemed to absorb the statement, holding it there for an uncomfortably long second.

“Well,” Homelander said after a beat, his tone drifting into a sarcastic drawl. “That’s not exactly an alleviating factor. Being an orphan.” 

“Why?” Annie asked, wiping her face again, sniffling every so often. “How would you know, anyway?” 

He only smirked this time, that single expression giving away everything he represented without needing to spell it out.

Annie froze where she stood.

The tears didn’t stop, but her breathing caught in her throat sharply, catching on the new information before she could process the old. She looked at him again, properly this time, searching for a trace of the person she thought she knew in the stranger standing there now.

“You’re an… orphan?” she asked, disbelief overpowering the remains of her grief again. “What about the documentaries? The farm in Montana? Your parents?”

Homelander offered a dry, humorous chuckle that didn't reach his eyes. He gave a nonchalant shrug, as if he were discussing a typo in a press release. "Marketing.”

That was it, just a single word that stripped years of carefully constructed mythology down to a disposable truth.

He didn’t wait for her reaction after. He started walking again, his strides long and unhurried, cutting through the stagnant crimson air of the hall as he left her standing in the wake of another busted myth.

Annie hurried after him, nearly missing a step as she tried to keep pace, her thoughts tripping over themselves faster than her feet could manage. 

She kept looking at him, searching his profile like there might be something there she hadn’t noticed before, some crack in the surface where the story he’d just told her might still be visible. The boy behind the myth, behind the branding, behind the carefully constructed image.

But he carried the same unreadable calm for a long few seconds. 

Eventually, Homelander slowed, eyes tracking the door about ten steps down. That lab. The one he was raised and experimented on. 

He came to a stop in the center of the hall and turned toward her as if something new had just clicked in his mind.

Something had changed with his demeanor. The air between them had soured into a suffocating, volatile cocktail of shared misery, the chemical stink of the place, and an adrenaline-fueled desperation. Not loudly, not in a way that announced itself, but it was there. The aftermath of everything they’d just uncovered.

“I have a question,” he said finally, his voice dropping into a register so private it felt like a secret shared in a confessional. “And I’m only asking because we’ve reached a rather… mutually pathetic level of vulnerability tonight.” His gloved finger traced a slow, almost mocking line through the air between them. 

“Would you resist if I kissed you right now?”

Annie’s mind blanked. Not metaphorically, it genuinely stalled, like every thought she had just short-circuited at once. 

“Uhh…” was all she managed, the sound barely forming before it dissolved into nothing. Heat rushed up her spine, sudden and unwelcome, making the already suffocating air feel tighter. Her body didn’t move but it didn’t pull back or lean in either.

Her mouth parted slightly, her gaze locked onto his, onto the blue that looked almost black under the red light. There was something in it she couldn’t quite name. It wasn’t softness, or safety. But not entirely empty either.

"Good," Homelander murmured with a single, sharp nod; given that she didn’t say ‘no’.

He didn’t wait after that. His hand found her first, sliding around the small of her back and guiding her back until her spine met the cold wall behind her. The contact wasn’t rough, but it wasn’t gentle either. He watched her with a clinical intensity, noting how she’d frozen into a statue, her red-rimmed eyes wide and unblinking with shock, but notably devoid of refusal.

So he made the decision for her.

He leaned in, closing the distance in a single, unbroken motion. When his lips met hers, it wasn’t soft or careful. It was immediate, insistent, and claiming space that carried none of the cinematic flourish they showed in his movies. 

He caught her lower lip between his, a demanding, heavy pressure that lasted several seconds before his tongue smoothly forced its way into her mouth. It was a desperate, proprietary invasion driven by impulse more than intention.

His other arm snapped up, both limbs wrapping around her with a crushing force that pinned her against the masonry, pulling her flush against him until there wasn't a molecular gap left between them.

Annie let out a small, startled breath when their bodies crashed together, the hard plating of his suit pressing into her chest. She didn't fight him. She allowed the kiss to deepen, her shoulders gradually slouching as the rigid tension of the night began to ebb away, replaced by a dark, intoxicating surrender.

Chapter Text

Part I: Bradley and Susan Were Here 

Annie’s fingers dug into the kevlar of his suit, the black tactical surface unyielding at first, then faintly giving under the mounting pressure of her grip. 

The kiss deepened fast, too fast to pace, too urgent to control; and the harder it pressed, the more her hands clutched at him like she needed this distraction right this instant. 

Every time their bodies shifted, Annie took sharp intakes of breath, her lungs stuttering as she tried to steal air without actually pulling away from the kiss. 

Homelander didn’t make it easier either. One arm cinched her in, locking her against him, forcing her spine flush to the wall behind her. 

His other hand was buried in her hair, gloved fingers tightening and adjusting with each movement. Every time his grip tightened on her hair, the material of his glove made a low, constant squeak drifting through the air. 

The golden strands of her hair slipped and caught against the fabric as he kept control of where her head tilted, how far she could pull, how long she could last before she had to fight for breath again. 

The spell only broke when Annie, driven by a surge of reckless adrenaline, bit hard into his lower lip. Simultaneously, her fingers clamped down with superhuman force, snapping the reinforced plating on the back of his suit.

Homelander froze instantly, realizing only now that she wasn't really participating out of some conscious arousal. 

The shift was abrupt, like the moment had been cut out mid-motion. He pulled back immediately, breath coming heavier now, and took a step back. His eyes remained fixed on her, unblinking under the wash of red light.

It was almost as if he was searching for an answer from her, given that her aimless urgency had only made it obvious that this was likely an emotional spillover from her part. 

He waited there for a moment, just staring at her, waiting for any signs of rejection. 

Meanwhile, Annie stayed where she was for a second, her body catching up to the absence of his. Then she finally dragged in a lung-filling breath, deep and shaky, her chest rising and falling as she steadied herself. 

Her gaze never left his either, though hers carried something less readable, something caught between adrenaline and maybe some self-scrutiny.

“I don't think I’m good in bed.” 

The words slipped out of her abruptly. She tilted her head, brows knitting together in a faint frown that sat oddly on her face right now. “I mean—that’s got to be why Alex cheated on me, right?” The sentence trailed between breaths, like she hadn’t fully decided to say it until it was already out.

For a split second, it just hung there awkwardly. 

Homelander’s response came in a dry, derisive scoff dismissing her insecurity as a boring distraction. He was already closing the distance again, now that he realized she was just suffering from meaningless self-doubts. 

“Good thing we’re not in bed.” He quipped, almost amused as his fingers dug into the soft tissue over her ribs with a firm, uncompromising grip. 

Before Annie could even register the gesture, he hoisted her upward in one terrifyingly effortless sweep. He slung her over his shoulder like a caveman claiming a prize, his heavy arm locking across the backs of her thighs to keep her in place.

Annie gasped the moment her body hit his shoulder, the impact knocking the air clean out of her lungs. 

“What the fuck?!” The words came out thin and breathless, panic snapping into place almost instantly as her body tried to reorient to the sudden shift.

“Relax.” 

That was all he gave her. Obnoxiously calm and easy, like none of this required explanation, like her reaction was the only unreasonable thing here.

He moved without slowing, closing the short stretch of hallway in unbothered strides. About ten steps down, to the right. He knew exactly where he was going. His lab, his home practically.

He simply slammed the door open with a firm, flat-palmed shove that sent it rebounding off the interior wall with a violent clang. He stalked inside, casually carrying Starlight like she was a bag of rice intended for his dinner, his pace never faltering under her weight. 

“What the fuck is this?!” Annie’s voice climbed, sharper now, anger catching up with the sudden fear. She twisted against his hold, trying to get her balance, trying to get free. “Put me down!”

If he heard her, it didn’t really show; because there simply was no acknowledgement of it. He kept moving until he reached the nearest table, his grip adjusting only enough to shift her weight before he swung her off his shoulder and slammed her down onto the table. 

Her body hit the surface with a loud thud, legs left hanging off the edge, the impact bouncing through her spine. It wasn't enough to hurt, but enough to register the dominance of the gesture. 

Annie let out a startled squeak as she landed, hands bracing against the table instinctively. 

Her vision lagged for half a second before catching up, blinking rapidly as she tried to process where she was. Her eyes moved fast, scanning the space in short bursts.

Another lab. Much bigger than the others she’d seen down here. It looked cleaner, even. There was a staff elevator built into this one, set along the wall, a direct line from the ground floor. 

By the time her gaze snapped back to him, Homelander had stood directly in front of her, close enough that his thighs brushed against her knees with every small shift. 

He hadn’t rushed into anything else. Just planted his hands on his hips and drew in a measured breath, his chest rising as his eyes moved across the room, taking it in like he had all the time in the world.

For a minute, the moment simply slipped away from him.

His gaze caught on the far corner, on a structural beam that looked no different from the rest at first glance. Except it wasn’t; not to him. The surface was scratched and inked over with uneven pen markings, his height, charting his growth from a small, confused boy to the final day he had stood in this room as a finished product.

Beside it, a corkboard held a graveyard of memories: grainy photos of a teenage John standing stiffly among white-coated scientists, yellowed paper cutouts, and technical notices that hadn't been touched in over thirty years. 

His throat tightened before he could stop it, the reaction stinging and unwelcome. His jaw flexed, a muscle ticking in his cheek as the reminder of who he used to be sunk back in like a slow-acting poison. He blinked rapidly, forcing the uninvited emotion back into the dark.

He had never planned on coming back here. Not like this. And definitely not to have sex. With Starlight, of all people.

Oh, Right. Starlight.

He blinked again, the present snapping back into place as his hearing caught up with him. He looked down to find her mid-spiral. Apparently, she had been whisper-shouting a lecture at him the entire time he’d been lost in the haunting blueprint of his childhood. 

“Shh!” He hissed, pressing a gloved finger to his lips. He didn't even acknowledge the substance of her rant, just cutting her off with a detached disinterest. 

Annie’s indignant lecture died in her throat. 

She blinked up at him, stunned into a stupid, wide eyed silence. There was something frustrating about it, something that should have pissed her off, but didn’t. 

The man wasn't necessarily being a prick, because there was a distracted kind of vulnerability beneath the mask that was jarringly at odds with the man who had just soft-kidnapped her down a hallway. 

Before she could decide how to retort, his hand shot out, fingers hooking around her knee and shoving it aside. 

He stepped fully into the space between her thighs, his presence suddenly massive and suffocating. His pupils were so dilated they had effectively swallowed the blue of his irises, leaving two black voids that reflected the pulsing dull lights overhead. 

Annie’s mouth parted in a breathless puff of surprise. She watched him invade her space as if he hadn't even noticed, or simply didn't care, how irritated she was supposed to be. 

A rush of traitorous and unwelcome heat crawled up her spine, clawing its way into the apples of her cheeks. 

She straightened on the table without thinking, her posture pulling tighter, more aware. He was close enough that she could feel the warmth of his breath, close enough that there was nowhere else for her focus to go.

A faint, predatory smirk spread at Homelander’s mouth, subtle but knowing, like he had already read the shift in her before she fully caught up to it herself. He read the conflict on her face like the pages of a discarded journal, his eyes blinking slowly, patiently. He could feel the spiking temperature of her skin, the way she squirmed almost imperceptibly under his invasive stare. 

Slowly, he lifted his hand. His finger found the edge of her vest, brushing against the strap before hooking under it. He didn’t look down as he began undoing the buckles at her side one by one, movements unhurried, precise in their own way.  

Annie went very still, her body settling into a tense kind of compliance that felt almost unnatural even to her. Her eyes followed every movement of his hands with careful attention, but the flush on her cheeks told an entirely different story. 

It was disorienting how quickly everything else had fallen away. 

Fifteen minutes ago, her entire life had cracked open in front of her, every belief she had built herself on rewritten into an uglier truth. She had been heartbroken and furious. She'd been shaking with it. But now that anger sat somewhere far off, dulled, like it had been pushed aside without her permission.

What replaced it was a dark desire. She was suddenly caught in a paralyzing juxtaposition: a desperate, shameful hunger to see what he would do next, all while battling a bone-deep terror of the exact same thing. It was hopelessly and helplessly human.

The irony wasn't lost on her, of course. She had spent her adolescence writing vivid fanfictions about this man, constructing elaborate romcom fantasies where he was the misunderstood hero. She’d spent countless nights in the dark of her childhood bedroom, her pulse racing as she looked at his posters and pleasured herself. 

Now, the fantasy was transforming into a dark, physical reality. She was at his mercy in a setting more dramatic than any fanfic she’d ever dared to write—and she was ten times more terrified than that teenage Annie could have ever imagined. Because now, she knew the monster behind the cape. 

She watched as he lifted the vest over her head, her hands coming up automatically to help guide it off, more out of instinct than decision. Her gaze stayed on him, alert, reading every shift in his expression, every small adjustment in his grip. 

When he reached for the mask at her neck, she moved again, assisting him in easing it free from her hair, the motion brief but coordinated, like they had done this before. They hadn’t. 

His fingers found her hairband next, tugging it loose in one smooth pull, letting her hair fall around her shoulders. He didn’t rush past it, though. His hand lingered long enough to gather a loose strand and tuck it behind her ear, the gesture unexpectedly careful. His focus had now narrowed down to her with an intensity that felt almost ritualistic. 

He hooked a thumb under her chin, tilting her face up until she had no choice but to drown in the sapphire of his eyes. 

A small, chilling smile flickered across his lips like he was letting her in on an extremely rare version of himself. His free hand caressed its way down her shoulder, coming to a heavy rest at her sternum. 

Then it kept going. He reached her belt and unfastened it with a speed that didn’t match the rest of his movements, like this part required less thought. Once it loosened around her small waist, he pulled the kevlar top free, lifting it up and off her in one continuous motion.

Annie raised her arms without being asked, letting him remove it, her breath catching slightly as the last layer came away. The moment it cleared her head, something shifted in her.

Before Homelander could move on, she leaned forward just enough to reach him. Her hands found the straps of his vest, fingers working quickly, almost urgently now, like she needed to even the field in whatever small way she could.

It brought a momentary pause in Homelander’s movements. There was a sly flicker in his expression as he watched her hands move, but he didn’t pull back, didn’t take control of it again right away. He stood there, letting her unfasten each strap, letting her strip the armor from him piece by piece.

Probably the only time in existence he’d let her do that.

The thought passed through her mind, magnetic and fleeting, gone almost as soon as it formed.

Annie pulled the kevlar free, lifting it over his head, careful around his hair without thinking about why she bothered. The moment it cleared, she let out a quiet breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

His abs came into view, the dim lighting carved across every ridge of his torso in a way that made Annie freeze before she even registered why. 

She didn't even realize how brazenly she was devouring the sight of him; the way the shadows clung to the hollows of his stomach, the proud dusting of gold hair across his chest, and the sheer, statuesque breadth of shoulders that seemed built to carry the weight of a dying world. 

Up close, his skin didn't look human. It looked like burnished marble, firm and impossibly flawless. 

His blonde hair, usually lacquered into a perfect heroic mold, fell messily over his forehead. He whipped it back with a sharp, impatient flick of his head, his chest expanding with a bracing inhale as he reached for the closure of Annie's pants. 

There was no hesitation in the way he worked the buttons loose. It came across like a routine. Like the kind of task that didn’t require attention anymore because it had long stopped being unfamiliar. He had undressed enough people in his life that the mechanics of it didn’t matter.

What mattered, at least to him, was the way anticipation and uncertainty could coexist in the same body, and how both of them made people more honest than they realized while being undressed. 

There was a faint thrill to it, in watching her anticipation and fear radiating off her skin while she was pinned under his undivided attention. 

It would have been dishonest to pretend he hadn’t imagined fucking her brains out. Not abstractly or vaguely, but very specifically.

In fact, he was the one who was supposed to give her the initial tour of the tower the night of her launch. Had it not been for that mind-numbing meeting with a boring mayor, he likely would have claimed her that very night, back when she was still wide-eyed and full of "God." 

But the world had kept getting in the way, distractions piling up with bodies. Until now. And what better time to finally take what he wanted than when they were both bleeding out emotionally? 

He dismissed the thought as easily as it had come.

The pants slid free from her legs, and he let them fall aside without ceremony, tossing them onto a nearby chair like they were no longer relevant to the space they occupied.

Annie moved quickly after that in a secondary blur. She tore off her gloves, fumbling with her laces until she could kick her boots across the concrete, and stripping her socks in a haste that bordered on desperate. 

Clad only in her undergarments now, she straightened her spine, her breath coming in slow, heavy hitches that completely betrayed her nervous desire. She opened her mouth to say something, but the words were squashed when Homelander's hand clamped around her arm. 

He yanked her forward, crashing her soft frame against the hard planes of his bare chest as his lips locked onto hers with bruising force. 

Then he was kissing her again.

Annie let out a startled breath through her nose, the sound breaking against his mouth. Her hands rose on instinct, sliding up his shoulders, then around his neck, gripping him tighter as she adjusted to the contact instead of resisting it.

There was no hesitation in her anymore, not in the way she held him.

Her fingers tightened as she pulled him closer, her body reacting before her thoughts could catch up. Her tongue worked in his mouth, tasting his saliva, swallowing it greedily in blind desire. 

Homelander’s response came as a low sound into her mouth, a restrained rumble that never fully became words. His gloves came off behind her in quick movements, discarded without looking. 

Once his hands were bare, they found her hips immediately, gripping the curve of them and hauling her closer. 

Annie’s pelvis collided against the rigid plating at his crotch, the impact knocking a faint breath out of her as the rough kevlar met the softer fabric of her panties. 

The thin material she wore whispered against it with each friction. Without disrupting the kiss, one of her hands slipped from his neck almost unconsciously, fingers finding the edge of the plating before yanking it free in a sharp, decisive tug.

The change was immediate. Through the remaining layers of clothing, his solid boner poked stubbornly against the fabric like a spoiled brat. 

Annie's hand returned there without thinking, as if drawn back by the same curiosity that had made her pull the plating off in the first place.

Homelander reacted faster this time. His hand came down, shoving hers away from his crotch with a firm, controlled motion before reclaiming its place at her hip. 

There was no hesitation in the correction, no allowance made for her curiosity. He pulled her flush against his crotch again, the solid meat slamming against her covered pussy. 

The contact was purposeful now as he began to rhythmically haul her close, grinding with a slow, intent pressure against her clit over the fabric. 

A series of helpless and airy moans escaped Annie’s throat, vibrating directly into his mouth before she could find the shame to choke them back. 

Homelander answered with a moan of his own; a low, imitative purr that was slightly playful and deeply coaxing, a sound that vibrated back through her teeth and into her skull. 

The kiss never broke. They sucked each other's tongues like unfed animals, swallowing each other's saliva like savages. It was uneven and consuming, with no room for pacing the moment. 

Annie would sink her teeth into his lips, the dull sensation triggering a raspy, primal groan from his throat. And each time she did it, he answered in kind, slamming her covered pussy hard against his boner,  the friction producing an undeniable heat in Annie's guts. 

His grip on her hip held steady, pinning her in place, while his other hand moved upward with an absentminded focus. His fingers traced the line of her bra, finding the hooks without looking. It took less than a second to undo them, the clasp giving way easily before he pulled the fabric free from her shoulders, the motion efficient but not careless.

He broke the kiss at once without slowing, almost blindly driven by desire to the point of being impolite. 

His breathing was heavier now, less controlled, his chest rising and falling as his gaze dropped to her exposed breasts without hesitation. His hands stayed where they were, one at her hip, the other braced along her spine, holding her in place while his gaze moved devouringly over her with a lust that didn’t bother to hide itself.

It wasn’t rushed, but it wasn’t gentle either. His eyes moved across her hills, the pink areolas, down to her abdomen, the taut line of her abs, and the tiny, scattered beauty marks dusted across her pale skin like constellations. He noticed all of it. The way her throat bobbed as she swallowed, the flutter of her lashes when she looked back at him, caught between holding his gaze and breaking it.

His hand at her spine glided upward agonizingly slowly until his fingers reached the side of her neck. They paused there for a second, his thumb brushing along her jaw in a way that wasn’t romantic so much as assessing. 

There was a softness to the touch, but it didn’t carry comfort. It felt closer to observation, like he was mapping his prey rather than offering anything.

His hand drifted down again, tracing the line of her collarbone with the back of his knuckles, unhurried and exact. The contact was light, almost restrained, but it didn’t lessen the effect it had on her. The skin to skin contact sent a jolt through her system as his hand finally drifted lower toward her right breast.

Annie’s throat tightened sharply, her breath catching in a way she couldn’t quite control. 

Her pulse kicked up fast, each beat louder than the last, echoing through her chest and up into her ears at this point. Excitement, nerves, anticipation, all of it mixed together into something she couldn’t separate even if she tried. 

All she knew was she kind of liked it when his fingers finally cupped her breasts and squeezed in a rough grip, dragging a soft gasp out of her. 

His grip on her hip tightened in response, pulling her closer again, removing whatever minimal distance had managed to exist. His face disappeared into the crook of her neck as he began to mark her, his mouth dragging against the sensitive skin just below her jawline with a desperate, bruising hunger. 

Meanwhile, his fingers worked on her breast, rhythmically pressing it with a rough grip and his zipper rubbing brusquely against her panties. 

Annie’s head dipped back on instinct, her spine arching as she tried to channel the overwhelming sensory overload he was stirring in her. It felt like her skin was caught in a flashover, a fire that felt dangerously good to burn in. 

When Homelander was finally satisfied with the dark, territorial marks he’d left on her pale skin, his lips slowed. He lingered there for a moment, inhaling her scent with a deep, shuddering breath, his eyes rolling back as he drank in the smell of her sweat, her fear, and her sudden, undeniable arousal. 

Then, his eyes snapped open. In one abrupt motion, the hand on her hip hooked into the waistband of her underwear and ripped the garment away. Annie assisted him in a daze, lifting her hips off the metal table just enough for him to yank the fabric clear. 

He brought the garment up immediately, pressing it close to his face, inhaling audibly. His eyes closed again for a brief second, the act unhidden and utterly unapologetic.

Annie’s brows cocked at the sight, the astonishment flickering across her face before she could smooth it over. There was a strange mix of responses pulling at her, mildly intriguing and deeply creepy; yet in some twisted, nihilistic corner of her mind, it was undeniably hot. 

The way he maneuvered her was stripped of any polite pretense, but it wasn’t careless either. It sat somewhere in between, contradictorily. 

Once he was done indulging in it, he discarded the torn underwear without ceremony, tossing it onto a nearby desk like it had already served its purpose. The shift in him was immediate after that. His heavy palm landed squarely between her breasts, shoving her back against the stainless steel surface of the table. 

It wasn’t harsh enough to hurt, but there was no gentleness in it either. It was fueled by a gaze that had been entirely consumed by a dark, shimmering lust. 

Annie let out a quiet breath as her back met the surface, the impact sending a small jolt through her spine. Her body slid slightly from the force, bare legs brushing against his thighs as she settled. 

Her curious, dilated eyes tracked his every move, catching the way he was gawking at her exposed pussy, the habitual lust bubbling over. 

Two fingers came forward, settling over her opening, feeling the labia, the clitoris, and the texture of her vagina in slow, invasive explorations. She was definitely a bit wet from the earlier grinding. 

His mouth curved into a crooked smirk, his eyes locked onto her cunt like everything else had lost relevance.

He leaned in, his focus narrowing as he pooled saliva in his mouth and spat directly onto the entrance of her pussy. 

His eyes flicked up once, catching her blinking at him in a state of stunned, stupid curiosity, before he retreated just enough to handle his own gear. His hands moved with practiced speed, unbuckling his belt and zipping down the heavy tactical pants and the boxers, letting them pool in a heap of fabric around his ankles. 

He reached out, his fingers digging into her hips, and yanked her to the very edge of the table to perfectly align her with his height. 

His smirk only deepened when her ass slammed against his thighs, enjoying how she couldn't stop looking at his cock; solid, throbbing and impatient on its own. 

Without any ceremony, he took his shaft in his hand, casually proceeding to rest the tip of it against her entrance. He pushed the saliva a bit into the linings of her hole with his meat, drawing a soft, vibrating moan from Annie. 

His gaze lifted again, briefly returning to her face, something more observant in it now, like he was watching for a reaction rather than seeking it. Then, without a hint of a warning, he slammed all the way in. 

Annie’s response was immediate. 

Her voice broke into a sharp scream, the sound reflecting a sudden flash of pain that ignited into a searing, burning pleasure inside her. Her hands shot out, her fingers locking onto his wrists as they pinned her hips to the table. Her nails dug into his skin as she tried to ground herself against the impact. 

He paused for a beat, watching her reaction with that ever widening smirk, an expression of self-satisfied pride. 

“You okay?” he asked, smug and condescending. His tone was colored with an amused undercurrent that sounded almost fond in a deeply twisted, proprietary way, like a boy making sure his favorite toy hadn't broken under the pressure. 

Annie nodded quickly, her breath coming in uneven pulls, feeling his solid organ invasively expanding her canal. 

The surrealism of the moment was phenomenal. She was literally living the dark, smutty scenes of her own secret fanfictions; the ones fueled by suppressed daddy issues where Homelander finally entered inside her and then probably fucked her lights out. Those "Homelander x Reader" stories where the "Reader" was basically Annie January herself. 

The notion of it was equally sexy and terrifying. Because that would mean that she does, indeed, have daddy issues which was why she was engaging with him in the first place. 

It meant she was exactly the kind of mess she’d always judged, her attraction to Homelander's lethal authority proving that her psyche was just as fractured as his. And that would suck balls, wouldn’t it? 

But it was also appealing and extremely hot in retrospect. She'd fantasized this moment almost her entire life until these past eight weeks. 

The thought was interrupted when Homelander partially pulled out and rammed the cock back in, drawing a louder gasp out of her. An involuntary moan followed, shaky and breathless. 

Then it was suddenly a series of lunges, pulling out and shoving back inside her in a rhythmic but speedy pace. 

Annie cried out strangled moans as he slammed the cock against her cervix, her body jerking violently against the stainless steel with every thrust. Her breasts bounced with the rhythmic brutality of the impact, her face scrunching in a mask of pleasurable pain that blurred the line between ecstasy and agony. 

Suddenly, less than a minute in, Homelander let out a choked, guttural grunt. His grip on her hips tightened until his fingerprints were practically bruising into her skin. He began to fuck her with a manic, renewed ferocity; rougher and more desperate than before. 

His face crumpled, his mouth parting in silent lines as his breath caught in his throat. 

For the next few seconds, he squeezed his eyes shut, his expression turning into a grimace of pure, uncontrolled release as he blindly pumped into her pussy, until his cock began to throb violently inside her. 

He drove his cock inside her with one last brutal and absolute thrust. The organ rubbed roughly against the soft, tight folds of her vagina; almost struggling against his girth from all those pathetic, sexless months she’d had since joining the Seven.

Annie let out an unfiltered pained moan that echoed off the ceiling, her mouth hanging open in desperate, needy gasps as the world dissolved into a haze of white noise. 

His cock exploded inside her, releasing a warm rush of his cum inside her cunt. He kept her close and firm, allowing the threads of fluid to fill her insides. 

He grunted helplessly, his body twitching with the final, frantic tremors of his release as he came inside her. The predatory confidence that usually radiated from him vanished in a heartbeat, replaced by a dark, petulantly embarrassed frown.

“I’m sorry—I’m so sorry!” he spat, the words stumbling out in a rare spike of panic. His face was flushed a deep, humiliated crimson, horrified that he’d reached the finish line before the race had even truly begun. “I don’t know how it—it usually isn't—”

“It’s okay,” Annie cut in almost immediately. Her voice was a soft whisper, her brows pulling together in an expression that was surprisingly endearing.

With any other man, she would have chuckled. Back in high school, there had been a running joke among her friends: if a guy finished that fast, it meant he’d been living in his head with you for months. Casual flings wouldn’t do that. So, a speedy ejaculation was a symptom of a long-simmering obsession. 

Of course, it was just teenage lore, but watching the most powerful man on Earth come inside her in under sixty seconds felt like a dark, surreal callback to those locker room whispers.

But chuckling was a suicidal move here. And beyond the absurdity, it was a terrifyingly potent turn on. He wasn’t using her, he was overwhelmed by her.

She swallowed dryly, her gaze pinned to his mortified eyes. “Are you… okay?” she asked tentatively. 

Her eyes squinted as a faint, involuntary smile ghosted her lips, watching him heave for air while still pinning her firmly to the table.

Homelander nodded quickly, his ego visibly bruised as he jerked his gaze away from hers. “Are you?” he countered, his voice sounding small and uncharacteristically guarded.

Annie nodded again, her smile widening just a fraction before she forced it back into a neutral line. “Yes.”

He offered a single nod in return, letting out one final, heavy exhale as the remnants of his climax ebbed away. 

The embarrassment didn't linger for long, though. His hands shifted from her hips, trailing down the backs of her thighs with a grip that was suddenly firm and purposeful.

“Hang on tight then, young lady,” he muttered, his voice dropping back into that low, vibrating growl. 

He hooked his arms under the backs of her knees and shoved them upward, forcing her legs toward her chest to reset the stage with his cock still lodged deep inside her. 

Her pussy was now more accessible for him. He pulled his still twitching member somewhat and pushed back slowly, his pubes brushing against her clit. 

His grip remained unyielding, his fingers digging into the backs of her hamstrings to pin her as he continued to slowly fuck her. His sapphire eyes were fixed on her face, tracking every twitch and every flicker of her expression with a predatory fascination.

Annie’s head thudded back against the cold steel, her vision swimming as her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. Her fingers were white-knuckled as she clawed at the backs of his hands, her dignity a distant memory as she moaned shamelessly, letting him fuck her with his own cum.

He'd cum so much inside her that every time he drove his meat into the slit, the liquid oozed out of her cunt. The thrusts began to gain pace with his grips tightening on her thighs. He started to fuck her harder then, his cock relentlessly driving in and out of her wet pussy, stretching her wide with his girth. 

He was captivated by the way she’d simply surrendered to the momentum, allowing herself to be molded by his whims. It wasn't just that she wasn't fighting him; it was the very undeniable evidence that she was relishing it. 

He saw her for exactly what she was in this moment: a girl whose rigid moral compass had been demagnetized by trauma and disillusionment, definitely has daddy issues, and too horny to offer any real resistance.

He took a perverse pleasure in the way her moans became a frantic, nonstop soundtrack to his thrusts, her voice brittle and strangled as she took him in like a champion. 

It was almost impressive to witness how the firebrand who challenged him in meetings had dissolved into such a pliable and submissive creature in the dark. 

Well, resisting him in private was practically a death wish, sure. But she wasn't just enjoying this, she was a willing accomplice in her own corruption. He loved the sheer toxicity of it.

His lunges were frantic now, rough and followed by low grunts with each thrust. He watched her pale skin bloom into a violent crimson under the pressure of his hands, but it only turned him on all the more. 

Driven by a sudden, restless boredom, he shifted, hooking his arms under her knees and hoisting her legs upward. He draped them over his shoulders to grant himself a deeper, more punishing vantage point. He yanked her further down and began his deeper thrusts into her hole this time, almost primal in its motion. 

Annie’s mouth fell open, a silent scream of ecstasy dying in her throat. The way his pelvis rammed against her clit with each of his impatient penetrations sent a pooling, liquid heat through her entire core. 

The friction escalated until it felt like beyond human capability. The sensation was breathlessly satisfying.

The threshold finally broke, and the sensation came flooding in a tidal wave of electricity that ignited every nerve ending on her clit. 

In response to the euphoric peak, the overhead lights in the cavernous lab began to flicker and hum, buzzing in synchrony with her power. 

Annie let out a loud, pained scream, a sound that was half-agony, half-exultation; as her legs twitched violently, her entire being caught in a rush of overwhelming bliss that felt like it lasted a lifetime.

But Homelander was boundless. He didn’t even slow fucking her. In fact, he kept driving the solid log into her cunt, feeling it reach all the way against her cervix over and over. His own thrusts only seemed to harden and grow more insistent the moment he sensed her body convulsing with an oncoming orgasm.

The walls of her vaginal canal clammed tight against his meat, throbbing with sensitive pleasure against his delightful assaults of the hole. 

Annie’s eyes began to glow with a pair of golden rings at this point, her mouth hanging open as she lost all capacity for sound. She was suspended in the white hot peak of her release, her world narrowed down to the friction and the heat in her pelvis.

It delighted Homelander—seeing the literal, physical manifestation of her pleasure through the overhead lights. It spurred him into a final, rhythmic frenzy, increasing the speed of his fucking for the next minute. 

He watched with dark satisfaction as her head finally fell back, the orgasm slowly ebbing away, leaving her legs to go limp and heavy over his shoulders.

He let out a soundless, almost affectionate chuckle, a distinct contrast to the clinical way he suddenly pulled out of her cunt in one abrupt motion. 

Before Annie could even register the shift, he grabbed her arm and pulled her upward, his strength making the transition effortless as he flipped her over.

Annie found herself pressed stomach-down against the cold metal of the table, her feet barely touching the concrete floor as she struggled to find her balance. She turned her face partially, peering over her shoulder with wide, dazed eyes to find him looming behind her.

Homelander’s hands clamped onto her hips, yanking her back toward him to bridge the gap. 

One hand slid upward, settling heavily between her shoulder blades to force her torso down against the table, arching her spine into a vulnerable bow. He grabbed his dick again, still somewhat sensitive from the earlier ejaculation, and drove it back into her pussy in one brisk motion. 

The sudden, blunt intrusion drew a series of sharp, breathless gasps from her lungs.

Annie’s right palm pressed flat against the tabletop, bracing against the cold steel, while her left hand gripped the edge for balance as he fucked her from behind in a series of hasty and persistent thrusts. He was an engine of pure directed force as the cock frictioned against the soft folds of her vagina, violently jerking her entire frame forward with every heavy impact. 

Annie’s breath kept choking in her throat. Every time her ass crashed against his pelvis, the sensation flooded through her guts, overwhelmingly and pleasantly beyond her control.

He leaned into her, pressing his palm further down between her shoulder blades to force her spine into a deeper curve, his cock effectively never stopping the ramming into her hole. 

His other hand was a possessive weight, gripping one of her ass cheeks with a bruising pressure that had marked her skin as his.

Annie’s head dipped back, her neck straining as her body arched to his lunges; the wet, rhythmic sound of their skins clapping together, echoing like thunder throughout the lab. 

It was during one particularly jolting shove that her balance finally broke. Her left hand slipped from the smooth metal edge of the table, sliding forward until her fingertips brushed against a jarringly rougher texture on the side of the frame.

Annie's eyes, which had been squeezed shut against the sensory overload, snapped open. 

Almost absentmindedly, she kept her fingertips on the rough patch, tracing the lines. It felt like a carved scribble on the table’s narrow side edge, etched deep into the metal with something sharp; perhaps a screwdriver or a discarded scalpel.

Instinctively, Annie shifted her weight, arching her upper body to the side without disrupting his movements behind her—technically, Homelander was still fucking her brain into oblivion, but she found herself squinting through the dizzies of her own pleasure. 

She tilted her head, her blonde hair spilling over her shoulder in a messy curtain as she looked closer at the metal.

“Bradley & Susan were here.” A small, crude heart was carved beneath the names with an arrow through it. 

Annie blinked at the scribble; a sudden, soft smile curling at her mouth. 

In this tomb of science and god knew what, two humans had left a mark of something as simple as a souvenir of love.

“Huh,” she huffed to herself, the sound a mix of mild wonder and a breathless giggle.

“What are you doing?” Homelander’s voice rumbled through her back, his casual tone belying the frantic speed of his hips. His rhythm never faltered, but his hand moved, grabbing her cheek tighter as he delivered a deep, demanding thrust. 

Clearly he wasn't getting enough attention from her. 

Annie gasped and squeaked in the same breath as he fucked her with a sudden, discordant increase in speed. She tried to shift her spine back toward the center of the table, but Homelander’s palm remained a heavy, immovable weight against her back, pinning her down. 

The pressure was firm but lacking the lethal flavor. Basically a lust-driven, non-negotiable demand for her to stay exactly where he wanted her.

Annie managed to turn her head, flipping her hair away from her face to catch his eye, her expression a mix of dazed pleasure and sudden curiosity.

“It says ‘Bradley and Susan were here’ over there. Someone's carved it into the metal. Employees, maybe,” she breathed out, her voice shaky from the friction. “Interesting, right? Imagine falling in love in a place like this.”

The effect was instantaneous.

Homelander’s rhythm broke. The names hit him like a thunderous shock the moment they crossed her mouth, bringing a total halt to his entire frame. 

His hands loosened on her skin ever so slightly, his fingers going lax as he blinked in a sudden, stunned vacuum of thought.

Annie felt the shift in him immediately. He was looming too close, literally inside her; his weight was too integrated with hers for her to miss the instant change in his temperature and tension. 

She craned her neck further, her curious frown deepening as she tried to read the shadows on his face.

“Hey,” she said softly, “You okay?” Her eyes flicked down to her ass where his hand still rested, then back to his face. He was still very much lodged inside her pussy, all the way in, but his mind had clearly departed the room.

A tense line formed between Homelander’s brows as a profound, sickening sense of déjà vu washed over him, drenching him in a memory he hadn't invited in. 

He just realized that the sound of the room; the rhythmic thudding, the desperate gasps, their moans and groans, and the manic scraping of skin against steel—it all sounded exactly like his childhood. He remembered being locked in the observation chambers of this very lab, forced to listen to Bradley and Susan fuck each other's brains out while he stared at the reinforced walls and listened.

He had spent countless hours as a boy fantasizing about doing exactly what they were doing; not out of emotional attachment, but out of a desperate, warped need to understand the mechanics of engaging in the activity itself. 

He’d imagined himself in Bradley's place, or perhaps even joining them, his young mind twisting the sounds of their intimacy into a target for his own growing desires.

As disturbing as it sounds, Homelander felt zero remorse for his sex crave. He had always viewed his hedonism as his least aggressive form of self-expression, compared to the way he usually unalived people who irritated him and how he fantasized leveling cities on casual Sundays. 

Who would’ve thought he’d end up back here after twenty years, buried deep in a woman who also happened to be his own coworker? 

The parallels were almost poetic, coworkers finding heat in a cold place, much like Bradley and Susan had decades ago. 

He had walked into this sub-floor expecting to be horrified, braced for the visceral triggers of a childhood spent in a cage. But the first true emotion to pierce his guard down wasn’t trauma tonight, it was a twisted, nostalgic delight. 

It was the only fragment of pleasure that had ever existed in his developmental years, a vicarious thrill he’d absorbed through auditory intake only. 

So what would you call this moment? A dream come true for a teenage Homelander? 

It sat wrong and right at the same time.

The thought finally pulled a small, dark smirk to his lips. He let out a long shuddering sigh, his focus already recalibrating as he looked down at Starlight’s waist. 

He gently pulled out of her this time with a slosh of liquid, his cock dripping with both of their cum. 

“Come with me.”

His command came out even, already shifting. He stepped back just enough to give her space to straighten, but his hands lingered, never fully retracting from her skin. He shuffled his footing, casually stepping out of the fabric pooled around his ankles, discarding it without looking.

Annie didn’t move right away.

Her frown had deepened, her eyes fixed on him with a sharper kind of focus now. She had been watching him the entire time, picking up on the shift, the names he hadn’t explained, and the familiarity he couldn’t quite hide.

Clearly he knew who Bradley and Susan were. That much was obvious.

Curiosity made its way in, pushing past everything else. She straightened slowly, her gaze searching the planes of his face for a map of his history. 

Homelander didn't offer an explanation. He simply took her wrist in his palm and tugged her along, his gait a strange mix of casual dominance and quiet urgency; like he had already decided where they were going next and didn’t see a reason to explain why.

Chapter Text

Part II: John and Annie Were Here 

He led her across the lab, past the sterile surfaces and silent equipment, toward a large red door set into the far wall. It stood out immediately, heavier than anything else in the room, industrial in a way that didn’t bother pretending otherwise.

As soon as they reached it, he flipped the heavy iron hinge with effortless strength and shoved the door open. It gave way with a long, metallic creak that seemed to echo through the very foundations of the building. 

The thickness of the door was impossible to miss. At least three feet of solid, tungsten-carbide steel, backed by a secondary layer of industrial padding that ran from the ceiling to the floor. The moment they crossed the threshold, the visual shift was jarring, almost ridiculous. 

The room was a sterile, blinding white, the padded walls squeaky clean and reflecting the harsh light with an artificial brilliance. There was no furniture, no bed, no sign of life, nothing but a padded vacuum. 

Annie blinked as she stepped inside, the change almost disorienting after the dimmer, more cluttered lab outside. 

Her shoulders stiffened without her meaning to, her body reacting before she could rationalize it. The room wasn’t threatening in any direct way. But it wasn’t right either.

There was something about the emptiness, the clinical perfection of it, that felt wrong on a deeper level. Not dangerous in a visible sense, but… unsettling.

The door slammed shut behind them with a single negligent shove of his hand, the heavy latch clicking into place with a finality. 

Annie flinched at the sound, spinning around to face him, her heart hammering a frantic beat against her ribs. 

Suddenly, she realized that the world felt like it had been vacuum-sealed. The omnipresent, low-frequency hum of the machinery from the lab and the entire sub-floor was gone, swallowed by the thick, soundproof padding. 

It was unsettling; the silence was so absolute she could practically hear the rush of blood in her own ears and the stutter of her own pulse.

“What the fuck is this place?” Annie demanded, her voice sounding strangely flat in the acoustically dead room. 

Her eyes darted across the sterile white surfaces, a cold dread settling in the pit of her stomach.

Homelander, standing there as naked and unashamed as the day he was born, gave a dismissive wave of his hand. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he assured her, his tone shifting into something almost friendly, which only served to make the hair on her arms stand up.

He closed the distance between them in two predatory strides, his palms landing firmly on her ass as he hauled her flush against him. 

Her bare skin crashed against the radiating heat of his chest, and he watched with a smirk as a fresh wave of crimson rushed into her cheeks. She was clearly struggling to maintain her indignation while her body betrayed her with a blush.

With one fluid motion, he hoisted her by the ass, his fingers digging into her cheeks. 

Annie instinctively wrapped her legs around his hips to balance herself, her arms locking around his neck as he carried her toward the far wall. Despite the eerie setting, a soft, almost hysterical giggle escaped her lips—a byproduct of the absurd adrenaline coursing through her.

He pressed her spine against the padded wall, the surface yielding slightly behind her. One hand remained cupped around her ass cheek, providing a stable base as he moved his other hand to adjust his cock once more. 

He glided the slippery, solid meat into her cunt with a smoothness, drawing a long shuddering moan from deep in her throat.

Annie’s body arched like a bow the moment he filled her up again, her head falling back against the padding. 

He resumed lunging into her, pumping his cock in and out, his movements just as hard and unyielding as before. 

The intensity forced her to tighten her grip on his neck, her nails digging brutally into his skin, clawing at the marble-hard muscle in a desperate rush of pleasure. Driven by a feral need to be even closer, Annie leaned in, her lips landing on the hot, pulsing skin of his neck, her breath hot against his ear.

She dragged her tongue in a slow, humid line over the column of his neck, tasting the sharp tang of salt on his skin. Her mouth explored the hard edge of his jaw, her teeth grazing and nibbling with a newfound and feral confidence. 

Eventually, she found his ear, capturing the lobe between her lips and tugging. Her whole frame jerked in a frantic tremor as he pumped into her womanhood, the sexy assaults feeling electric in the soundless vacuum. 

She began to worry his ear with her teeth, biting down harder with each subsequent thrust to test the limits of his reaction. 

Of course, Homelander responded by fucking her like a ragdoll with a renewed, punishing vigor, his hands tightening on her with a grip that bordered on bone-crushing.

The silence of the padded room acted like an amplifier. Every strangled grunt, every guttural groan, and the wet, relentless clapping of their skin boomed and reverberated within the confined space like a localized thunderstorm trapped in a glass jar. 

The auditory intensity was terrifying, a visceral reminder of their isolation, but it was also intoxicating in a dark and distorted way.

Annie was beyond the point of making a conscious decision about whether she liked it. 

This was a stark departure from the soft, moonlit fanfictions of her adolescence, but it possessed an undeniable gravity that a standard hookup could never touch.

She drove her teeth into the corded muscle on the right side of his neck, her nails excavating deeper into his shoulders. The more violently he fucked her, the deeper she sank her teeth and claws, as if she were trying to anchor her soul to his body.

Homelander let out a vibrating groan against her collarbone, the dull ache of her aggression fueling his own. He buried his face in the wild thicket of her hair, inhaling her scent until his lungs burned, his own skin buzzing with a predatory, high-voltage lust.

His jaw twitched with a sudden microscopic jolt when he felt a strange, fleeting prickle on his neck where her teeth were clamped. 

A second later, a localized heat bloomed in that spot.

Through the fog of his arousal, Homelander realized with a start that she had actually managed to break the skin. 

Under the right pressure and the right desperation, Starlight had drawn blood from the god of the sky.

Who would've thought? 

His eyes snapped open, the blue depths sharp and piercing as he recoiled. His head tilted back, muscles in his neck cording as he stared down at her, his gaze tracking the exact spot where her teeth had been anchored. His thrusts gradually ebbed into a heavy, suspended throb.

Annie finally forced her eyelids open, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches. She retracted her teeth from his skin and leaned back, her head swimming as she tried to focus on his face. 

Her mouth was parted in a dazed look of pleasure, but as she moved, a single, dark bead of crimson smeared across her lower lip; the metallic tang of his blood coating her tongue.

Homelander blinked, his focus dropping to the column of his own throat. He was bleeding.

Against all laws of nature and the invulnerability he wore like a second skin, she had left a perfect arc of a bite mark. 

She had clearly channeled every ounce of her latent Supe strength into that single, desperate act of grounding herself, pushing at least 99.9% of her power into her jaw just to leave a mark on the man who owned the world in his head.

Annie’s gaze followed his, landing on the small, weeping wound she hadn’t even realized she’d inflicted. 

The fog of euphoria thinned, replaced by a cold spike of terror. “Oh…” she managed to wheeze, her heart skipping a beat as she contemplated the potential lethality of her mistake. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t—I wasn’t thinking—”

Her apology was interrupted as Homelander moved with a sudden, blurring speed. 

In an effortless motion, he lowered until he was seated on the padded floor, his back braced against the white upholstery with her still locked in his grip. The shift was seamless and admirably graceful.

Annie was now straddling him, perched precariously on his lap with her weight fully supported by his powerful thighs.

Before she could stammer out another word of regret, his hand clamped around her jaw with a possessive iron grip. 

He crashed his mouth against hers, shoving his tongue deep into her mouth to reclaim what was his, tasting the copper tang of his own blood on her tongue. 

It wasn't an act of anger, it was a dark, cannibalistic validation.

Annie surrendered to the kiss, her body responding before her mind could catch up. She shifted her weight on his lap, her hips beginning to roll in a slow, agonizingly deep rhythm as she felt his cock all the way inside her. 

The friction was electric, sparking a fresh wildfire in her veins. She rubbed her clit against his pelvis, her moans growing louder, turning into desperate, needy cries that echoed off the padded walls. 

She dug her fingers into his shoulders again and bounced on his cock, the girth finally, properly adjusting to the slippery folds inside her vagina.

Homelander hauled her flush against him, his powerful arms coiling like pythons around the small of her back. He let his head thud back against the padded wall, his mouth falling open in a silent expression of bliss as he surrendered to her rhythm.

In any other circumstance, his ego would never have permitted her to take the superior position—to be in his lap. He was notoriously selective about who he allowed into this space, but she had proven herself worthy of the “throne”.

The sight of his own blood on her lips had shifted the tectonic plates of his psyche. It wasn't just a turn on; it was a sudden spike of genuine respect. She had actually managed to draw blood out of him. And that feat alone earned her the rare privilege of his lap, allowing her to ride his cock entirely to her own frantic pleasure. 

The friction of their cum-slicked skin produced wet, rhythmic sloshes that seemed to double in volume, amplified by the sensory deprivation of the soundproof vacuum. The loudness was the devil’s ultimate wet dream.

Her cadence never faltered as she rode his meat, her hips rhythmically rolling. She could feel the second wave gathering at the base of her spine, a localized storm of euphoria preparing to break.

A strangled cry tore from her throat as her head lolled back, her pace becoming a blurring, desperate friction as her ass bounced frantically on his cock, taking it all the way in. 

Homelander watched her through hooded eyes, a dark smirk playing on his lips. 

He leaned forward, capturing her left nipple between his teeth just as her body arched into a violent bow, the flooding surge of heat rushing to her groins. He nibbled and teased at the sensitive nub, holding her with a surprising and uncharacteristic gentleness. 

He was careful not to overwhelm her with his usual dominance; he knew better than to disrupt the delicate architecture of an orgasm, which was a universal no-go for any man—unless it was BDSM. 

It was a rare moment of restraint for a man who usually took everything by force.

When the sensation finally detonated within Annie’s nerves, it washed over her like a tidal wave of numbing static. She screamed out a loud, raw moan that rang through the small room, her legs trembling uncontrollably even as her hips continued to drive his cock in, chasing the peak of the sensation.

The orgasm reached its absolute height, a seismic bloom of sensation that radiated outward from her core, surging through her stomach and electrifying every inch of her frame. It was no longer just a feeling, it was a physical takeover.

The room’s overhead lights, recessed deeply behind the protective padding, began to flicker with the same frantic energy they had shown in the lab. 

This time, however, the response was violent. The electricity within the bulbs crackled, the filament screaming as the room was plunged into a blinking, stroboscopic frenzy. They looked like flickering specters, caught in a desperate, high-velocity fucking under the chaotic strobe effect.

Annie’s eyes ignited, vivid golden rings of light bleeding through her irises as she began to involuntarily siphon the raw power from the building's grid. She was a vacuum for the current, strangling the room's electrical system toward a total collapse.

Homelander’s grip became a vice, his muscles locking as he delivered one final, brutal thrust up her cunt. 

And the second he did, Annie tore a shaky, high-pitched scream from her lungs, and the lightbulbs surrendered. They detonated in unison, a synchronized chorus of shattering glass that plunged the room into absolute darkness.

A rain of crystalline shards cascaded from the ceiling and walls, pelting their bodies like harmless sand. The glass simply brushed against their superhuman skin without leaving so much as a microscopic scratch.

That was his cue. In the sudden, heavy dark, he kept his grip uncompromising and began pumping into her again with a rhythmic driving force, guiding the fading ripples of her climax toward a final, absolute high.

Annie’s entire body went rigid, her legs convulsing in violent tremors and twitches with the orgasm, and him fucking her through it. 

Her strength finally gave in, and her head fell forward, her face burying into the heat of his neck. She let the remnants of the surge wash through her, her breath coming in heavy ragged sobs against his skin as the adrenaline began to recede.

The moment her muscles began to slacken and her weight surrendered fully to his lap, Homelander’s patience evaporated. 

With a strong sweep of his hand, he brushed away the shards behind her. Then, he hoisted her off him with efficient strength, shifting her onto the padded floor. He rolled her onto her side in one smooth motion, molding himself against her back so they were fused together.

He hooked his hand around her hip, yanking her flush against him, and hoisted her top leg high to clear the way. 

He held it there with a bruising and possessive grip as he slid back into her cunt from behind, his body spooning hers in a lethal, intimate embrace as he reclaimed the rhythm of the night.

Annie let out a weary, yet profoundly satiated moan, her ass pushing back into him as her spine arched on pure desire-driven instinct. His cock slammed up her pussy in rough thrusts, her breasts dancing with the jerks of her body.

Homelander snaked his free arm under the curve of her waist, his fingers digging into her breast to pin her even more firmly against him. He pulled her back until there wasn't a microscopic gap left between them, his chest a radiating furnace against her bare back.

He drove his cock as hard as his physiology would allow him without breaking her pelvis. The heat inside her vagina had become so audaciously pleasurable on his meat, he wished he could go on forever like this—which he absolutely could, but that wouldn't be practical on a time-sensitive night and inside the “white room” for that matter. 

For the next several minutes, he maintained a relentless, grounding pace, fucking her cunt like there was no tomorrow. The sheer force of his skin crashing against hers began to leave a blooming, reddish flush across the curve of her ass, a visceral map of his possession.

Annie’s body jerked with every rhythmic impact as he fucked her mercilessly. She felt utterly spent, her nerves frayed and humming after two shattering climaxes, yet her body continued to respond to his command. 

She had always logically assumed he would fuck with terrifying power given his status, but she hadn’t anticipated the effortless, intuitive skill he brought to the act. It wasn't just the limitless strength, it was a calibrated mastery acquired over decades. 

The juxtaposition of his divine power and this gritty, visceral roughness acted like a key in a lock she hadn't known existed. It bypassed her logic and went straight for her most buried insecurities, awakening every "daddy issue" impulse in her psyche in the most intoxicatingly toxic way imaginable.

Homelander had clocked very thoroughly how her face gave away those micro-expressions of savoring the sensation despite being utterly spent. 

“You’re a naughty little girl, aren't you?” He purred, the vibration of his voice buzzing through the shell of her ear as he watched her take him in. 

His lips grazed her earlobe, his tone dripping with a condescending and predatory playfulness. “Bet Drummer Boy doesn’t fuck half as good as this without killing girls, does he?” he teased, throwing the name out like a casual private joke between them. 

But before Annie could recoil or retort at the sudden sting of the mention, he drove his member harder into her pussy with a deep thrust intended to strangle her protest.

“Shhh,” he cooed, his breath hot and damp against her skin as he squeezed her breast harder. “Let me take care of you, baby girl. I’m going to fuck that little heartbreak right out of you.”

He rammed into her hole again, with a sudden and jarring increase in force that tore a vibrating scream from the very back of her throat. He smirked with a dark, territorial satisfaction, his own guttural groans rumbling directly into the sensitive shell of her ear.

Annie’s cheeks had flared with an involuntary heat. She was blushing without her own permission, her body surrendering to a physical response her mind couldn't veto. 

The way Homelander was manhandling her, ruthlessly dismantling her defenses and fondling her deep-seated daddy issues, was equal parts patronizing and undeniably scorching-hot. She disliked him so much that it only made the fucking all the more pleasurable. She was past the point of resistance. 

In fact, a careless, nihilistic thought passed through her mind: she wouldn't even mind if he fucked her vagina loose tonight. The sheer ecstasy he was stirring inside her felt like a fair trade for the collapse of her world.

Homelander abruptly pulled his cock out from inside her, breaking her out of her trance. He flipped her onto her back with a strength that made her feel weightless, before climbing atop her to pin her against the padded floor.

The solid meat slid back into her slit as his powerful arms snaked under her back, his grip tightening until the pressure against her spine felt like it was teetering on the edge of a fracture. 

He continued lunging in with a manic, unrelenting cadence, destroying her pussy without a single break for air. Their cum sloshed melodiously as he claimed her body like a predator feasting on a great hunt night. 

It was like his own twisted, wettest dreams finally manifesting—getting to deliver a world-class fuck in the infamous white room of Sub-Level 6. 

Bradley and Susan ain't got shit on him, he told himself. 

Their clumsy, human fumbling was nothing compared to the god-like intensity of his fucking capacity. 

The memory of his childhood porno content brought upon a darker surge of desire. He grunted, his eyes turning into dark, fathomless pits of lust.

“I’m going to make sure you limp for the next few days and think about nothing but me,” he hissed, his piercing, predatory gaze locked onto her face. 

He watched with fascination as she fought to maintain her composure between the lines of pain and the overwhelming waves of pleasure. “You’re going to think about how fucking good I felt inside you. You’re going to crave more of it,” he purred, his voice a low, coaxing threat. 

Annie tried an attempt at a response, but all that came was a weary moan as his tongue slipped into her parted mouth, sucking onto her tongue, claiming her breath and her silence in one absolute act of possession.

The following twenty minutes were a non-stop fucking of her cunt delivered at a grueling and unwavering pace. It was a marathon of friction that began to sap the strength from Annie's marrow, her limbs growing heavy and loose with sheer physical exhaustion.

She was utterly spent—drained by the staggering force of how hard he'd been fucking her and the cumulative toll of her previous orgasms. Yet, her legs never once drifted from their lock around his hips. If anything, she tightened her hold, her heels digging into his lower back to anchor him, desperate to keep him from slowing, terrified of the silence that would follow if he stopped.

Who would've thought that all she needed after two months of ceaseless traumas, heartbreaks, and bombshell revelations, was to be fucked hard enough to give her brain a factory reset? 

The man was rearranging her organs in a way that was shamelessly welcome. The sound of her being fucked like a toy boomed and echoed savagely in the padded room. 

“I’m gonna come!” Homelander rasped against her lips, his voice a breathless serration. 

His grip clamped onto her spine with terrifying strength, his thrusts suddenly gaining a dangerously manic velocity. 

To Annie, it felt as though her skeletal structure might splinter under the stress.

She cried out a pained moan, her breath catching in her throat as her body curved under his physical pressure from various points. She braced herself as tight as her body possibly could allow her with whatever strength she had left in her. Her legs had already gone numb by now. 

The final thrust was violent, merciless, and primal all at once. 

An animalistic growl tore from deep within Homelander's chest. His eyes ignited into a savage, glowing crimson in response to the sheer magnitude of the ejaculation. His cock exploded a second time inside her, hot cum spewing out of the organ as it throbbed violently inside her. He kept the solid member lodged all the way up to her cervix, letting his body release all its tension inside her. 

In the heat of that final seismic release, even he was fairly certain he’d caused her a mild vaginal tearing.

He didn't care, though. She was a Supe, she would heal. Besides, in his warped logic, the injury was merely a trophy, a physical testament to how thoroughly he had just fucked her. She would carry the memory of this moment in her very cells until the day she died.

The thought pulled a dark, breathless chuckle from his lips.

His face fell forward, burying itself in the valley between her breasts, his arms locking around her in a crushing embrace as he finally allowed his body to go heavy against hers.

For a minute, neither of them moved. They remained locked together in the heavy, vacuum-sealed silence of the white room as they allowed their bodies to catch up to the aftermath. 

Homelander remained draped over her, his super-hearing picking up the erratic staccato of her heart hammering against the underside of her ribcage. 

The sound, usually a sign of fear he relished, now acted as a tether, helping to coax his own heart down from the violent subsonic thrumming that had been rattling his chest.

He released a long, deep exhale that fanned across her damp skin, before finally pulling back just enough to survey the wreckage of her expression.

Annie lay beneath him, her breathing gradually transitioning from sharp gasps to slow, periodic draws of air. Her eyelids fluttered, her pupils still dilated as she processed the lingering echoes of the pleasure with his cock still lodged inside her. 

Her gaze only drifted to meet his when his crushing grip on her back finally softened, his hands retracting with surprising gentleness to allow her spine to settle fully onto the padded floor. 

Beneath them, the carpet of shattered lightbulbs crunched and shifted, the crystalline shards pressing harmlessly against their bare skin.

His mouth found the hard nub of her right nipple, and he trailed his tongue over the sensitive skin, circling the areola, teasing the tip of her nipple with his tongue. 

Annie’s breath hitched into another moan, her body arching on pure reflex as if her nerves were still wired to his touch. 

He let out a low chuckle, a soft moan of his own rumbling in his throat as he began sucking onto the rock-hard nipple. 

Below, he shifted his weight, his hips pulling back just enough to create a tease of distance without fully taking out the cock and shoved inside her. 

He began to move again; slower this time, a lazy and languid rhythm that lacked the frantic violence from before. It drew a fresh series of tired and broken moans from her, which did nothing but fuel the fire. 

The nipple flicked out from between his lips as he withdrew his head, the darkness of the room failing to hide the glint of pure, unrestrained hunger in his eyes.

“Fuck, I can’t stop,” he murmured with a sheepish grin, almost boyish at this point. 

A bashful yet lustrous smile spread across Annie’s face, her lashes heavy and dark with exhaustion. She looked utterly ruined and yet strangely reborn. 

“Then don’t,” she whispered back, the words a breathless invitation. Her arms slipped from around his neck, sliding upward to rest languidly above her head on the padded floor, her chest heaving as her body arched under the pressure of his slower, deeper penetrations.

The grin on Homelander’s lips sharpened, turning crooked and predatory once more. 

“You know I tore you up a bit, right?” he asked, his voice dripping with a playful, almost fond arrogance. He said it like a compliment, a mark of his own power left inside her.

“I’ll be fine,” Annie rasped, her head lolling back against the padding. Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling as her hips began to squirm beneath him, her palms lighting up to kill the total darkness of the room. 

Homelander let out a genuine laugh this time, genuinely impressed by her resilience, and the fact that she still hadn't had enough of him. 

An affectionate purr slipped from his chest as he leaned down, his shadow swallowing her whole. “I'm going to tear you apart, young lady. Promise you’ll love every second of it.”

His lips found their way back to her nipple, his mouth closing over the peak as he began nibbling at the hard nub, his canines grazing the sensitive, flushed skin.

All while, he continued pushing into her womanhood with a lazy desperation, as if this were the only time he would ever get to fuck her; even though they both knew that this was only the beginning of her undoing. 

Maybe his too.

——

Annie pulled the kevlar top down over her neck, the fabric dragging faintly against skin that still felt too sensitive. Her hands slid into the sleeves with a practiced familiarity. 

She reached for the vest next, fingers working the straps into place one by one, tightening them with small, efficient tugs. 

Every few seconds, her eyes flicked toward Homelander across the lab without fully committing to the glance.

He had already suited up in his dark gear. 

Back turned to her, posture straight, hands clasped formally behind him. He was staring at a support beam on the wall with a vacant intensity, like he was mentally miles away. 

Annie tucked her top into her pants and checked the security of her belt buckle, her eyes lingering for a moment on the heavy crimson door of the white room. They’d certainly "christened" the space, transforming a creepy chamber into a theater of carnal wreckage. 

So much for not leaving any signs of their breaking and entering into the lab. 

It would have been a massive understatement to say she was sore. Her body felt like it had been tenderized. She could feel the dull, pulsing ache in her hips where his fingers had left marks, and her internal anatomy felt like he’d personally seen to a complete rearrangement of her organs. 

Yet, paradoxically, she felt revitalized; a strange, buzzing energy crackling beneath the fatigue. 

A traitorous heat climbed her neck just thinking about it, even as she watched him stand there, cold and detached.  

Reality, however, was a persistent buzzkill. They were operating under a strict time constraint now. Because in a couple of hours, the Vought machine would grind back to life, and the Monday morning crowd would come pouring in. 

As good as the sex was, they had already overstayed their welcome here than anyone reasonably should.

Annie crossed the floor, her footsteps echoing off the concrete, and came to a halt a step beside him. She followed his unblinking line of sight toward the beam on the wall, squinting her eyes against the dim lighting to make out what had captivated the most powerful man on earth. Her brow furrowed as the markings came into focus.

The wall was etched with a series of height markings, a vertical timeline of a life measured in increments of growth from age five through sixteen. 

Beside the name John, the lines climbed the beam until they hit the age twelve mark, where a handwritten sidenote read: “He’s growing so fast!” 

The script was deceptively domestic, mimicking the way parents might track a child’s progress in a hallway at home, but here, written onto concrete, it looked like a ledger of an experiment.

“Someone used to live here,” Annie stated flatly. It wasn't a question, but she turned to study Homelander’s profile anyway, searching for a flicker of recognition. “Did people actually live down here?”

Homelander blinked once, the only sign of life in his stony expression. 

His jaw twitched, a microscopic tremor of suppressed memory, before he let out a scoff that was far too dismissive to be genuine. “What makes you think I’ll have a clue?"

Annie didn't buy the deflection for a second. She just rolled her eyes and gave an unbothered shrug. 

“Oh, come on… we both know I can tell you used to work here. You know every corner, every door. It’s not exactly a mystery,” she said, crossing her arms with a small huff. She was becoming increasingly immune to his attempts to gaslight her into ignoring the obvious.

Homelander let out a dry chuckle at her confidence, finally turning his head to meet her gaze. 

“Mm. That’s one way to look at it,” he conceded, his voice smooth and noncommittal.

Annie smirked openly, her eyes tracing the sharp jawline that had been buried in the crook of her neck just thirty minutes prior. 

“Uh—” she started, her voice dropping into a hesitant, more grounded register. “Thank you. For telling me the truth. About… Compound V.” She gave a stiff nod, glancing at him briefly before looking away, her pulse skipping. “And… what just happened? Honestly, what was all that?”

She gestured vaguely at the lab table across the room and then toward the heavy crimson door, the crime scenes of their recent "marathon." 

One of Homelander's brows cocked toward his hairline, followed by a subtle, judgmental frown, as if he were genuinely baffled by the silliness of the question.

“Starlight,” he said, his voice dripping with incredulity, “Are you, by any chance, planning to turn on me and claim I forced myself on you? Because we both know your performance in there says otherwise—”

“Oh, no, no!” Annie’s head shook immediately, her hands shooting up in a defensive blur. “That’s not what I meant at all,” she corrected quickly, her face heating up. “I just meant—we just...” She gestured awkwardly between the two of them, trying to find the words in the wreckage of her dignity. “I thought you were with Black Noir.”

Homelander’s frown deepened, and he blinked as if she’d just suggested he was dating a toaster. 

“What? No... I’m not with him. It’s wayyy more casual than that. Though, make no mistake, he is still mine.” He gave a dismissive shrug, his body pivoting fully to face her, looming over her with that practiced, hero-on-a-pedestal posture. “But hey—” He pointed a gloved finger at her, the thick fabric creaking slightly. “In case you’re wondering where that leaves you, let me just clarify: nowhere. And I hope you’re self-aware enough to know that, right?”

Annie blinked, her head tilting with a mix of mild curiosity and a sudden sting of offense. “What do you mean, nowhere?”

He sputtered, breaking into a short, condescending laugh that echoed uncomfortably against the lab’s cold walls. He raised his hands, gesturing theatrically as if he were explaining a simple math problem to a particularly slow child. 

“Nowhere, as in it was entirely, purely casual. Us.” 

He wagged a finger between them. “I mean—don’t you see how that was just an emotional spillover? You just needed to fuck all that pain and heartbreak out of your system. Right?” He probed curiously, his head tilting like a predator watching a wounded bird. “Was that not your reason for the hookup?”

Annie’s lips pursed into a thin line, falling into a heavy, unexpected silence. She stood there, thinking, while a subtle, cold sense of rejection seeped into the dark corners of her soul.

Of course, it was completely casual for him. He was a man who viewed the world as his personal buffet. He’d simply waited for her to be at her most vulnerable, offered her a glimpse of the truth as bait, and then sat back as she became a willing accomplice in her own undoing. 

He hadn't just gotten into her pants, he’d managed to make her feel like it was her idea all along.

Something in Annie snapped back into place all at once, not gradually but with an internal jolt that traveled up her spine and settled stiffly across her shoulders. 

The regret followed immediately, unpleasant and unwelcome. The most infuriating part wasn’t even him; he was being exactly the narcissistic predator he had always been. No, she was pissed at herself; furious that she’d seen the trap, recognized the bait, and still walked right into it like some needy, fatherless cliché. 

She rolled her eyes, slower this time, shaking her head once as if trying to physically reject the thought. 

“Un-fucking-believable,” she muttered under her breath, the words directed inward, sharp with self-annoyance rather than accusation.

Homelander’s brows shot up in tandem, his expression shifting into one of mild, flickering amusement. 

“I’m sorry. Were you expecting flowers or a candlelit debrief?” he teased, his tone dripping with patronizing honey as he leaned into her space, playfully nudging her arm with his bicep. 

Annie turned away from him without hesitation, her movement clean and decisive, already putting space between them as she moved toward the door. 

On her way, she patted down her pockets to ensure she hadn't left a single trace of identifiers behind, minus the mess in the white room. Because, as per Homelander, that part “wasn’t their problem”. 

“We can’t take this elevator,” she called over her shoulder, her voice steady now, stripped of the earlier self-disappointment but no less firm. “Employees should be coming in soon.” She pushed through the doorway without breaking stride, the hallway swallowing the sound of her steps as she kept moving. “Cargo lift. We’ve got the rifles and masks to pick up on the way.”

Her voice carried back into the room even as the distance grew, leaving behind a kind of quiet that didn’t settle comfortably.

Homelander didn’t move right away, eyes lingering where she'd disappeared. 

Slowly, the smug smirk dissolved from his face, leaving behind an expression of cold neutrality. He let out a slow breath, his head turning slowly toward the far corner of the room where the industrial furnace loomed like a dormant beast. 

The instant his eyes fixed on it, something in his body recoiled; a jarring, phantom heat racing across his skin as if the memory had found a direct path through his muscles. 

He staggered back a step without meaning to, the movement abrupt and instinctive, his composure slipping just enough to expose the reflex underneath.

His breathing shifted, blinking rapidly as his sapphire eyes skittered nervously around the room, suddenly realizing that even for a god, muscle memory was a merciless ghost. 

He pivoted on his heel with a sudden urgency and rushed out of the lab, slamming the heavy door behind him with a thunderous bang that echoed like a gunshot through the sub-floor. For the duration of the walk down the hallway, he was uncharacteristically silent, wrapped in a cold, suffocating blanket of an odd mood despite the satisfying sex marathon. 

Disturbed would have been the accurate term for it.

There was no issue getting involved with Starlight; he’d more than just enjoyed the sex. But he'd convinced himself that he was a realist, and he knew for a fact that she wasn't nearly corrupt enough to provide the absolute marrow-deep loyalty he demanded. 

Noir was the only one who had ever truly kept pace with his darkness. Starlight, with her stubborn flicker of a conscience, would eventually lag behind. She’d break, just like Maeve had.

He’d already lost interest in entertaining such messy intimacies after Madelyn's death, and after every other person he’d dared to admire had openly rejected him.

And then there was the matter of the lab itself. 

As fulfilling as it felt to fuck in there, it was also traumatizing, remembering all over again what his life used to be. Who he used to be. How small he used to be. 

Homelander eventually smacked his lips, the sound sharp in the quiet corridor, and shook his head as if to physically remove the toxic internal monologue rattling in his skull. 

He smoothed his features back into a mask of bored indifference as he returned to the room where they’d first arrived through the cargo lift.

Starlight was already fully prepped. She was masked up, her high-cut helmet secured, with the rifle hanging ready from its single-point sling against her chest. She stood there like a silent, armored sentinel waiting for him, her eyes unreadable behind the visor. 

Without exchanging a single word, Homelander reached for his mask, pulling the fabric over his face with a sharp tug. 

Then he crossed to the table where he’d abandoned his gear, retrieving his helmet and rifle with mechanical efficiency. Once geared up, he moved toward the cargo lift, his movements stiff and distracted.

Annie trailed behind him, the last lingering sparks of her earlier high long since soured into a toxic bitterness. She felt like a monumental idiot, her mind looping through a reel of self-loathing. 

He was literally a hedonistic fuckboy. A god-tier, narcissistic fuckboy, but a fuckboy nonetheless—just like the rest of the overgrown frat boys on the team. Why on earth had she let herself be a willing casualty of his ego?

Her eyes rolled behind the tinted visor of her helmet as she stepped into the elevator box after him.

The doors slid shut, sealing them into the metal tomb for the long, humming ascent. The silence between them was no longer charged with heat. It was heavy and stagnant. 

Both were spent, disturbed, and awkward in each other's presence. 

Annie stole sideways glances at him, but through the visor and the face covering, he was entirely unreadable, staring at the floor indicator inattentively.

She let out a long, internal sigh. Well, if nothing else, it was good sex, she tried to convince herself, clutching at the only silver lining available. But it should never, ever happen again.

She gave a firm, microscopic nod to herself. A one-time lapse in judgment driven by a mental breakdown. That was it.

The elevator bell finally dinged that signaled their arrival on the top basement. The doors whirred open, but before Annie could move, Homelander bypassed her, cutting her off with a brusque shoulder and stepping out first. 

His hand rested lazily on the grip of his rifle, his posture radiating a sudden, icy distance.

Annie glared at the back of his head, grimacing at his juvenile, pathological need to be "ahead of everyone," even in an empty basement. She huffed a deep, frustrated breath and fell into step behind him, heading toward the vent halls to vanish back up in the orbit.

Chapter Text

The Edgar estate sat buried deep within the rolling hills of North Salem. The mansion rose out of the landscape in cold limestone and reflective glass, a structure that looked like a billionaire's statement carved into the earth. Against the black stretch of the Westchester sky, it glowed like a low burning ember.

There were no cameras tonight, no red carpet, and definitely no staged spectacle for public consumption. A silent procession of black SUVs wound their way up the long driveway, each one depositing figures who never had to introduce themselves. 

These guests were the kind who altered outcomes in real time, influential and powerful people. They bought politicians for breakfast and manipulated stock markets for lunch. 

Inside, the air carried the scent of wealth, aged mahogany, and $1,000-a-bottle Pinot Noir. The décor was minimalist but expensive, floor to ceiling windows overlooking a hall of human sharks, while a string quartet in the corner played Vivaldi with a seamless, hypnotic transition. 

Servers moved like ghosts through the crowd, carrying crystal flutes of vintage Krug that likely cost more than a mid-sized sedan. An intimate gathering of the world’s wealthiest predators, all brought together to celebrate the 68th birthday of Stan Edgar. 

Scattered across the room, most of the Seven looked almost human in their civilian clothes; a rare and unsettling sight. 

Freed from the Lycra and the leathers, the Moronic Trio actually looked dashing in their custom-fit suits.

Of course, the permission to wear anything other than a super-suit came with a condition; each man had to dress in his signature colors. A-Train wore deep blue, the fabric catching light along its velvet lining, offset by a crisp white shirt that did most of the heavy lifting in making him look on-brand. The Deep leaned into green, the tone rich and intentional, accented with bronze details. And Translucent settled into a muted grey, understated to the point of being forgettable, which, for him, was arguably on brand.

Despite everything, the unfortunate reality remained that they looked good. Not just presentable, striking. Their suits hugged their enhanced physiques in all the right places, showing off the features Vought spent millions to market. They were practically glowing, basking in the adoration of the aristocrats, especially the women trailing expensive perfumes. 

People were definitely looking, and they stood there under the curated lighting, absorbing attention like it was part of the evening’s service.

At the far end of the room, tucked just out of the main current of circulating power, Queen Maeve and Starlight occupied the bar. They sat side by side like two captive trophies, close enough to be seen together, distant enough to avoid conversation unless necessary. 

Both women had opted for floor-length gowns, strictly adhering to their brand mandated colors. 

Maeve wore deep burgundy velvet, the kind of shade that bordered on black unless the light caught it just right. The gown featured a single long sleeve that clashed sharply with a sweetheart neckline and a bare, defiant shoulder. 

The fabric was so rich it seemed to swallow the light of the ballroom, clinging to her frame with a corseted curve. With every shift of her weight, a centered thigh slit revealed a flash of deep maroon silk lining, a perfect echo of her iconic red-soled stilettos. 

She was nursing a whiskey neat like she always did. The expensive scotch shimmered under the chandeliers as she sat with her back propped against the mahogany counter, one leg crossed over the other in a silent stay the fuck away energy for anyone who dared approach. 

Next to her, Annie was a different kind of spectacle.

Champagne in hand, she, too, sat with her legs crossed; the slit of her gown cutting obscenely high. High enough to be called indecent if anyone had been allowed to call it that. 

The dress itself looked like it had been poured over her frame, clinging in a way that followed every line of her body without offering much in the way of modesty. 

The toga-style bodice swept across her frame in a single, uninterrupted motion, leaving one shoulder bare while the other carried the clustered brooches shaped like fragments of stars.

They caught the light constantly, scattering it in sharp, shifting points that drew the eye whether she wanted the attention or not.

The fabric dipped low beneath her arm, exposing the curve of her waist and her back before gathering again at her hip, where another cluster of those star-like embellishments held the design. From there, the silk fell in controlled folds, flowing downward before splitting cleanly at the hip. 

Of course, Annie hadn't chosen it. The cut was too exposing, the fabric too thin. 

Every stitch tonight was a designer item selected by Vought’s stylists with one specific goal: every member needed to look presentable and fuckable enough to loosen the checkbooks of the investors. And their attires told that story with agonizing clarity. 

Every so often, Maeve’s gaze drifted sideways, lazy and unhurried, landing on Starlight with a kind of casual observation, as if she had been tracking this for a while now. 

Annie, for her part, was halfway through what had to be her thirteenth glass of champagne, the steady pace of the past forty-five minutes showing no real sign of slowing. If anything, she had settled into it with concerning commitment.

A subtle smirk pulled at Maeve’s lips as she tilted her head to fully inspect the younger woman. “This your first time at an open bar?” she asked, her voice a mix of curiosity and dry amusement. 

Annie turned to Maeve, a small frown forming as she defended her honor with a scoff. “No? I love drinking. What are you talking about?” 

The protest came out sharper than necessary, followed by a short bark of a private laugh, thinking of her secret nights out back in Des Moines. She’d always drank like a demon when the cameras were off, and Donna, bless her heart, had never suspected a thing. 

Maeve’s smirk only deepened, settling into something more entertained than convinced. 

“Really?” she drawled, the sound low and gravelly. “It’s just that you’ve been throwing back that champagne like it’s orange juice. And that,” she added, gesturing lazily with her chin toward Annie’s flute, “is your thirteenth. For the record.”

That got a real laugh out of Annie, softer this time, less guarded. “You’ve been counting my champagnes?” she shot back, raising a brow as she glanced down at the glass like it might confirm the accusation.

“Just keeping an eye,” Maeve replied with a shrug that didn’t bother pretending innocence. The smirk never left her face. “You don’t want to look like an idiot at Stan Edgar’s party.”

“I’m fine,” Annie said, rolling her eyes with a hint of amusement as she leaned back against the bar.  She let out a deep breath, allowing her shoulders to drop in a relaxed state. She went quiet for a moment before turning back to Maeve with a playful glint in her eyes. “Since when do you worry about me, your highness?” 

Maeve just rolled her eyes in response, the smirk never quite leaving her face, and she shook her head. She didn't bother to dignify the question with an answer. But she did change the topic with a casual nonchalance.

“Hey, where were you last night?” she asked, propping an elbow against the bar as she took a measured sip of her whiskey. “You weren’t at the station. Some of the techs were looking for you.”

The shift was instant. 

Annie’s playful grin faltered. The question acted like a bucket of ice water, dragging her mind away from the party and straight back to the steamy moments at the sub-six lab. The heat of Homelander’s skin, the crushing weight of the secrets; and that blue, glowing vial of Compound V. 

Annie blinked once, slow enough for the shift to register, her lips pressing together as the last trace of her earlier smile disappeared into something much more guarded and professional. 

When she spoke, her tone followed suit; steady, measured, almost rehearsed. “I had to return to the Tower. I’ve been investigating Gunpowder’s murder.” The lie came out clean, polished to the point of being believable, her eyes holding Maeve’s without wavering.

“Right.” Maeve nodded, the word landing with mild recollection rather than urgency. The Gunpowder case had slipped her mind somewhere between the scheduling drama and the logistical nightmare that was this year’s Annual Herogasm setup. “How’s that going? Any progress?”

Annie gave a small nod, just enough to sell momentum. “Yeah, we have a suspect. A few, actually, but one more than the others. Crime Analytics is still working on—” 

She cut herself off mid-sentence, the thought halting awkwardly. 

She was supposed to have followed up with Crime Analytics hours ago. She had completely forgotten she was even tasked with a murder case until now. 

It seemed Homelander had literally fucked her brain into a factory reset, overwriting her professional obligations with the bone-deep exhaustion from the sex. 

Annie drew in a sharp, bracing breath and turned back to Maeve, fighting to keep her composure. 

“Yeah—Crime Analytics is still working on finding a facial match,” she finished, the sentence coming out a fraction tighter than the rest.

Maeve caught the shift instantly, one perfectly groomed brow rising in a silent, skeptical arc. “You okay? You look like you just saw a ghost.” 

Annie nodded quickly, almost too quickly, straightening in her seat to reinforce the lie. The champagne flute in her hand remained steady, which was more than could be said for the rest of her internal balance. 

“You know what—” she said, forcing a wide, sheepish grin that didn't quite reach her eyes. “I just realized I forgot to file some paperwork.” She pulled a cheeky, self-deprecating face. “I’m just going to go find a quiet corner and make some quick calls.” 

Annie didn’t wait for a response after that. She slid off the barstool, her stilettos clicking smoothly against the floor as she found her footing. She turned back to Maeve one last time, offering a small, distracted wave before shuffling away into the crowd, her glass held steadily in hand. 

Maeve watched her retreat in silence, a flicker of genuine amusement dancing in her eyes at Starlight’s frantic energy. 

There was something almost endearing about it, the hurried excuse, the slightly overplayed expressions, the way she tried to cover unease with just enough charm to pass. It had a younger energy to it, something unpolished and transparent in a way Maeve recognized immediately and chose not to comment on.

Cute, in a way she would never admit out loud. Like a younger sister trying very hard to pretend she wasn’t in over her head.

But Maeve didn't do "friends," and she certainly didn't do “sisters” or sentiment, so she took another long swallow of scotch and shoved the thought back down into the cold, dark place where it couldn't bother her. 

Out in the long hallway that stretched toward the back entrance of the estate, Annie moved with purpose that skirted on urgency. The noise of the main gathering dulled behind her, replaced by a quieter, more contained atmosphere where her own footsteps echoed in her ears. 

One hand held her champagne, the glass catching stray light as it tilted with her stride, while the other worked her phone, fingers moving quickly as she drafted a short email to Crime Analytics.

For a brief second, her attention slipped. Her eyes lifted from the screen, catching the reflection of the windows lining the left wall, the dark glass offering fragmented glimpses of the swimming pool beyond. 

She looked back down immediately, thumbs resuming their pace. She had barely typed a few words when the mental image finally registered. 

She had seen someone. Someone was there, standing in the shadows. 

Her steps slowed instinctively, her fingers stilling over the screen as her gaze lifted again, this time more deliberately. Her focus sharpened, scanning the windows one by one until it landed.

Black Noir.

He stood two windows down, fully suited, the matte black of his gear absorbing the light like a black hole. While the rest of the estate played dress-up in tailored civility, he had made no such adjustment. 

In fact, he and Homelander were the only ones who hadn’t bothered pretending tonight, both of them wearing their superhero suits like their sole identity.

Noir didn’t move where he stood. Masked from head to toe, he was positioned near the window like a robot that had been abruptly switched off. If he was watching something outside, it wasn’t obvious. If he was thinking, there was no way to tell. He seemed lost in a trance, staring out into the black Westchester night with no apparent interest in the gala behind him. 

Annie studied his rigid demeanor, trying to read the energy radiating from the silent assassin as she closed the distance with slow, cautious steps. She'd noted that there was no immediate threat in his posture, no indication of surveillance or intent. It was unsettling in a way that didn’t demand attention but held it anyway.

She cleared her throat, the sound echoing slightly in the empty hallway. 

“Black Noir.” Annie said simply, stopping a couple of feet away. She offered a casual, almost mocking flick of her chin, fully expecting him to remain as unresponsive as a brick wall. 

To her genuine surprise, though, the masked face tilted toward her. Then, with a slow, mechanical grace, he gave her a silent flick of his chin in return. 

Annie blinked, then let out a quiet, surprised chuckle, nodding back without thinking too much about it.

Well. That was new.

Apparently, frying the Deep’s retinas the previous Friday had done wonders for her street cred within the team, satisfying whatever twisted sense of humor the Seven used to measure respect. There were whispers that the Deep's vision hadn't fully recovered in his left eye. 

Clearly the incident had done more for her reputation than any training session or PR stunt ever could. 

“I thought I saw you at the piano back there.” Annie said, gesturing lazily toward the distant ballroom at the far end of the hall.

Noir gave a single, confirming nod.

Without a word, his hand moved to his back pocket, retrieving the small worn notebook with the pen shoved through the binder. He flipped it open with quiet efficiency, thumb sliding through pages filled with tight, compact handwriting and sketches until he found a blank space. 

The pen followed, uncapped in one smooth motion, and he began to write, the faint scratch of ink against paper the only sound between them.

When he was done, he turned the notebook toward her.

“Was playing. You drink too much.”

Annie let out a short laugh, the sound warmer this time, less guarded. She nodded as if acknowledging a fair point she had no intention of accepting. 

“Why is everyone suddenly concerned about my drinking tonight?” she shot back, lifting her glass slightly in demonstration. “Queen Maeve drinks all the time. No one complains about that.” Her shrug came easy, practiced, like she’d already decided this argument wasn’t one she needed to win.

Noir didn't hesitate. His pen went back to the paper immediately. He wrote again, pen moving with the same steady pace before he held it up once more.

“Exactly.”

That earned him a huff from Annie. She rolled her eyes, the gesture exaggerated to sell her mock annoyance. 

“I’m fiiine,” she insisted, drawing the word out with a hint of playful defiance before softening it with a small, almost polite smile. “But thanks for the concern. Really. Means a lot.”

There was something oddly disarming about it, this version of interaction from someone who barely interacted at all. It wasn’t expressive in the traditional sense, but it was consistent, direct in a way that didn’t require decoding. 

Noir gave a small nod in return, the acknowledgment quiet but present, before turning back toward the window. The notebook remained open in his hand, pen still resting between his fingers, as if he hadn’t fully decided whether the interaction was over or simply paused.

He might have slipped back into that same stillness if she hadn’t spoken again.

“Hey, so… that sketch you made the other day.” Annie’s tone shifted, still casual on the surface, but with a thread of hesitation running underneath it now. She adjusted her grip on the glass unconsciously, eyes lifting toward his visor as if trying to read something that wasn’t designed to be read. “You know, the one with the Deep.”

She clicked her tongue softly, a small, self-aware sound, before exhaling through her nose. “It slipped out of my pocket yesterday when I was taking out my phone and… Homelander found it.” The words slowed slightly toward the end, her gaze staying on him now, more evaluating, waiting.

Noir turned to her again, fully this time. There was no nervous energy, just that same robotic stillness. He brought the notebook close to his chest and scribbled one more time before turning the page toward her. 

“What did he say?”

Annie let out a nervous huff of a laugh, the sound slipping out before she could properly package it into something more controlled. 

“He kind of… nicely warned me to stay away from you,” she said, lifting a hand in a loose, dismissive gesture as if she were brushing the whole thing off. “You know—first strike. But he definitely got jealous.”

She shook her head slightly, as if even saying it out loud made it feel more ridiculous and childish than it already was. The whole situation has had that effect on her lately.

“So you might want to, you know… not draw me anymore,” she added, her tone softening into something more sincere despite the humor still clinging to it. “Homelander will get after me. Not you.” She gave Noir a small, unapologetic shrug, practical rather than personal.

Better safe than sorry. Right?

She had told herself as much this afternoon once her senses finally returned after a short nap, realizing she shouldn't have hooked up with Homelander in the heat of a vulnerable moment. Even the fleeting thought of the encounter pulled another small eye-roll from her as she waited for Noir to respond. 

Meanwhile, the masked man remained still for a moment longer, unreadable as ever, the notebook resting loosely in his hand. There was a slight tilt of his masked face, as if he were deep in thought. 

Then, without ceremony, he turned to the notebook and began writing again. The pen moved faster this time, more decisive, before he turned it toward her.

“Repression of art by preventing creation harms an artist’s rights.”

Annie blinked at the sentence, letting it sit there for a beat longer than she expected to. Then a soft laugh escaped her, genuine this time, catching her slightly off guard. She nodded slowly, grin widening into something bemused and a little incredulous. 

“Okay, okay,” she said, lifting a hand in surrender. “I hear you. But Homelander is definitely not going to like that argument.”

Noir had already started writing before she even finished speaking. The motion was even quicker now, more immediate, as if he had been waiting for the opening. He flipped the notebook and held it up again.

“You should stop slipping them from your pocket.”

That got another laugh out of her, lighter this time, one that seemed to ease some of the tension she hadn’t fully noticed building. The man was funny and surprisingly opinionated. It was almost disorienting in a strangely pleasant way. 

Who would’ve thought? Annie mused internally. 

Noir didn’t linger on her reaction. His gaze dropped again, pen already moving as if the conversation was simply continuing at its own pace regardless of her input. He turned the notebook back toward her once more.

“Dance with me?”

The words landed so abruptly that Annie actually choked on a tipsy laugh, shoulders lifting as she shook her head. “No!” she exclaimed, half-giggling, half-protesting. “What did I just say about Homelander?”

He scribbled again, turning the notebook so she could see the ink forming in real time.

“Exactly.”

Annie let out a sharp gasp, somewhere between scandalized and entertained, the sound breaking into a louder laugh she couldn’t quite rein back in. 

And Noir remained exactly as he was, unmoving as a posted silhouette, watching her through the blank mask with that same unreadable patience, as if waiting for her to arrive at a revised response.

When her laughter finally tapered off into uneven breaths, she found herself still smiling at him, slightly cynical. The silence between them didn’t feel empty so much as expectant.

“Ugh…” Annie groaned, tipping her head back slightly as if appealing to the ceiling for better judgment. The humor in her voice hadn’t fully left, but it was now mixed with hesitation. “I don’t know… he’s going to be pissed. Might as well laser me in half.”

The thought lingered for half a second longer, and then she ruined it by laughing again, quieter this time, more self-directed. She rolled her eyes at herself as if she were already tired of her own indecision. 

Because at this point, what exactly was she trying to preserve? Reputation? Safety for life? Stability? A sense of normal consequence? The entire list felt increasingly theoretical and frankly, meaningless.

Honestly, she’d seen worse outcomes these past couple of months. At least this one came with clarity. At the very least, her chances of ever having to look at Donna again would drop to a permanent zero if Homelander killed her tonight. It would be a mercy, actually. 

“You know what—” Annie started, exhaling as she straightened slightly, shoulders squaring, something reckless slipping behind her eyes. “Fuck it. Let’s dance.”

The decision, once made, didn’t come with ceremony. She lifted the champagne flute and drained what remained in a single, ungraceful swallow, the sweetness disappearing quickly into warmth she barely registered. The glass was set down on the windowsill with a soft clink, and she slipped her phone into Noir’s hand. 

“Put that in your pocket.” She said with a tipsy little wink. “I’ll take it after the dance.” 

Her posture shifted into something more confident now, like she was stepping into a role rather than abandoning caution. She gave him a small nod, equal parts invitation and challenge before she could overthink it. 

——

By the time Black Noir and Starlight returned to the ballroom, the shift in her demeanor was immediately noticeable to anyone paying even halfway decent attention. 

Her arm was looped through his with an easy familiarity that was almost impossible. She was giggling under her breath, the kind of unfiltered, slightly reckless amusement that didn’t quite match the controlled elegance of the setting around her. 

Tipsy was an understatement, but not quite chaotic either. More like she had temporarily misplaced her internal editor and wasn’t in any rush to find it.

Noir, on the other hand, moved like he always did, economical and silent. His posture unchanged from any other environment, as if social situations were just another terrain to cross without deviation. 

He didn’t look down at her, didn’t adjust to her pace beyond what was strictly necessary, and yet he allowed the contact without resistance.

To the onlookers, the sight bordered on intimate—a shocking development, considering Black Noir was famously averse to fraternizing with his colleagues. He was not known for companionship, conversation, or anything that could remotely be interpreted as social warmth. 

The silent consensus among the room was that Starlight had simply drank too much, and Noir, ever the dutiful soldier, was playing the gentleman by escorting her back to the safety of the inner circle. It made sense in a way that allowed everyone to relax back into their roles as observers.

That illusion lasted until he led her further than anyone expected. The dance floor.

The subtle shift in energy was almost audible. Conversations softened mid-sentence. Glasses paused halfway to lips. Even the music seemed, for a moment, slightly more aware of itself. The movement was small, but the collective reaction was not. Black Noir willingly stepping onto a dance floor was not something the room had any established reference for.

Even Stan Edgar turned his head, his cold gaze shifting to track the improbable pair as they reached the edge of the floor. 

Noir stopped there, still composed and unreadable. Then he extended a hand toward her.

Annie placed her palm in his, and Noir’s other hand rose to the small of her bare back, his touch light as he pulled her gently into the slow, rhythmic sway of the music. 

A soft gasp rose from the crowd of predators and aristocrats, followed by a wave of hushed, swooning murmurs. In an instant, every eye in the room was fixed on them, captivated by the spectacle of what appeared to be a "wholesome" and plausibly "romantic" encounter unfolding in real time. 

Of course, none of this was lost on Homelander. 

He had been present the entire time, tracking the night’s developments like a heat seeking missile. Regardless of which high-society parasite he was forced to entertain to keep Stan Edgar satisfied, including the cold patriarch himself, his hyper attuned senses remained locked onto every member of his team.

He knew exactly what Starlight was running on. Thirteen glasses of champagne preceded by seven cans of Red Bull, a desperate chemical cocktail to keep herself going through the marrow-deep exhaustion that was the standard tax for a night with Homelander. 

He had noted the exact moment she’d drifted away, and he certainly noted her return. She wasn't just back; she was draped over Noir, giggling with a sloppy loop of her arm through his.

What the actual fuck?

Had he not been explicitly clear last night? Had he not warned her that Noir was off-limits? 

He watched them with his eyes narrowed into slivers, his focus so absolute that the rest of the gala blurred into a background ringing. By the time those two drifted into the dance, his irritation had soured into a simmering, acid green jealousy that burned in the back of his throat.

He despised every single detail of the tableau.

Black Noir—his Noir—swaying with the new girl. Maeve was an acceptable exception, a rare occurrence he could tolerate once in a blue moon, but this felt like a targeted strike. 

Why her? To mess with him?

And beyond the perceived betrayal, he loathed the way the spotlight had shifted. In an instant, the great Homelander had been reduced to a background extra in a room suddenly obsessed with how "precious" the pairing of the silent assassin and the starlet appeared to be.

His brow furrowed into an ugly tight line, his jaw ticking as the cacophony of hushed, admiring swoons grated against his eardrums. His gaze never wavered, scrutinizing the way their bodies moved in a slow, synchronized rhythm, appearing entirely too comfortable in the quiet space between them. 

He watched Starlight’s arms remain looped around Noir’s neck, her expression glassy and serene as she stared blankly into the void of the black mask. She was undeniably, catastrophically drunk; and if she hadn't reached her limit before, she was surely drunk now in the novelty of Noir’s undivided attention.

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, though his jaw remained locked so tight that a vein began to throb visibly at his temple. His hands shifted from behind his back to his hips, a restless, predatory energy taking hold as he tracked the placement of Noir’s hands on her.

They were at her waist now, the dark fabric of his gloves stark against the pale, exposed skin of her lower back. 

Homelander loathed the way Noir’s gaze remained fixed and motionless on hers; the man appeared utterly lost, a robotic sort of trance that didn't hinder the fluid grace of his movements to the music.

As the music transitioned into a new movement, Noir’s grip tightened against her back, pulling her deeper into his personal space with a careful, infuriatingly gentlemanly touch. 

And much to Homelander's disgust, Starlight seemed to find the gesture charming. She looked as though she might float away into the clouds at any second. 

Someone seriously needed to bitch-slap some sobriety into her.

Finally, he lost the battle and rolled his eyes, watching the pair with a toxic cocktail of contempt and simmering jealousy. He searched for the logic in it, wondering how, exactly, this had been allowed to happen.

The shift in their positions came gradually, as dance inevitably dictated. They rotated across the floor. Starlight’s back now faced him, her exposed skin framed by the plunging cut of the gown, the gold fabric pooling and tightening with every subtle movement. 

From this angle, Homelander could see more of the structure of her spine, the way it moved in controlled motion with Noir. If only he could rip that spine out of her back. 

Noir’s face was now turned toward him, but there was still nothing readable there, nothing that offered the satisfaction of confrontation. 

But instead of glaring at Noir, Homelander’s eyes remained on the expanse of Starlight's bare skin. 

The frown on his forehead coiled tight before loosening into a look of mild, flickering confusion as he traced her curves and the way the gold silk clung to her body like a second skin.

His gaze descended slowly, landing again on the firm pressure of Noir’s hand against the small of her back. 

The tempo of the dance had picked up, and with every quicker shift of her body, the fabric at the side of her bodice pulled and shifted, revealing her side boob every time. 

Homelander’s fingers clenched into the fabric at his hips, and his lips twitched. Before he could shove the sensation down, the memories of the previous night began to flicker behind his eyes: her naked, vulnerable under him, and enjoying him too much at the dingy lab where he was made and raised. 

The arousal manifested with an immediate bulge in his pants, straining the reinforced leather, the material groaning audibly in his ears. 

He shook his head with a violent jerk to dislodge the intrusive memories, desperately attempting to convince himself that the encounter had been nothing more than another ordinary hook-up in a long line of sexcapades.

Yet the moment his mind cleared, his gaze was magnetically drawn back to her, catching the exact second the shifting fabric on the side of her gown threatened a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction. 

But before the silk could completely reveal her breast, Noir’s hand shifted with a fluid, almost absentminded instinct, reaching up to adjust the material and shield her modesty.

A single brow arched high on Homelander’s face as his internal temperature spiked. 

His irritation has suddenly evolved, boiling over with… well, with more jealousy. As if the emotion inside him had changed direction midstream and left the original reasoning stranded behind. 

He had initially been livid that Starlight had managed to weaponize her sanctimonious charm to lure Noir onto the floor, but now, a fresh wave of resentment crashed over him because Noir was being entirely too attentive. 

What the hell did he care about her? He wondered. Why would he bother to be too nice? Maybe he was just being a gentleman. But, fuck that. He didn't have to do that. And he certainly didn't have to touch her like that. Not when Noir explicitly announced himself that Homelander had a “crush” on the new girl. 

And Homelander knew for a fact that Noir would never intentionally fuck with his emotions simply to manipulate him. That was more of a Madelyn Stillwell or even a Maeve thing, whereas Noir had always been his singular, trusted shadow in every sense of the word. 

His shoulders stiffened slightly, not in anger exactly, but in the uncomfortable realization that his irritation no longer had a clean target. It kept shifting, refusing to stay fixed on one object long enough to feel justified.

What was he even supposed to be annoyed about now? That she was dancing with Noir? That she was touching Noir? Or that Noir was touching her? 

He blinked as his stare went blank momentarily; a small, troubled crease marring the perfection of his forehead as a new theory took root. 

Could it be possible that Noir had developed a genuine fascination for her, one so potent that even his legendary self-control was beginning to crack? The man was a closeted poetic romantic in his own silent aesthetic fashion, after all.

“Aha,” Homelander murmured under his breath, a smug, dangerous little chuckle escaping his lips as he convinced himself he had finally solved the puzzle.