Chapter Text
Homelander didn’t know when he first started thinking of himself as The Homelander instead of John, even in his own head. In all honesty, he hadn’t been fond of the name at first. In one of her many late night ramblings as she isolated a viral strain, Deepa had told him that one of the other contenders was “The Avenger”.
Homelander, back when he was just John, had spent the next few weeks mouthing the words to himself, feeling himself fit into the concept of being The Avenger. Not an avenger, but the.
The Avenger, The Avenger, The Avenger, as he laid curled up in his sterile cot at night, staring up at the strips of ceiling lights.
The Avenger, The Avenger, The Avenger, through gritted teeth as he was subjected to a round of acid experiments that Martin had recently been far too interested in seeing the results of, bubbling blisters rising and falling over swatches of raw skin as his healing factor tried to outrun the damage.
The Avenger, The Avenger, The Avenger, hummed under his breath as Deepa told him, rather regretfully, that no, he was no longer going to be “The Avenger”, but rather, The Homelander. She genuinely seemed torn up about the decision. John would realize later that she never once seemed regretful about any of the viruses she’d tested on him, not even when he was a child so small that she had to hold him in her lap to help him down the Filoviridae milkshake that made every orifice in his body bleed for days afterwards.
He was still attached to The Avenger. It had been his greatest comfort and his closest friend for a long time. He had heard the word “homeland” many times, mostly in the lectures that a rotating series of teachers would offer him about the greatness of America. He hadn’t cared for it much at first, but the word home comforted him, so he accepted the moniker gratefully, taking it as a badge of honor.
So, he was The Homelander.
The Deep was rattling on about something that Starlight and her little posse was doing out there in the wild. Homelander had intended to listen— not because he cared about The Deep in the slightest, but because it had been a month or two since he’d last caught a whiff of dear old Butcher, and he wasn’t the type of man to be idle. Homelander had sent Noir and Deep on little recon missions, but he’d mostly just been trying to get the latter out of his hair. The pathetic bastard had his uses, but intelligence was simply not one of them.
“…and so Starlight is definitely trying to get double injected with V,” Deep said, sounding awfully serious about it all. “And something about a lab or whatever. That’s what my contact said.”
“Don’t tell me your “contact” is the fucking clownfish,” A-Train said, looking quite tired of it all. Homelander couldn’t blame the man. Maybe his failing heart had to do with The Deep actively taking years off of his life.
“Hey, he has a name, bro,” The Deep said, sounding more miffed than he had when several human people had died by his hands. “It’s Jonathan.” He seemed entirely unaware of how little everyone in the room respected him, continuing his incessant yammering that made little to no sense and drawing conclusions that seemed to have appeared out of thin air. The Deep was always doing that, making it awfully evident to everyone in the room that his tongue was but a distant relative to his brain (if that) and there was therefore nary a thought in his head.
The others seemed to wait for Homelander to put an end to it. Usually, he took some pleasure in fixing the imbecile with a pointed stare, watching the fear wash across his entire body as Homelander let his eyes flicker red for a moment, just for the fun of it all.
But today, his heart just wasn’t in it. It was so much of the same old, same old. Vought’s board was breathing down his neck about some incident Homelander could frankly care less about, The Seven were still looking for another member so that they could be, well… seven, and every night was a long stretch of nothing where he didn’t have anywhere to be and anywhere to go. He took to haunting his floor, floating around in his supe suit with his cape fluttering behind him while fantasizing about tearing apart his enemies molecule by molecule.
It was an old routine of his, the wandering and his murderous nighttime past times. He had been an insomniac his entire life. The people the featured in his bloody fantasies changed a lot over the years, however, and therefore, the fantasies had grown more detailed and gruesome to fit his new angers.
At first, he’d only hated the higher-ups that bothered his dear Madelyn, and then later, those who insisted on hating him and opposing him no matter how much good Homelander publicly did. Finn Miller, popular host of an anti-supe talk show died a million fiery deaths in Homelander’s head. And of course, where would he be without the long, drawn out encounters he constructed in his mind about facing off against William Butcher and putting him down like a pesky dog?
Homelander sat back in his chair, arms clasped over his chest as he let The Deep’s words fly over his head. Sometimes he wondered why he even bothered to do this song and dance anymore. He could just fly off to the middle of nowhere, live out in the wilderness. It wasn’t like anything in nature could kill him. But the thought of leaving and being even more alone somehow felt worse than the stuffy rooms of the Vought tower where the persistent smell of antiseptic coated every surface around him as long as he could remember and somehow still managed to never fade past the point of detection of his sensitive nose.
Madelyn had told him to stay for the fans, back when she was still around. But Homelander hadn’t like his fans in a long time. In fact, he rather hated them. Of course he loved being loved, but some of them were so awfully attached to the idea of Homelander as the alpha’s alpha that he just couldn’t stand it.
Countless PR campaigns, a signature red cedar scent sold in the millions, artificial pheromones to rub on his neck every day, and his naturally prominent fangs (and of course, who could forget his insane power, the likes of which nobody had ever seen before) was more than enough for nobody, even his most ardent opposition, to even consider than Homelander was anything but an alpha. Once, he’d heard rumors that he was some sort of super alpha, the kind that could forcefully turn other alphas into betas or something ridiculous like that. How Homelander would manage to change their anatomy was beyond him, but he supposed there was a lot about Compound V science that he did not understand.
In the early years after his debut, he’d leaned into the idea. It made him feel a rush to see people’s eyes looking up at him with admiration, knowing that they considered him to be the best of them. He’d flash his fangs at the camera, rescue omegas gallantly and wink at them in the crowd, and make shows of applying fake rut hormones to himself every now and then and delighting in watching fans fantasize about him on the internet.
Omegas, betas, and even many alphas wanted him. They thought he was strong and heroic and they fantasized about his thick supe knot. They all wanted to get on their knees to be fucked by him. They wanted to offer their necks up like little sacrificial lambs for him to bite into with his sharp teeth. These thoughts were like a drug to him, so opposite the constant blank-faced observation, scientific curiosity, and vague pity that had been directed towards him when he lived in the lab. His new life was glorious. John was a puny omega, alone and afraid. Homelander was a strong, desired alpha, and he was loved.
Those salacious thoughts of an alpha high were his closest companions whenever his goddamned heats came around. Every time his body fell into its omega fever, undeterred by any amount of suppressants Homelander desperately tried to swallow down, he would twist and turn in his bed, hands stroking his omega cock that was typically hidden by the large alpha cup on his supe suit.
Sometimes, he’d keep his gloves on, hearing the leather creak as he ran his hand up and down his dick, chasing a high that seemed to elude him. He’d always close his eyes, thinking about all the pretty, desperate, devoted fans of his that yearned to be under him. He thought about that one interviewer who had run into him in the bathroom in the back of the studio once, kissing his jaw and cupping the crotch of his suit, whispering in his ear that she wanted him to stretch her out on his knot and make her cry. He thought of the omega man who used to work for Madelyn a few summers ago, who was too shy to look Homelander in the eye but was so aroused by the sight of him that Homelander smelled it a floor away. And of course, in the worst throes of his heat, Madelyn was there, her warm smile and swollen breasts dripping with milk as she cradled him in her lap and caressed his face.
Homelander wanted to be with someone so badly, someone who wasn’t mothering him the whole time, someone who could bite into him with that carnal fervor and made his heart race the same way he heard everyone else’s sped up around the ones they desired. He wanted to be on top of someone, he wanted to feel the rush of being on top of the world, of being powerful and being wanted and being an alpha, but he was reduced to this-- leaking a puddle onto his star-spangled sheets, his eyes teary as he ached between his legs to be filled and stretched like some pathetic bitch.
No matter how much he wanted to, Homelander never let his hands wander down to his hole, not even when the sheets were sticking to him with sweat and slick and he could feel his pulse between his legs accompanying the raw emptiness. It left him frustrated and made his heats longer and harder every time he was left unsatisfied, but Homelander was nothing if not stubborn. He lingered there, torn between the fantasies of dominating and being dominated, of destroying and being destroyed, until the thoughts all turned sour in his mouth and he tasted bile.
But in the end, it didn’t matter that Homelander was an omega. Sure, he had his heats, but nobody knew, nobody but Madelyn and a few of the higher-ups and his handlers. In all the ways that actually mattered, Homelander was the one true alpha. And for many years, Homelander made his peace with that.
But the feeling was short-lived. All it took was for someone to make a crude comment on Twitter a few short years into his career about what they’d do to Homelander if he was an omega. #HomeWife was trending for days, complete with vulgar photoshopped pictures and enraged omega rights thinkpieces. Homelander, against Madelyn’s warning, scrolled through them, anger curdling in his stomach. Every joke made his eyes burn in his head, until some pin-up doodle someone had done of him in traditional omega lingerie enraged him to the point that he put a hole through the screen of his stupid phone. All those useless, puny humans, daring to think that they could subjugate him. But that’s all they ever wanted, wasn’t it? They wanted to feel powerful, and what was a better way to feel so other than fantasizing about this? About bringing him down to their level?
He no longer wanted to be the best of them. In fact, he didn’t want to be one of them at all, the weaklings that would grovel at his feet if he so wished. Unbidden, a thought came to his mind then. Once, years ago, he had been dragged to one of Ezekiel’s over-the-top sermons. Homelander had long ago perfected the art of wearing his public face, so he had taken the time to zone out entirely, but one thing the man had said caught Homelander’s attention.
“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End... who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”
Now, it wasn’t as though Homelander cared for religion in the least. But the words struck him in a way that no words ever had before. He was the one true alpha, and the one true omega. The beginning and the end. The Almighty. Perhaps that should have been his supe name.
He no longer cared what those mudpeople thought of him. They were nothing in the face of his power. He was The Avenger. The Homelander. The Almighty.
“Sir,” The Deep’s obsequious tone cut through Homelander’s musing. “What do you think?”
Homelander fixed him with a look, letting his disgust show. It was nice, in a way, to be able to show someone his emotions so freely and have him not run away. Of course, that was because The Deep was too scared to run, not knowing that Homelander wouldn’t bother to follow him. Even in his lackeyisms, The Deep was somehow a narcissist. Homelander couldn’t believe the man was an alpha. It had to be nature’s biggest joke.
“Sir—“ The Deep started speaking again, but Homelander held up a finger to hush him. The Deep closed his jaw with an audible click.
Black Noir didn’t move a muscle, but Homelander could feel the eyes on him, his and A-Train’s. Homelander was in no mood to bully The Deep today, but something just wasn’t right. Homelander took in a deep breath, tilting his head. Everyone in the room held their breath as he rose, cocking his head towards the vent in the wall. Homelander closed his eyes, letting his lungs fill with little wisps of a smell he had missed oh-so-much.
Leather, some strong wooden scent that Homelander had never been enough of an outdoorsman to properly place, and the newer, heavy overlay of acrid chemicals and death.
The smell of Billy Butcher.
“So let me get this straight,” MM hissed through a clenched jaw. “You want us to break into Vought fucking tower. In broad daylight.”
“Don’t be a pussy about it now,” Butcher said with a roll of his eyes. “Even lil Hughie ‘ere did that on his first rendezvous with me.”
“That was different,” Hughie sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “I was a nobody then. And it still nearly got us all killed.”
“Well if you’re such a big name now, you better start living up to it,” Butcher said with his crooked smile and then went right back to cranking cogs on whatever spy gadget or explosive he’d somehow convinced Frenchie to supply him with.
Hughie and Annie shared a concerned look. “Butcher,” Annie started slowly, looking over at MM, who seemed close to losing it once again. “Do you really think the best use of our resources and the favors you’re calling in is to do a suicide mission into the tower, of all places?”
Butcher didn’t even do much as look up from his little tinkering project. “Darling, do I look like a man who wastes anything?”
“Money, on those shirts of yours,” Hughie grumbled under his breath. Butcher somehow looked genuinely wounded at that, but before he could defend himself, Annie cut in again, fixing her boyfriend with a meaningful look.
“Look, Butcher, I know you want to get Homelander, but not at the cost of you killing yourself and all of us in the process. You have to—”
“What I have to do is stop waiting around on my ass,” Butcher said, turning to face Annie with a stern look on his face. “While you lot sit around here waggin’ your tongues, I actually got something done.”
“And what is that, exactly?” MM asked, crossing his arms and squaring his stance as if preparing to fight Butcher. Given their history, it wasn’t entirely out of the question.
“Well, while I was out last week—”
“And we thought you were dead,” Hughie interjected.
“I always knew you cared, ya cunt. Anyways, I did some recon. Tell me, Annie, how did they get that V in you?”
Annie bristled at the mention of Compound V, looking at everyone else in the room before she cleared her throat. “My mom told me it was just injections,” she said quietly. “She said she wouldn’t have signed me up for it if it looked dangerous.” Annie didn’t sound like she believed the words, but she said them anyways.
“Every supe brat out there was shot up with the juice, just like Starlight here. But what makes Homelander special?”
Hughie’s eyes snapped to Butcher’s face. “You’re saying it’s not luck of the draw?”
Butcher grinned. “No such thing as luck in this world, mate.”
MM sighed, running a hand down his face. “Stop drawing this out, Butcher. I’m this close to kicking you out again.”
“Alright, alright. Nobody’s got any time for proper showmanship these days.” Butcher put down the device (which, at this point in his building process, was truly starting to resemble an active explosive). “Homelander’s backstory is all fucking horseshit. There’s no scenic Midwest farm, no quaint lil rural parents, no fucking golden retriever pissing on the their picket fence.”
MM nodded slowly. “Well, everything Vought touts is a scam. You got anything useful?”
“That I do,” Butcher grinned, leaning forward with an ear-to-ear smile on his face. “That supe cunt was a fucking lab rat.”
Hughie squinted, a series of revelations flickering over his face. Annie’s mouth twisted into something ugly and sad. “In… in what capacity are we talking?” Hughie asked slowly. “Like a test tube baby?”
“I got my hands on some guy with some sort of spectroscopy vision. He used to do work with Vought, in some lil lab of theirs. He said Homelander was created there, and that’s why there ain’t a single sighting of the bastard before his first save.”
“His first save was when he was sixteen,” Annie said, eyebrows drawn together. “A few months before Vought signed him.”
“Do you think he was… he was in there until…?” Hughie looked at MM, who was wearing yet another new expression of exhaustion and discomfort. Nobody was sure how he had more expressions left after everything the world had thrown at him. “How do we know that we can trust this… this spectro guy?”
“Men don’t tend to lie before lights out,” Butcher said with a shrug, and Hughie bristled in response. MM was unmoved by Butcher’s doings these days, and Annie was no longer naive enough to expect anything different from him.
“How does this help us?” Annie asked, pursing her lips. “It’s a fun fact for his Wikipedia page and for all the conspiracy theorists, I’m sure.”
“You don’t think big enough,” Butcher said, somehow grinning even wider. “You’re forgetting that lab experiments have records.”
Hughie looked up in interest. “You think there’s something in them?”
There was a spark in Butcher’s eye, one that Hughie was used to at this point. The kind of spark that was intent on causing the entire world to burn. “Oh, I know it.”
“It should be down this hall,” Hughie whispered, looking down at the crude map that Butcher had gotten from god-knows-where. “I think it’s just a fingerprint.” He looked at the severed finger Butcher had taken from one of the guards upstairs with mild distaste.
Butcher’s eyes were flickering gold already as he looked around, shoulders squaring with the intent to fight anything that moved. Annie was just outside, waiting to whisk the two of them away right after they escaped from the vents. This was a pointed mission, one with no room for error. Hughie and Butcher had descended down to the Vought Tower basement, where all the records were kept. Annie had had a vague idea where some of the files regarding Homelander would be.
“Frenchie’s not seeing any alarms go off yet,” MM muttered into Hughie and Butcher’s bluetooths. The connection was choppy down here, especially with the thick walls of concrete walling them off from the outside, but it was enough. “Be careful.” His words buzzed in their ears, accompanied by the heavy background sound of recycled air rushing through the vents and the stark, flickering strip lights overhead.
Butcher gestured with his head, ducking behind a corner, and Hughier followed, trying his best to be unseen. Butcher’s eyes zeroed in on a thick iron door further down the hall. There was a solitary guard standing in front of it, looking quite bored. There was a camera pointed at the door, its watchful red eye trained and unblinking.
There was no time to do anything about it. The dead guards upstairs could be found at any second. But if they walked in the eyeline of that camera, they had a couple minutes, tops, to get out of there. And that’s if that pesky little guard didn’t press some sort of panic signal before that.
“We’re going in,” Butcher said, and before Hughie could even process a single word of it, he launched forward with a battle cry worthy of a viking.
“For fuck’s sake,” Hughie groaned, stumbling after him and whipping out the taser gun that Frenchie had put together for him. Anything to keep a little more blood off their hands.
The poor guard, bless his soul, looked so frightened by the image of Butcher barrelling towards him with his glowing eyes and snarling mouth that he didn’t even properly aim his gun before he was taking a fist to the jaw, the punch making him twist and fall straight to the ground. “What-what the fuck--” he yelled out, hands scrambling to get to the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt, but Butcher didn’t give him the chance. Gold beams shot out of his eyes, frying the man’s hand into a charred, smoking pulp.
“Jesus Butcher!” Hughie yelled, jolting back as Butcher swung his fiery gaze up to the camera as well, leaving it smouldering. The guard was screaming, clutching his forearm as his face contorted into something inhumane as a result of his pain. “You couldn’t have just let me take care of it?”
“Don’t get your fucking panties in a knot,” Butcher hissed, tapping on the fingerprint reader with the severed finger he’d collected from earlier as the guard’s screams continued to echo and warp down the hall. “He’s set for life. Vought’ll give him a hefty pension.”
“There’s something seriously wrong with you,” Hughie said, dropping to his knees and ripping part of his shirt to wrap around the guard’s bleeding arm. It wasn’t a stump, not yet, but with his blackened hand hanging off his wrist at a strange angle, it would only be a matter of time. The guard yelped and just scrambled back, pausing his strings of curses to turn and throw up on the formerly pristine white floor.
There was a low beeping noise and the door to the records room clicked open. Butcher swung it open with a slow grin, seemingly unbothered by the mix of bodily fluids on the floor or the curses of the man he had just left dismembered. “Look at that. Open sesame.”
“Butcher--”
Suddenly, the guard’s screaming stopped. Butcher whirled around, his trench coat sweeping in an arc around him as he lunged in front of Hughie, kicking him back into the now-open room and shielding him with his body. The guard was now laying on the ground, entirely quiet due to the hole that had been burned straight through his head. One of his eyes was still somewhat recognizable, a soft shade of hazel that was melting into gooey sclera as it all dripped into the simmering mess than used to be his skull. Butcher looked up, jaw clenching.
Homelander floated in front of him, just a few inches off the ground. There was no reason for him to be doing so. There was little advantage to be gained from floating in a hall as short as this one, so it was surely just to enjoy the fact that he could. That he was above all the mortals he so despised. Or perhaps it was so that he could pretend to be taller than Butcher. It had to bother him, the idea of tilting his head up to look someone in the eyes.
He had his hands folded politely behind his back, his cape fluttering in some imaginary wind in the stagnant air, looking for all the world like the perfect comic book image of a superhero instead of like a man who had just killed someone mere seconds ago.
“Homelander,” said Butcher, praying to all the gods and the devil that Hughie had safely made his way into the records room. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“William.” Homelander smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I wasn’t expecting visitors. But you always know when I’m in need of a pick-me-up somehow.”
Butcher twisted his neck, popping his joints as his tentacles slithered out of his clothes, itching for a fight. “Pleasure to be of service.”
He barely got the last word out before Homelander lunged.