Chapter Text
She had dangled the incriminating evidence over his head, like a feather to a cat, for the better part of a year.
It wasn’t easy at first, but Annie managed to find a sense of normalcy again. Amidst the paranoia, she returned to Vought Tower and was reinstated to her former team. It was nearly comical how easy it had been for the public to accept her leave as a misunderstanding. Rabid fans who were once quick to tarnish her name were seated front row for her comeback. It didn’t sit right with her, but they were as much a victim to Vought’s brainwashing as she had been growing up in Des Moines with a face full of make up and sparkly dresses two sizes smaller than they should have been.
The flash of a dozen cameras eventually moved over to their next point of focus. Homelander was at the center of it all, blonde hair slicked back, composed as he often was. His public statement was nothing but rehearsed lines, stoic and impeccable yet so far from how he truly felt.
The threat placed upon him served its purpose. And though it kept him in line, Annie had been perplexed at first— even after Maeve had assured her it would work.
“That son of a bitch can’t hurt us anymore.”
It didn’t quite feel like the case, but she shrugged it off, blaming it on her nerves and trust issues.
Eventually everyone moved on. Hughie was the first, claiming he was done going about things the wrong way. Butcher followed soon after, and the remaining Boys weren’t so far behind. It left Annie with no choice but to do the same.
The paranoia never left, but it did shrink in size. She allowed herself to find that peace she always wanted.
A year had gone by without Homelander causing any problems. She didn’t see much of him, not unless a meeting was called by Maeve to monitor his behavior. Days would pass without even a glimpse of his bleached head and ironed cape.
Being named co-captain of The Seven was like a double edged sword, one she had seen coming from a mile away but welcomed with arms wide open. The opportunity given to her was unlike any, and the small, naive little Annie that still lived on despite the fucked up things she had been put through by the mere idea of being a superhero… well, it ached for it. It ached for recognition. It ached for the chance to do the right thing.
But Homelander, he had been stripped bare, forced to stand naked without the warmth and comfort of his pride. The same pride that once sheltered him from everything he convinced himself he didn’t fear.
The mask he steadied over his face began to crumble, and the twitch of his eye was apparent with every joint photoshoot they were both forced to attend.
It was almost relieving to see his arrogance return. If she had known the birthday routine would’ve kept him in check, she might have actually done the stupid thing. Instead, she decides to cling on to her integrity. After all, hadn’t she worked her ass off to make a name for herself? Why should she have to stoop so low and embarrass herself for a man that wants nothing but to bully and belittle her every chance he gets?
So she stands her ground and says no. Her decision is supported by Stan Edgar himself, who humbles Homelander in a heartbeat. She doesn’t know how he does it without so much as a flinch but she cringes at the reaction.
His speech that night is an expected culmination of months of constantly humiliating him to no end. The moment every bitter word leaves his lips, her blood thickens like poison inside her veins. Her brain conjures up a picture, clear as day inside her head. Her own hands covered in blood, the overwhelming need to take responsibility for the harm he will bring upon the people who oppose him.
She sees the twinkle in his eye return—and to a degree, it’s blinding. His laser vision pales in comparison.
After, when the cameras turn off and the broadcast comes to an end, he recoils back to his room in the tower. As he turns the hall to enter the elevator, she can almost hear the sound of his shackles hitting the cold tile beneath him.
Shit hits the fan at rapid pace after that. She warns Hughie, tries to recruit Alex and does her best to stay positive given the serious pile of dog shit they land themselves on.
Annie knows time is running out, knows her moves have become sloppy. Unorganized. So unlike her.
She isn’t expecting the stunt Homelander pulls. She’s stunned for sure though, throat dry and lips shut tight, unable to fight back or speak out. She doesn’t want to do it. The hopelessness returns, drowning out the courage she spent an entire year gathering. She can feel Alex’s eyes on her, and when she meets his gaze, she begs him not to say anything. For his sake and her own.
She sees Homelander’s challenge, feels it in his body language as he stands beside her— notices the way his brows furrow in question, daring her to oppose him. Annie feels her blood boil, and images of the past year come back to her like tidal waves, flooding her subconscious. She refuses to let him have any sort of hold over her again, not without a fight.
Annie clenches her right fist behind her back as she kisses him. She can feel his surprise, the millisecond he startles and almost pulls back. She doesn’t allow him to do so, and he eases into it immediately. It is a bizarre fact she’s not prepared to learn, but his lips are soft against her own. She doesn’t think tender is the right word, much less appropriate given the kind of man he is, but it’s strange nonetheless— that she doesn’t find it repulsive right away.
She goes home after that, her shared space with Hughie, who is conveniently nowhere near when she needs him most. It is probably the last time she’ll step foot in this place. Cameras will start following her every move soon, desperate to catch her and Homelander in compromising positions. Excited to paint them as America’s next It couple, to turn their love story into a myth that could rival Soldier Boy himself.
His rise back to fame was inevitable. Long did he fantasize about returning to the top of the food chain, a place he had grown more than accustomed to throughout this tenure in Vought.
Stormfront’s suicide served the truth to him on a silver platter. It solidified a fact he was so desperate to ignore: nobody truly gave a shit about him. Not really.
He craved the praise Madelyn gave him. The undying loyalty Stormfront provided. But at the end of the day, both women had simply been scared of him.
With both of them gone, he felt a thread inside him snap. And though he could feel the repercussions of his speech would undoubtedly hit him like a freight train, he couldn’t help but feel relieved. The Homelander was no longer a stray, caged against his will, kept under lock and key out of fear he would claw his captors’ eyes out.
He was a lion, a ticking bomb raised by monsters— cornered and poked at, shaped into the superhero he was now. He tells Starlight as much, tears up the tape covering the deepest, darkest secrets he holds, and tells her what she already knows.
He craves love, affection and a family. But fear is the second best thing, and if he can’t have the former, what is to stop him from obtaining the latter?
So he takes what he wants. He starts with the fans, who are easily manipulated and swayed back to his side with the flick of his wrist. Then, he moves on to his team. He puts a leash around The Deep and A-Train, hoping the two shitheads learn their place for good this time, it would benefit them to be more like Noir. Loyal above all.
Then, he moves on to Starlight.
The funny thing is, he doesn’t actually want her. Doesn’t particular find anything amusing about the way she willingly taints herself with the stench of those below them. He finds her incredibly flawed, her morals are irritating and her constant desire to do the right thing encapsulates stupidity itself. Even if she’s easy on the eyes, the negative factors overshadow the blonde locks and honey colored eyes he’d normally be drawn to.
Homelander doesn’t understand why nobody sees her the way he does— why she has people worshipping at her feet, throwing their lives away for someone so insignificant.
So he takes. He corners, pokes at, and humiliates her. He fabricates a romance that isn’t really there and when the reflection in the mirror tells him it’s a bad idea, he turns his head the other way and ignores it.
It shouldn’t sway him when he sees her with Hughie, shouldn’t make him want to roll his eyes and punch the shit out the kid— but it does.
To Hughie’s credit, he steps up for his girl. It’s almost adorable when Starlight steps in and saves his ass yet again. He can tell the kid’s pride is victim to her actions, can smell the shame in his puny human body when he walks out the door.
“Is she a good fuck?”
He wonders that before scoffing at the silly questions his mind conjures up this time. He could break her in half if he so much as wanted to anyway.
The thoughts only emerge from then on. His eyes wander around the room when she’s there, his ears shut everything else off when she isn’t. Their relationship goes public, and the displays of affection come to them naturally.
After the third or fourth interview, she stops stiffening at his touch. Instead, she looks him in the eye before every staged kiss, meeting his challenge head on.
He enjoys it, even though they’re both evidently aware he has the upper hand.
The man in the mirror reminds him that his personal enjoyment isn’t what this is all about. Though his pettiness and the actions directly caused by it are welcomed, Homelander’s ultimate goal is to instill fear, to remind his enemies that they can’t touch him.
He kills Supersonic next, not even minimally shocked by his betrayal. The kid was naive, incredibly fucking stupid to believe whatever bullshit Starlight fed him.
He takes his time torturing him, and when he begs for Annie’s life, Homelander feels the strands of a new, unknown feeling weaving their way around his insides. He’s sure to display Alex’s corpse like a trophy for her to see. He laughs off her attempts to scare him, and warns her to stop embarrassing herself any further.
It would be a shame if their back and forth came to an end. He loves pushing her buttons— enjoys that she pushes back just as hard.
He tells himself he didn’t really want to kill the kid, that Starlight forced his hand.
The bright, more cunning side of him chuckles at the lie.
She didn’t force you to do shit.
The night before Soldier Boy appears, Homelander dreams. The feeling is strange, unknown but he invites it. He can’t recall the last time he dreamt about anything. Not since he was a kid living inside the four walls of that cold lab.
The dream starts out a blurred mess with muffled voices and dimmed lights. Then, he finds himself in the familiar space of their conference room. It’s dark outside, with only a handful of stars illuminating the night sky. It’s a sight he’s seen a million times, but something feels different. He’s drawn to it, like a moth to the light.
As if on cue, he feels two arms wrap around him from behind. A slim, pale hand stops at his chest and the other tilts his chin to the side. He’s met with honey colored eyes, and glossed plump lips complimenting a teasing smile.
“Hey,” she tells him. “I was looking for you.”
The chuckle that comes out of his throat feels unfamiliar, but he has no control over it. This dream version of himself places a gentle hand on her blushed cheek and returns the smile. “You found me.”
He closes the space between them, twisting his body so it faces hers. The barrier between them is non existent, with only their clothes restricting further closeness. He feels her hands roam, drowns in her touch and the feel of her lips against his own.
Her tongue is warm, and perfectly intertwines with his. She takes her time exploring, and when she’s satisfied with her discovery, she bites at his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.
He hears his own moans first, but her whimpers are just as loud, echoing in the otherwise quiet room. He rocks his body against her own, growing frustrated at how restricted he feels in his suit. She palms his growing erection over the tight fabric of his pants, and in return his hands wander up to her breasts. They both squeeze and pull, some movements harsher than others. But Homelander doesn’t care about that. He relishes it. Her eagerness to meet him halfway is evident, and through breathless kisses, they finally break apart. The look shared between them is engrained into his mind, the mutual lust reflected in her eyes awakes something inside him.
He’s about to take her then and there when he wakes up, startled, covered in sweat and hard as a rock.
He’s frustrated and absurdly annoyed as he pleasures himself, disappointed it is his own hand tasked to finish this off. His orgasm sends a shock of electricity down his spine, and as he stares down at his leaking cock, he feels it twitch at the thought of her pink lips wrapped around it instead.
He blames his delusion on the stress, it’s not easy running a company after all.
He pushes all disgusting thoughts about her aside, convinced it was merely his mind wanting to release some steam. It seems natural he’d go for the only woman he finds himself interacting with nowadays.
The lies he fabricates only get him so far, and a foreign, unwanted shame overwhelms his senses when Starlight walks into the room. Unable to meet her eyes, Homelander cuts the meeting short, not granting his eyes the opportunity to wander again.
He knows she’s right about Soldier Boy. The ghost from Vought’s past needs to be stopped before he ruins everything Homelander worked hard to obtain. Still, he doesn’t listen to her. Doesn’t even want to look at her.
He loses Noir after that, and a piece of his own sanity leaves with him. The voice in the mirror gets louder, meaner. And John feels small. Terrified. Like his whole world is crumbling down and he can do nothing but watch it happen.
He feels himself fall deeper into the rabbit hole as he takes the verbal abuse thrown his way. The man in the mirror is ruthless, his words branded into John’s heart— the one he so desperately wishes he didn’t have.
He allows a moment of weakness to overtake him. Starlight’s hands feel soft against his own. He feels strangely comforted by her presence, and only realizes how pathetic he sounds after the words leave him.
“I missed you.”
She looks taken aback, and he’s grateful for the director’s cue for saving him the trouble of explaining himself to her. Though, he doubts she’d ask.
Nobody ever asks.
He gets his ass handed to him by Soldier Boy. Feels the older man’s hands clawing at his neck, squeezing the life out of him.
Homelander had never felt so humiliated before, had never felt so afraid of the mere possibility of dying. Much less be murdered by someone he once aspired to be.
He runs a bath, knowing he needs to scrub at the dry blood on his chest— there’s dirt under his finger nails and pieces of rubble stuck to his hair. He feels absolutely disgusting. He scratches at his skin as he bathes himself, desperate to rid of the evidence. He feels his entire body ache, feels the bruise on his face sting his ego.
But above it all, he feels Soldier Boy’s hands on his neck. Homelander feels panic bubble up inside his chest when the suffocating feeling doesn’t go away. He tries to distract himself with the sound of the running water, the sight of steam clouding the room. He takes deeps breaths, clenches and unclenches his fists.
Still, nothing seems to work.
The hot water is scorching his skin where it shouldn’t. He’s hyper aware of every single sensation, overloading themselves on him like an avalanche.
There’s one door he hasn’t opened. One thing, one person, he hasn’t allowed to provide the comfort he so fucking miserably needs.
He considers his options, and when he’s faced with none, he unlocks it and throws the key somewhere he will not find it.
John closes his eyes, and Soldier Boy’s unforgiving grip disappears. It is replaced by one more gentle. In this illusion, it is Starlight standing in front of him, under the dimmed bathroom lights and ruthless shower head.
“Annie,” he calls her. The name should feel unfamiliar on his lips but it doesn’t. Instead, it feels like a prayer.
“It’s okay, John,” she says in response. One of her hands slithers its way to his nape while the other wipes at the droplets of water beneath his eyes. He watches her, admires her naked form and feels his heartbeat accelerate when the curve of her body fits perfectly against his own.
“He can’t hurt you here,” she whispers against his lips before kissing him.
This time, it’s he who’s needier and tests his luck with how rough he can get. He bites her bottom lip, hands roaming everywhere. The feel of her breasts against his chest is enough to make him rock his hips against hers. She returns the favor, excruciatingly slow. His cock slides against her stomach, and she welcomes the sensation, positioning herself so it’s placed right in between her lips, brushing against her clit.
He opens in eyes in a haze, and looks at her in question. It’s almost sweet, that he’s taking his time to ask for approval. It’s unfamiliar territory, but the little nod and plea she gives him does wonders for him. It feels better, more satisfying that the praise Madelyn gave him. Her moans more fulfilling than Stormfront’s ever were.
He moves against her, careful not to enter her just yet. He wants to pleasure her, to see her face adorned with bliss after he sends her over the edge.
Starlight places her hands on either one of his shoulders. He can feel her pulsating against him, can feel her juices mix with his own, lubricating their movements. The noises she makes are like gospel to his ears, and when she tightens her grip on his shoulders and begins to tremble against him, he’s in complete awe.
Her climax gets him impossibly harder, and he can’t help but smirk at the way her eyes light up when she comes.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he finds himself saying. The blush on her cheeks indicate he says the right thing.
She turns around then, and he barely has time to react when his cock is met with the round curve of her ass. She bends over just a bit, hands planted on the wall beside him.
He wants her so bad. Wants her more than anything in the world.
Yet, he hesitates when he places his hands on her hips. “Are you sure?”
She laughs, it’s a sweet soothing sound he will never get out of his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He doesn’t answer, and when she notices it, her teasing smile only grows. “Please fuck me, John.”
It’s all the confirmation he needs to escalate things further. The feel of his cock entering her is unreal. Her walls stretch open for him, welcoming him with an incomparable warmth.
She’s made just for him and as he thrusts his way in and out of her, he’s convinced she’s his own little taste of Heaven on earth.
He slides one of his hands across her middle, and the other finds her throat. He plants kisses down her neck and collarbone, and with every sound she makes, he pounds into her deeper and harder.
“Please,” she begs him.
He fucks her like it’s his last day on earth. Like it’s the last thing he’ll ever get to do. He wants nothing more than to brand her, to show the whole god damn world that she belongs to him and him alone. And when she’s filled up with his seed, he wants to look after her. To clean her up, and plants soft kisses on the side of her face and neck. He wants to whisper promises of love and adoration in her ears. He wants to devote himself to her in every sense of the word.
He comes inside of her with a particular hard thrust. A second orgasm hits her, and she squeezes his cock inside of her as she shakes. He allows her to ride it out before sliding out of her entirely. He makes sure to keep her steady in his arms as he strokes the wet hair away from her face and plants a loving kiss on the side of her head.
She hums against him, and he finds himself comforted by the sound of her steady heartbeat. She’s at peace, happy even.
With him.
He‘s transported back to reality by a loud knock on his door. The shower head is still running, washing away the evidence of his fantasy down the drain.
The unbearable, smothering sensation around his neck caused by Soldier Boy is gone. But something entirely different replaces it.