Chapter Text
Homelander’s face was a work of art. A fucking piece-of-shit work of art, obviously. The kind you didn’t paint with brushes, but with fists, split knuckles, and years of carefully fed hatred.
Butcher had ruined it himself, and honestly, he loved his new masterpiece. He almost wanted to keep it like that. Frame it. Exhibit it. Put it on every screen in the country so the whole world could finally see what was under the golden varnish of their little national god.
Skin too pale beneath the blood. Face starting to swell. Bruised cheekbones, split brow, torn mouth. Red everywhere: on his teeth, on his chin, in the hollow of his throat, all over that ridiculous suit that didn’t look like much of anything anymore. The deep red against the sickly whiteness of his skin had something indecent about it.
Beautiful, really. He could almost have written a poem about it, if he’d been the kind of cunt who wrote poems instead of breaking skulls.
Homelander was breathing badly. Every inhale came out wet, broken, pathetic. He couldn’t even stand anymore. The great savior of America, Vought’s blond god, reduced to a trembling little shit soaking in his own blood.
Butcher felt an indecent pleasure rise in his gut just looking at him like that. Nothing but blood and tears. Nothing left of that smug look. Nothing left of that cheap godlike posture, that little advertising-statue smile, that authoritative voice that always made it sound like the whole world should’ve dropped to its knees before he even had to ask.
Now he was already on the ground. Half-folded in the debris, unable to pull himself up properly, his hands sliding through the red mess beneath him, his body answering to nothing but pain.
And an image came back to Butcher, almost sharp. The first time he’d seen him. Years ago. Becca on his arm. Homelander even younger then, even prettier, smoother, brighter. That immaculate face of an American miracle, perfect jaw, neat hair, not a crease in the suit. Saint Homelander. The Savior of America. The great blond piece of shit who’d descended from heaven to reassure crowds and sell fucking action figures.
And Butcher, poor bastard, had actually thought: the bloke had style.
Before everything.Before Becca. Before all the fucking shit. Before the lies, the disappearances, the deaths, the years spent chewing the same hatred until it wore his teeth down. Real style.
Butcher looked down at him. Look at that now. The Savior of America reduced to a heap of blood and tears at his feet. Not Saint Homelander. A filthy fucking Devil. And even the Devil lost some of his shine when you smashed his teeth in hard enough.
Butcher almost wanted to laugh. No, actually, he wanted to laugh for real. Because it was symbolically strong, wasn’t it? Fucking poetry. The symbol of America collapsing inside the symbol of America. The national hero ruined on the floorboards of a gutted Oval Office, among the gilding, the blood, the torn flags, and the old portraits watching their empire fall to pieces.
Homelander looked up at him. Eyes too clear, drowned in tears, panicked like an animal that had only just realized pain wasn’t supposed to stop.
Butcher slowly lowered his hand toward the crowbar lying near the Resolute Desk.
He didn’t hurry. That was the worst part. No explosive rage, no sudden movement. Just his hand closing around the metal with an almost peaceful slowness, as if everything had already been decided a long time ago.
Homelander saw the gesture, and something gave way in him. His hands shot up in front of his face. Not to hit. Not even really to defend himself. Just to put something between his smashed-in face and the next blow. His fingers shook in front of him, open, useless, almost ridiculous in their filthy gloves. A child’s gesture. A spoiled little brat who had lost his crown, his throne, and even the dignity to die standing.
“Please…” His voice derailed.
Butcher’s nose wrinkled slightly.
The voice, mostly.
That was what disgusted him. More than the blood. More than the torn mouth. More than that pathetic way he folded in on himself when, logically, he should’ve kept playing god right to the end.
It wasn’t his real voice. Not the one from the screens. Not that full, calm, authoritative tone made to fill rooms and make America hard during his little patriotic speeches. Not that low, clean predator’s voice, always so sure it would be obeyed. This one was weak, scraped raw, pleading. It sounded horribly young.
Butcher hated not recognizing the voice of the man he hated. He hated hearing something else instead. Something naked, terrified, pathetic. Something that should never have existed under the suit, or should have died under there without ever crawling out.
“Please, no…”
The words came apart in his throat. He was crying harder now that the crowbar hung from Butcher’s hand. He stammered, swallowed blood between syllables, and every sound came out weaker than the last, as if Butcher hadn’t only broken his teeth or his nose, but something deeper, under the voice, under the suit, under everything he’d spent his life performing. Homelander was finally peeling away from his own skin, leaving nothing underneath but a sniveling, pathetic cunt.
Butcher watched him tremble. That tiny nervous movement in his hands. The way he flinched whenever the crowbar shifted an inch, as if he could already feel the next impact before it fell. Fuck, it was almost tender, in a way. Not tender like something you’d want to protect. Tender like meat that had been beaten too much.
Homelander tried to push himself up on one elbow, failed, slid in the dust, and stayed there, half-slumped, half-offered, suit torn, cape dragging behind him like a bad joke.
“I never killed you,” he stammered.
Butcher frowned.
Homelander seemed to understand, too late, that maybe it wasn’t the argument of the century. But he kept going anyway, because he had nothing else left. The words came out of him in pieces, weak, rushed, soaked in panic.
“I could’ve. So many times. I never killed you. I let you… I let you live.”
Butcher felt his lip curl slightly. Not a smile. Not open anger either. Just instinctive contempt, almost physical, at the indecency of the bargaining.
Homelander shook his head, as if he didn’t even know what he was saying anymore. His hands stayed raised in front of his face, trembling, pleading. His whole tall body seemed to have folded in on itself. No more statue. No more god.
“I’ll do whatever you want,” he breathed.
Butcher didn’t answer.
Then Homelander broke lower still. His lips trembled. His breathing snapped on a shameful, almost inaudible whimper. And that voice, that ruined little voice, too young for the man he was supposed to be, made the sentence even more obscene.
“I’ll suck your cock if you want.”
Butcher stared at him in disgust. The sentence sat there between them, dirty and naked, more humiliating than all the blood on his face. Homelander was still crying, hands still raised, as if he might vanish inside his own costume if only someone gave him enough time.
The great savior of America, Vought’s golden blond boy, on the floor, offering his mouth so he wouldn’t die.
Butcher made an expression of revulsion. But his eyes didn’t leave the spectacle. Not for a second.
“I… I’ll do anything you want,” Homelander repeated, between muffled sobs.
He swallowed wrong, coughed up a little blood, then raised what was left of his face toward him. His hands were still shaking in front of his open mouth, but they were lowering now in jerks, as if even begging took too much energy.
“I’ll eat your fucking shit.”
Butcher felt his stomach tighten. Not disgust this time. Not only that.
Homelander breathed in short, broken bursts. The words came out in pieces, rushed, torn from somewhere deeper than fear.
“Anything you want. Anything. I’ll do anything. Please…”
His breathing whistled. Every inhale tore a tiny, broken sound out of him. Not a threat. Not a provocation. Not even a strategy worthy of the name. Just a man trying to stay alive.
And fuck.
Butcher liked it. There was still pleasure there, of course there was. That black, hot, almost obscene joy at seeing him reduced to this. Seeing him in pieces, beneath him, begging in that grotesque costume, did something physical to his gut. Hatred had lived in his body for so long it had ended up wiring itself into everything else: pleasure, rage, grief, hunger. It all made the same sound now.
But underneath, something else rose up, slower, filthier. Pity. Not noble pity. Not forgiving pity. Disgusting, sticky pity, the kind he wanted to crush under his boot before it took up too much space. It was there anyway, because Homelander’s voice was splitting like a kid’s who’d been left too long alone in a white room. Because under the blood, under the crimes, under the cheap god costume, there was this naked, trembling thing with no dignity, that didn’t even know how to beg without destroying itself.
It didn’t forgive anything. But it was visible. And Butcher hated seeing it.
He hated that brief tightening in his chest, that rotten human reflex sliding between his hand and the end. He had sacrificed too much of himself to get here. Too many dead, too many lies, too many pieces of his soul torn out with teeth. All of that, just to hesitate in front of a blond prick in a cape crying in the wreckage?
No. Not a chance.
His hand tightened around the crowbar. Homelander followed the movement with his eyes, and his face emptied. All the panic concentrated at once in his half-open mouth. He stopped talking for a second. That silence had the taste of an ending. Even Homelander seemed to feel it, because his eyes started moving faster, searching for something, anything, in the ruins around him or in the little bit of brain he had left.
“Wait… wait, I can… I can give you something.”
Butcher didn’t move. The crowbar stayed heavy in his hand, ready to come down, and Homelander stared at him with that bright, hungry, almost obscene panic. He was looking for a crack. A rope. A price to put on his own survival. Anything. His whole body said he would have sold every last piece of himself for a few more seconds.
“I can bring Becca back.”
The world emptied.
The crowbar stayed suspended, but everything else in Butcher stopped dead. The pleasure first. That black joy he’d taken in watching him crawl in his own blood. Then the disgust. Then even that foul, sticky pity that had started rising in his chest against his will. All of it disappeared at once, swallowed by something colder.
Becca.
In that mouth.
For one second, there was nothing else. Not the gutted Oval Office. Not the bloodstained gilding. Not the broken royal clown at his feet. Just that name, dirtied by a voice that had no right to carry it.
Homelander saw that he had touched something. Poor cunt. He thought it was an opening.
“There are shapeshifters,” he stammered too fast, blood wetting the words. “Vought has them. They can become anyone. Her face, her voice, her body. Everything. I can bring her back. I can—”
“Shut your mouth.”
It came out low. Almost calm. Not a shout, not an explosion. Worse.
Homelander froze, mouth still open, eyes locked on the crowbar as if he had only just understood that the metal had never been closer.
Butcher looked at him, and something locked shut inside him. Not in some great surge, not in spectacular rage. Colder than that. Simpler. Pity had had its chance, one shameful little hesitation in the middle of the carnage, and Homelander had just crushed it himself.
He had taken Becca, her name, her face, her memory, and tried to turn it into currency. One more Vought product. A skin to slip on. A body to stand back up so he could buy his dog’s life.
And just like that, Homelander had made the Oval Office his own grave.
Butcher felt his hand close tighter around the crowbar. His breathing slowed. The anger was still there, but it wasn’t spilling over anymore. It had settled at the bottom of him, dense, black, useful. He didn’t want to laugh anymore. Didn’t want to savor it. Didn’t want to watch the symbol collapse with a smile on his lips.
Now he just wanted to finish the job.
Homelander moved his lips, backing up against the desk.
“No no no… please…”
He made a strangled sound. Nothing like a word at first, barely the remains of a voice. His hand rose in front of his face, trembling, ridiculous, as if a few open fingers could stop the crowbar.
Then something twitched behind his eyes. Not courage. Not even real defiance. Just the last rotten spark of the thing he had spent his whole life pretending to be.
“You can’t… you can’t kill me,” he rasped.
Homelander’s mouth trembled. His face was ruined beyond anything that could still look noble. He tried to lift his chin, tried to force himself back into the shape of the man from the screens, the god, the flag, the fucking miracle. But his body wouldn’t follow. His voice wouldn’t either.
“I’m…” He tried to raise his voice. Tried to make it land like a threat, like a command, like something the world was still supposed to obey. “I’m the fucking Homelander.”
But it didn’t come out like that.
It broke halfway through, cracked open by a sob, and the name sounded less like a warning than a child insisting he was still a superhero because he still had the costume on.
Butcher’s lip curled.
“Not anymore.”
His arm tightened.
In that instant, everything became simple. The metal, the weight in his fist, the angle of the skull. He could already see the trajectory, the impact, the way Homelander’s head would snap sideways before the rest of the body understood. He saw the end as a straight line. Not pretty. Not clean. But necessary. An answer brutal enough to make sense in a world like this.
And behind him, a voice said:
“No.”
The word crossed the room without effort.
Butcher froze.
The crowbar stayed suspended above Homelander, high, ready to fall, still weighted with everything Butcher had put into it: Becca, Ryan, the lost years, the dead, the hate, and that precise second when he had finally believed everything was about to close.
Slowly, he turned his head.
Ryan was awake.
Pale as a corpse, leaning against the remains of an overturned piece of furniture, his body still shaken by whatever he had just lived through. He was barely standing, or maybe not really standing at all; just upright enough not to fall. His eyes were wide open, too wide for his face, too steady for a kid. They moved from Butcher to Homelander, from his father’s ruined face to the raised crowbar, then back to Butcher.
He had seen enough.
Not everything, maybe. Not every word, not every plea, not Becca in Homelander’s mouth. But enough to understand what was about to happen. Enough to see the man who was supposed to protect him standing over his father with death in his hand.
“No,” Ryan repeated.
Not a shout. Not a threat. Not even really a plea. Just a refusal.
Homelander made a tiny sound. Almost a squeak. Something horribly ugly coming from a mouth that had spent its whole life giving orders to the entire world.
“Ryan… Ryan, please, tell him…”
Butcher swung back toward him all at once.
“Shut your fucking mouth!”
The roar cracked against the gutted walls of the Oval Office. Homelander immediately curled in on himself, his hand still raised in front of his face, as if the shout had already been a blow. And for one second, Butcher wanted to hit him just for that. For daring. For crawling toward the boy with that beaten-dog voice, for trying to turn Ryan into the last shield between his skull and the crowbar.
But Ryan was there, so Butcher looked at him again.
Ryan’s jaw was trembling. Not much. Not a breakdown, not sobs, nothing that made the scene easy to read. Just a tiny fracture under the skin, a shiver he was trying to crush with all the dignity he could still scrape together. His eyes were wide, his face pale, his whole body held stiff, as if he knew one wrong movement could bring whatever was left of his world down for good.
And then Butcher knew.
The kid didn’t want to see this.
He had already seen too much. Too much blood, too many screams, too many adults deciding for him what had to be done, what had to be sacrificed, who had to die in the name of what. And now he was standing in the middle of the gutted Oval Office, watching the man who had promised his mother he would protect him raise a crowbar over his father.
Fuck.
Butcher’s throat tightened. Not now. Not this.
“Turn around.”
His voice came out low, rough. Not gentle, no. Butcher didn’t know how to be gentle when he had death in his hand. But there was something in it despite himself, something cracked, damaged, a kind of broken order that almost sounded like a prayer.
Ryan didn’t move. Butcher clenched his teeth.
“Ryan. Turn around.”
The boy blinked once. His lips parted, though no sound came out at first. And finally he took one step forward. Small, slow, terribly deliberate.
“Leave him.”
His voice barely trembled.
Butcher saw it anyway. The way he straightened his shoulders, planted his feet in the debris as if that were enough to make him taller. He was trying to keep it together. Not to beg, not to cry, not to be the terrified kid he still was underneath. Becca had had that same stupid courage. The kind that kept you standing when everything inside you was screaming to fall.
“Stay where you are,” Butcher said.
Ryan stepped forward again.
Behind him, Homelander breathed louder. Not enough to speak. Just enough to remind them he still existed. A wet, pitiful sound that pulled something nasty in the back of Butcher’s neck. He didn’t turn around. He couldn’t. If he looked at Homelander, he’d finish the gesture. If he looked at Ryan too long, he wouldn’t be able to.
So he stayed there, caught between the two of them, the crowbar raised, his hand trembling now, fuck. Barely. But it was trembling.
Ryan stopped a few yards away. Close enough to see the blood on Butcher’s fingers. Close enough to see his father’s demolished face. Too close, obviously. His eyes dropped to Homelander, and something crossed his face. Not forgiveness. Not pure, bright, simple love, that postcard bullshit. No. It was uglier than that. Truer. The horror of seeing him like this. The fear of what he was. The fear of what Butcher was about to do. And underneath, buried deep but still alive, that stupid blood tie that resisted everything else.
His father.
Homelander looked up at him. For the first time since he’d started crawling, he almost stopped crying. His ruined face turned toward Ryan with a kind of miserable hope that made Butcher want to break his teeth. The bastard was going to use it. Of course he was going to use it. Even beaten to pulp, even pissing himself with fear, even with death hanging over his skull, he would look for the crack. Ryan was a crack. Becca had been a crack. Anything that loved became a handle for monsters.
Butcher lowered his voice.
“Don’t look at him.”
Ryan didn’t answer. He was still looking at Homelander. His lips trembled at last, just once, then he swallowed hard, as if the words were scraping his throat before they even came out.
“It’s over.”
It wasn’t only meant for Butcher. It was for Homelander too. Maybe for him most of all.
Homelander made the smallest movement of his head. A denial or a plea, impossible to tell. His mouth opened on a broken sound, but nothing properly human came out of it. Ryan took a short breath. He wanted to be solid. You could see it. He wanted it with everything he had. But his eyes shone, his jaw still trembled, and his hands were clenched so tightly his knuckles had gone white.
“It’s over,” he repeated, lower.
The crowbar suddenly weighed a ton in Butcher’s hand. He should have answered no. That nothing was over as long as that thing was breathing. That monsters didn’t stop because a kid told them to. That pity was a luxury for people who had never had to bury their dead. He should have said it, really. He almost had it on his tongue.
But he heard Becca in the silence.
Not a ghost voice. Not some mystical bullshit. Just the memory of what she had asked of him. Protect him. Not avenge me. Not turn him into a weapon. Not let him watch you smash his father’s head in with a piece of metal in the Oval Office.
Protect him.
Butcher lowered his eyes to Homelander. The blond was still there, in pieces in his ridiculous costume, shoulders shaken by tremors he could no longer control. A god on the floor. A beaten dog. A catastrophe still breathing. The anger returned at once, burning, almost reassuring.
Then Ryan took another step, and the anger stopped dead against him.
“Butcher…”
The name came out low, almost scraped raw. Ryan had tried to put order into his voice, to stay standing inside his own fear, but it still trembled at the edge.
“Leave him… please.”
Butcher didn’t know what gave way first. His arm, maybe. Or something behind his ribs. The crowbar lowered a little, not enough to forgive, not enough to truly renounce, but enough for death to stop hanging directly over Homelander.
Ryan swallowed hard. He looked at his father without really wanting to look at him, as if the sight hurt, but looking away would have been worse.
Homelander met his son’s eyes, and it broke him.
Not like when Butcher had split his face open. Not like when his knees had given out. This was lower. More intimate. A break with no flash to it, almost silent at first, that still seemed to tear out whatever was left standing inside him.
He made a strangled sob, then crawled toward Ryan.
Butcher tensed immediately.
“Don’t move, you little—”
But Homelander wasn’t attacking. Not this time. He collapsed at Ryan’s feet like a sack of shit, like a worshipper at the only altar he had left. His bloody hands clumsily grabbed at the boy’s pants, leaving red smears on the fabric.
Ryan flinched. Small. Barely visible. But he didn’t step back.
Homelander lifted his head toward him. His face was so ruined he barely looked human anymore. All that remained was some wretched creature on its knees, in pieces, crying so hard it could barely breathe.
“Ryan…”
His voice broke on the name.
Butcher clenched his teeth. He wanted to step forward, tear him away, smash his skull in just for daring to put his blood-covered hands on the boy. But Ryan still didn’t move. So Butcher stayed still, the crowbar lowered now, but still ready. Always ready.
“I love you,” Homelander sobbed. “I love you… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
The words came out of him in a mess, torn from his throat, drowned in tears.
“I didn’t mean… I didn’t want this to happen. I didn’t want to scare you. I didn’t want to lose you. You’re the only one… the only one that matters. The only one I have left.”
He clung harder to Ryan’s pants, his forehead almost against the boy’s knees, as if he were trying to sink into the little contact that hadn’t been taken from him yet.
Ryan looked down at him, and Butcher tried to read something on his face. Impossible. Nothing was clear on that kid’s face, too young to carry this. There was disgust, maybe. A contained disgust, clenched behind the teeth. Disgust at the blood, the tears, this weakness too naked. Disgust at seeing his father reduced to this. And emotion too, of course. Something trembled in his eyes, in his mouth, in the way he stayed frozen instead of pushing Homelander away. A cold, mute pain that didn’t yet know whether it was supposed to become pity, anger, shame, or grief.
Homelander, meanwhile, kept going, unable to stop now that he had started emptying himself in front of him.
“I never loved anyone like you. Never. You’re… you’re everything. Everything I have. Everything I’ve ever had that was real. The only one who stayed. I’m sorry, Ryan. I’m sorry…”
Butcher felt an old wave of nausea rise in him. Not only hatred. There was something obscene in it: Homelander clinging to the boy like a life raft, dumping all his need to be loved onto him when Ryan could barely stand himself. It was monstrous, selfish, disgusting. And yet not entirely false. There was too much panic in his hands, too much ruin in his voice, too much twisted truth in that “I love you” for Butcher to simply spit on it without feeling something grind inside him.
Ryan didn’t answer. He didn’t put a hand on him. He didn’t push him away either. He stood there, arms at his sides, fingers slightly clenched, as if the smallest gesture would pull him into a story he didn’t want.
Homelander clung to him.
Ryan let him.
That was all.
And somehow, it was worse than rejection.
Ryan finally moved. He lowered his eyes, but not to his father’s face. To the hands clutching his pants.
“Get up.”
No warmth. No forgiveness. Not even anger.
Just two flat words.
Homelander lifted his head a little, as if even that hurt. His eyes searched Ryan’s, desperate, starved, but the boy immediately looked away. He didn’t want to look at him anymore. Or he didn’t want Homelander to see what was on his face.
Ryan bent down anyway. His fingers took his father’s arm just above the elbow with stiff, almost disgusted care. Not an embrace. Not a tender gesture. Mechanical help, necessary, like picking someone up from the middle of a corridor because you need to move forward, not because you want to touch them.
Homelander let himself be helped up. His legs shook under him. He wavered, instinctively tried to lean more heavily on Ryan, and the boy stiffened at once.
He felt it for what it was. Even like this, barely standing, he felt the rejection in Ryan’s body. He loosened his grip a little, as if that tiny retreat cost him more than all of Butcher’s blows.
Ryan kept his head turned, face closed, eyes fixed somewhere in the ruins of the office rather than on him. He had helped his father stand. That was all he was willing to give.
Only then did Ryan turn toward Butcher, not fully, just enough for their eyes to meet. His were dry, but too bright. His jaw had almost stopped trembling. He was holding himself together in a way that hurt to look at.
“We have to go.”
Butcher stayed still. The crowbar hung from his hand, smeared with blood, dust, and tiny shards catching the light. A makeshift weapon for an ending that hadn’t come.
“Ryan…”
“We have to go,” the boy repeated.
This time there was something else in his voice. Not a plea. Not an order either. A limit. A fucking line drawn in the middle of the blood.
Butcher clenched his teeth. He could have said no. He could have explained that it was now or never, that Homelander without powers was only a man to be put down before Vought found a way to rebuild him, before someone put V back in his veins, before the world got back on its knees in front of his face. He could have said all that, and he would have been right.
But Ryan was looking at him, and Becca was everywhere in that look.
So Butcher let out a hard breath through his nose.
“Yeah.”
Homelander blinked, as if he couldn’t quite believe he was still alive. He could barely stand, one arm tucked against his ribs, the other hovering near Ryan without quite daring to grab him. His mouth was still trembling. Ridiculous. Pathetic. Human, now that the lightning had left the body.
Butcher wanted to hit him just for that. For that late-arriving humanity. For that weakness that came after all the dead. For the luxury of crying after spending his whole life crushing everyone else.
But he didn’t move.
Ryan took a step toward the exit. Homelander followed with the tiniest delay, like a badly trained dog. The word came back to Butcher and almost pulled a smile out of him.
A filthy little bitch.
He remembered the broken voice, the foul promises, the way Homelander had crawled through the wreckage of his own myth. “I’d eat your fucking shit.”
A shiver of dirty pleasure climbed the back of his neck.
Not a victory. Not really. Homelander was still breathing. The thing wasn’t over the way Butcher had dreamed it. But something had been killed here. Something huge, golden, national, something that had worn a cape and called it greatness.
And that was when Butcher saw it.
The camera.
It was half-hidden behind a shattered panel of wood, tilted sideways, almost buried in the dust, but it was there. Still active.
Butcher stopped. Ryan, already near the door, didn’t notice right away, but Homelander followed his gaze, and his face emptied at once. This time, Butcher smiled for real. Not a big theatrical smile, nothing clean, nothing victorious. A low, mean smile that slowly pulled at his mouth like a blade sliding out of its sheath.
They had seen, those good citizens. The fanatics, the couch patriots, the weeping little mothers in front of their savior’s speeches, every cunt who’d bought the mug, the flag, the prayer. They had seen their god on the ground, crawling through the debris of the Oval Office, begging, crying, offering his mouth, his dignity, his dog’s soul for a few more seconds. They had seen him collapse at his son’s feet. The whole world, maybe, or enough of it.
The thought brought Butcher back to himself like a swig of whisky after a fight. A deep, thick satisfaction warmed his chest. He hadn’t cracked Homelander’s skull open, not yet, but he’d had this: the myth split down the middle, spilled out onto the floor, broadcast to everyone who had believed they were looking at a god.
Homelander saw him understand. His lips parted, and a panicked breath came out.
“No…”
Butcher slowly turned his head toward him.
“Oh, yes.”
Ryan turned back at last, silent, his face closed.
Butcher approached the camera, stepping over debris, the crowbar hanging from the end of his arm. The red light was still glowing. He leaned toward the lens and, for one second, let the world look at him: his bloodied face, his dark eyes, his tired bastard’s smile.
Then he glanced over his shoulder. Homelander was standing crookedly near Ryan, face destroyed, suit filthy, eyes ravaged by a brand-new horror. It wasn’t the fear of the blow this time. It was worse. He knew the world was finally seeing him.
Butcher turned back to the camera, and his smile widened by a fraction.
“Happy Easter, you cunts.”
He didn’t add anything. No need. The crowbar came down on the lens, the glass burst with a dry crack, and the red light died at once.