Chapter Text
Homelander stood before Madelyn, his hands clasped behind his back. Behind him, The Deep remained motionless beside a table where a mysterious zinc box rested.
"So, Deep... what can't I see through?"
"Zinc, Homelander."
"Correct. And what is this box made of?"
"..."
Homelander turned around.
The Deep was staring at the box with a distant look. Realizing he was being watched, he immediately straightened up.
"Zinc, Homelander."
"Correct again."
The three approached the table and The Deep opened the lid, revealing Translucent's remains. Madelyn was horrified, obviously, but managed to hide her urge to vomit as best she could. Only Homelander noticed. Nothing escaped him, not even the folded piece of paper lying among the flesh and entrails.
Homelander picked it up and froze at the writing.
"We're coming after you, princess."
Madelyn's and The Deep's voices disappeared. The only thing he could hear was his own heart hammering against his ribs.
He read the sentence once, but his eyes remained fixed on a single word.
Without realizing it, he squeezed the paper so hard that he nearly tore it.
"'We're coming after you, princess?'" The Deep read over his shoulder. "Who's the princess?"
"Homelander?" Madelyn spoke cautiously. "What's wrong? You seem... nervous."
Realizing he had started seeing red and that two pairs of eyes were staring at him, Homelander composed himself as best he could.
"What they did to Translucent and this letter." He gestured dramatically. "This is a threat against us, Madelyn."
He began pacing back and forth.
"They're terrorists. Complete lunatics. They're after Supes, and they're smart. We need to act before the next one is any of us. We need to take them out one by one."
The last words came out harsher than he intended.
"And this little piece of paper..." He raised the note for them to see. "...is proof that we need to act as quickly as possible."
He crumpled the sheet into a ball and left the room without waiting for a response, ignoring Madelyn's calls.
He went straight to his floor. As soon as the door closed, he let himself fall into his chair. With slow movements, he opened the paper again and smoothed out the creases on the desk.
Then he reread the message. He understood why Translucent's remains had been sent in a zinc box. And he understood the message in the note.
It was for him.
Only for him.
A mockery and a warning. But years ago, being called that had also been a tease. There had been something different hidden in it. A twisted kind of affection. A fondness that only a black-haired kid with furious greenish eyes, clenched fists, and a body covered in scars would ever reserve for him.
The memory left a bitter taste in his mouth. He wanted to burn that paper and its owner along with it.
Princess.
No one else called him that except Billy. Not even his father.
Homelander frowned.
It was ridiculous to compare the way Billy called him that with his abusive father. No wonder the two of them had connected so quickly through their experiences with abuse. His father hated Billy for encouraging his son to be exposed to the outside world.
He tried to push away the memory of the man who had taken him out of that white room only to abandon him years later, returning him to exactly where he had taken him from.
He would never forgive him for that.
And Billy...
Judging by the message and the zinc box, there was no doubt the guy wanted to kill him. Could that fury really have come from being abandoned? No, it couldn't. That had happened years ago. It was a ridiculous reason to blow up one of his coworkers and mail his remains back to him.
Homelander sighed. He still remembered the hours before his capture, when he was still just John. One particular afternoon came back to him.
The two of them were sitting on the edge of one of the tallest buildings in the city. Homelander had carried Billy up there while Billy, extremely stressed and terrified, cursed him with practically every swear word known to mankind.
They were drinking, smoking, and talking nonsense, watching the sunset paint the sky in a festival of beautiful colors that only the farewell of a day could create. The clouds took on strange shapes and Billy pointed at one.
"That one looks like a horse dick."
"I only know one person who could ruin this moment, and it's you, you filthy bastard."
Billy was wearing sunglasses. He had a cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth and the straw from a bottle of alcohol on the other. His arm was in a cast—with a few drawings made by Lenny and John—and he forced himself to lift it just to flip him off. The sight was so hilarious that John burst out laughing.
After the sun set and the moon took its place, John dropped Billy off at the bus stop near his house and promised to pick him up after work to take him flying. He said he wanted to "cure" his friend's fear of heights.
Billy growled playfully.
"I don't have a fear of heights, you idiot. I just don't like being carried around, especially by little princesses who don't ask for permission."
Homelander scoffed at the memory. A small smile escaped him.
"As if..."
Alone in the dark kitchen, he carefully ran his fingers over the familiar handwriting. For a moment, he allowed himself a moment of vulnerability. A tear rolled down his face, but a little voice inside him reprimanded him for it. He quickly wiped it away before it could fall.
He stood up with the note in his hands, folding it carefully as if it were something precious—and it was, but he would never admit it—and hid it somewhere he considered special.
And he continued his day as if that moment had not emotionally shaken him.