Chapter Text
The elevator opened directly onto the 99th floor. Everything in this building was out of scale.
Churches and some government buildings had this thing, according to a guy I remembered explaining this concept in a YouTube video. They were built larger than the human scale to give a feeling that there was something bigger than people at work there. I want to say that he called it transcendence. Something about the scale made it feel contemplative and serious. I prefer to think that big things are easier to worship.
This place, it felt like, worshipped business. The elevator opened into a big hallway. Big enough that I couldn’t jump up and touch the ceiling, or maybe I could now. You get what I mean. There were double doors on either side.
“Welcome to the 99th.” John sounded very comfortable with this spiel. “If we head that way, we’ll go to the private dining hall – which is good, but we’re trying to get chef Miro from Gramercy Tavern. His pastries are to die for.”
“Oh wow.”
I had no idea who the fuck that was supposed to be.
“Over here is the meeting room.”
It felt casual until I took a few steps closer. There was something. The super senses tingled in reaction, but there was no reference in my brain. At most, I could be sure that I had been feeling something and that something was more all of a sudden.
“Homelander, Sir, you…”
The door opened, and the Deep was there. He was smiling in a sense, but his eyes were locked on me in a way that suggested vague surprise. Homelander was in my peripheral vision, smiling.
“Deep, what a surprise. I’m just giving a tour.”
I gave the classic white people smile, but The Deep was not looking at me.
“You’re giving the tour?”
“A tour, yes.”
The words carried a certain weight. All of these people seemed obsessed with double-speak. The mood shifted just so in reaction.
“Awesome, awesome. It’s, uh, nice to meet you, bro.”
He offered a hand, which I took. The Deep seemed perturbed, more by the situation than by me. When he opened the door in full, five of the chairs in the meeting room were occupied.
Ah, that must have been the plan.
I could see three sets of eyes and one set of lenses lock in on me. Black Noir and Translucent, whose faces I couldn’t see, were turning physically in the direction of the door. They probably had to do that all the time.
“Oh, good, you're all here. I wanted to check in with everyone and see how saves have been going this week. You know.” It didn’t feel like they did. “Touch base.”
Maeve was the only one to offer any immediate resistance.
“During your tour.”
“Well, yes, of course! I’m already here, right? You start.”
There was a pause. She was smiling in a way that showed off her teeth. It reminded me of John, though she was less… toothy. More Vogue and less National Geographic.
“Sorry.” She was definitely looking at me as she said it. “Who are you?”
“Oh, hi, I’m Richard. Uh…” I looked at Homelander. This was his shindig, and I didn’t want to ruin it for him.
“He’s my brother.”
The Deep reacted first.
“Oh. Sweet.”
Homelander started to walk further into the room, and I followed. There was, definitely not added for me specifically, an extra chair that I could move next to John’s own chair, in exactly the same very fancy style as all of the others. Total coincidence, of course.
“I try to hold regular meetings, just to make sure we’re all on the up and up. We make the big bucks because of how many people we help.” He lowered his voice to explain that, even though it was probably false, before going louder. “As I was saying, Queen Maeve, if you don’t mind.”
They went one by one, talking about crimes they had stopped and people they’d saved. Who knew there were so many bank robberies leading to shootouts, or break-ins to just stumble on, or drugs being trafficked? It was Friday, and apparently, they each had two saves in the past week. Maybe some of those were real, but probably not.
“And that's the week," John said, clapping his hands together. "Good work, everyone. Keep it up. How about we all do lunch?”
Everyone had been in the middle of standing up. A-Train spoke up first.
“I’m busy, actually, Homelander.”
“You can go,” I swear to God, there was a look. “Lamplighter, you too.”
…Was he getting rid of both of them? I could swear A-Train was in the show for a while.
Even though they didn’t have Chef Whoever, the food in the Seven’s special dining hall was really, really good. It felt weird that they had so much space for like half a dozen people to eat food. The view was insane, but it was New York. Every view was probably insane. I pecked at a basket of focaccia. They were all eating pretty normal portions.
“I’m going to have to go on a diet, aren’t I?”
Homelander was sitting right across from me. The others were each taking their own tables, which were not small.
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t think I want to be Homelander’s fat brother, thank you very much.”
I was also going to be a superhero, but he didn’t know that yet.
“You’re not fat.”
“Give me three months of eating like this and say that again.”
I’d been a fat kid, before, and a fat adult. Richard wasn’t in the same situation, but he wasn’t ripped either. It wasn’t that I couldn’t control myself, or whatever horrible stereotypes people had. It was that I needed to be doing something, and food was always an option. Good food, great food even, would not help. Even outside of the public eye, I had some experience with how these things went, and I wasn’t going to survive it if everybody was looking.
“We actually have a gym on the… I think it’s on the 93rd?”
Ah, the Deep. What to do about him?
“Oh, that’s good. Do you use it?”
The Deep was every bad thing about Homelander, to a dramatically lesser extent, and without the justifications I could easily make up for John.
“Oh, yeah. I’m the only one who uses it every day.”
John was my brother. John had a fucked up childhood and a fucked up life. John was exactly what he was made to be.
“Is it any good? It’s either this or a gym membership.”
The Deep was, from what I knew, just like that. There was probably something already, and he would have his life messed up at some point, but that hadn’t happened yet.
“This is probably the best private gym in the country.” He sort of laughed as he said it. “Maybe the NFL has something.”
He was kind of… simpering, maybe? A bootlicker, obviously, but also a brown-noser. I was also like 40% sure he had a gay storyline. If he wasn’t a rapist by this time next year, I could work with that.
“Damn. It would definitely help me if you show me the ropes, then.”
Homelander was halfway into a burger. Did he eat anything else?
"I could train you, if you wanted.” He almost glared at my look. “I don't usually use the gym, but I could make an exception."
It felt like he would be jealous if I smiled at somebody for too long. Nobody had ever wanted this much of my undivided attention. It was a bit annoying, actually.
“I’d be happy to train with you.” Emphasis on the with. “But maybe I should see if I can get stronger at all, before –”
Pain. Cold.
I woke up in a bed.
Fuck.
John was in a chair right by the bed, looking at me, but this wasn’t my room.
“Richard?”
In a way, his voice was small. We were probably alone.
“Hey John.”
There wasn’t a reply. Homelander was very wet for a guy who hadn’t made it to the point of actual tears yet. I pulled out my phone.
“I probably shouldn’t look,” I said, turning the screen to face him. “It can’t be good for me right now. How long?”
He actually looked before answering. Maybe he didn’t know.
“Forty-five minutes.”
My legs were bare, I realized. I didn’t have pants on.
“Oh.”
That was long. His eyes were on mine again. Or was it in mine? It felt more in than on.
“...You scared me.”
It felt pointed, even if he didn’t sound angry. Maybe he never actually sounded angry. How would I know just yet? Maybe he was always angry, and that was his secret. Or maybe he would smile if he was really angry at me.
I wasn’t sorry. I wasn’t going to act sorry. I hadn’t done anything wrong. I put so much effort into keeping this just at the edge of uncomfortable for him. I was tired.
“That’s a long time. Where are we?”
The walls were covered in art, like the gift shop had been covered with merchandise. Every surface had something, and I wasn’t sure I could put my whole hand on a wall without touching a frame. The walls were some dark color, which could only be blue.
There wasn’t a door to the room I was in.
“Guest bedroom.”
“Okay.”
He was still giving me that look. How the fuck was he this… I didn’t know what word I wanted. It was also maybe a bit harsh. He’d never had to do this before. I could offer him a hug, but was that where things seemed to be? No. I also didn’t love the idea of having his hands anywhere on me if he was upset.
That thought felt less pleasant than the other ones, but it was still true.
Maybe one thing could be two things if you looked at it the right way. I scooted myself over and patted the spot next to me on the bed. After a while, when I got sick of him just looking at the empty space, I told him what to do.
“Come on, lie down.”
There was some resistance, but he did, eventually. Stiff as a board, a foot or so of empty space between us, all of the Homelander still on. I stayed lying down, letting him work up to new words.
“You… you just dropped. Right there in front of everyone.”
“Yeah. I guess I did.” Then I bit the bullet. “Where are my pants?”
“You peed yourself. I have a laundry team. They’ll handle it.”
Ew. That was new. Or maybe it wasn’t, and I didn’t know.
“Gross, but thank you. I know you, uh, probably had this whole thing planned.”
That was something I could say sorry for. I still didn’t.
His eyes were on the ceiling now. “It wasn't a plan, really. Just lunch.”
“And the meeting.”
“That was…” He stopped. “I wanted them to meet you. Properly, I mean. Not just in a hallway, or hear about you from Madelyn.”
“I think you wanted to show me off.”
“Why is that a bad thing?”
“It’s…” I stopped the thought. “It would have been nice to know. It’s probably pretty normal, though, for brothers.”
It had never been like this with my sister. We didn’t show each other off to people. I barely talked about her. I assumed the same was true the other way.
“Well…”
“Yeah. Same.”
“It’s pretty messed up. That this was stolen from me.”
Hold on.
“Stolen from you.”
“Well, yeah. I could have known how things are supposed to be, but now I don’t.”
Somewhere in the distance, not above us, a helicopter was flying. Neither of us spoke for a while. Sometimes, when Homelander talked, he was kind of a jackass.
“Someday, you need to tell me how you grew up.” I started moderating myself as he tried to get up. “Not today, and I’m not even saying soon, but someday.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Okay. But you’re the only one who knows anything about where I come from, and you know everyone who knows what I need to know.” The moment I said it, I knew my syntax was fucked. “You know?”
Apparently, it was funny enough that he chuckled.
“...What?”
I was trying to be sincere.
“Well, excuse me, John.” I held back my own chuckle, but I did smile a bit. “My point is that someday I need you to let me find out where we come from. You can point me to the right person, or you can just tell me. I’m being serious.”
He was doing that thing he did. Looking away instead of at me. Part of me wanted to grab his head and turn it my way. The other part was smarter.
“Of course. Just – just give me some time.”
“I can do that. Also, um, can I borrow some sweats or something? I should probably go back to my room.”
“Oh, uh… actually, I was going to ask after the tour, you can stay up here. If you want.”
“Here in the guest bedroom?” He nodded. “I… yes, I would like that. Let me just borrow something to go downstairs and grab my things.”
Before he could tell me not to bother, I was already up. I decided to ignore what it meant that I had clean boxers on. That would go into the unpacked emotional baggage pile, to be forgotten.
“I have some civvies in my room – third floor.” I couldn’t understand why he needed this much space. “You shouldn’t be running up the stairs just yet.”
“I wasn’t running, but it is your room. I’d appreciate it if you could lend me something that fits. The doctors don’t need to see this.”
“Sure, just, uh, wait here.”
He gave me a look, but he went. I listened to his footsteps on the stairs, and then I was alone in his living room. There were, like everywhere else, art pieces on every surface. Marble statues of buff men and beautiful women. Mirrors on every wall, and paintings I didn’t recognize with what I was pretty sure was George Washington.
The two couches were leather, huge, and didn’t look very comfortable.
My foot touched fabric, and I picked the piece of clothing up. It was a t-shirt.
As far as I could tell, I wore a medium or large, and Homelander was probably more of an XL from sheer muscle mass. A slightly threadbare green shirt with a ram and the words ‘Colorado State’ in yellow. I held it up to my chest, and it was about my size.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, but then Homelander walked back down.
“Okay, these should…”
He wasn’t stupid. But maybe he was careless. He also looked like he’d been caught.
“John.”
“Uhm, I can explain.”
I didn’t feel like dealing with another thing just yet. I reached out with the hand holding what was definitely Richard’s shirt, and took his pants in the other. He took it. I definitely wasn’t doing this unless I was fully dressed. I stayed silent until my pants were on.
“I’m going to go down and grab my things. I want all of my clothes on the bed by the time I get back. Can I have a hug?”
One of those things was not like the other, and something in John’s face reminded me of those dogs that never learned how to handle a human being near their food.
“You’re afraid of me. I can hear it.”
I was. There was a gravel to his voice that pinged in my internet hindbrain. This was the part where he killed people. Killed me, possibly. There was a narrow path.
“I am. I’m working on that. Can I get a hug?”
John was, in a way that I didn’t think fit him, slow. Maybe it was careful, or maybe it felt slow in the life flashing before my eyes sort of way. I could say that both felt equally likely, but that wasn’t true. So far, if I didn’t know, then it would be easy to trust him. Like him, even. This last thing was weird, but it wasn’t more than I felt I could handle.
He did grab on a little too hard, but he put himself below me. His head under my chin, more or less. I hugged back.
“John, I can lend you shirts, but this can’t happen again. Okay?”
There had to be a line. I needed to draw it, or else he would keep going to wherever his mind went with the other figures in his life. But I didn’t want to hash this out right then and there. If I pushed all of the time, eventually he would either push back or snap. Neither were the options I could deal with.
He didn’t answer. I let him stay there for as long as he wanted to be.
When he did actually let go, he spoke before I could.
“I… don’t tell anyone.”
Literally, what would I even say?
“Part of this whole… deal, I guess, is that we’re supposed to keep each other safe. I won’t tell. I’m going to go grab my things, okay?”
I left him in his penthouse. I happened on two of the guys from his team, Translucent and The Deep, talking out in the main hall area. They didn’t say anything, and I didn’t want to engage either. The Deep did look, though, so I could guess. He was not subtle with his face. He had a thing, I was sure, and if he was friends with Translucent, then… he wouldn’t have friends for that long.
The only one that made me second-guess myself was Black Noir. Standing, almost silently, some twenty paces from Homelander’s door. I didn’t know much about him. Maybe it was a genuine concern.
They were close. It would make sense.
I gave Black Noir a smile and a sort of wave. He waved back. If I was ever going to get my head around John, I would need him too. There was a thing he liked, I could vaguely recall. He had some kind of mental thing, and it was about cartoon characters. All I had to do was get on Ebay.
The elevator ride took a long time.
Maybe everything about this was gross. I hadn’t seen anyone die, and nobody had actually done anything that I could tell, and yet I was planning horrible things. There wasn’t a good excuse.
Homelander was unwell. This wasn’t how family dynamics were supposed to work. He was dangerous to people in general, but specifically to me. I didn’t really have anyone else to talk to, and even if I did, they would be in danger, probably.
The clothes stuff had been a lot. I decided to believe it was just a parasocial thing, and not any of the other things it could be. If it wasn’t, well, then I didn’t have any alternatives.
Maybe the smart thing to do would have been to escape that first or second day. Way back in Colorado. It was too late, and too early.
For now, I needed to figure out what I could do, I needed to convince John to tell me about himself, and I needed to find a way out to save the Robin girl. Everything else needed to take second priority. If I could prove that she was real, then it would mean everything else was real in the ways that mattered. Then I was a hero and not just some freak.
It was more important than thinking things, seeing things, or feeling things that weren’t real.