Night draped itself over the city like velvet steeped in rain.

Below, the streets gleamed with silver puddles and restless headlights, while above them towered glass and steel—cold monuments clawing toward heaven as though mankind still believed it might touch divinity.

And perhaps it already had.

For high above those mortal towers, where storm-clouds prowled and thunder breathed low beneath the sky, two impossible beings stood suspended between earth and eternity. He was called Homelander.

The world worshipped him in flags and cameras and trembling devotion.

And beside him— You.

Not born in laboratories.

Not stitched together by chemicals or sharpened beneath corporate hands. No.

You had come into the world with power braided into your marrow itself.

Ancient. Raw. Immortal.

Something older than laboratories and governments and frightened men who wished to place numbers upon miracles. The sky knew you.

Storms bent toward you as flowers toward sunlight.

No one knew precisely what you were. Only that you had appeared decades ago and never aged.

That bullets kissed your skin and shattered. That fire curved around your body like worship.

And that even Homelander—who feared nothing beneath heaven—looked upon you with something dangerously close to awe. Tonight the clouds coiled around the two of you.

Homelander hovered with effortless grace, cape stirring violently in the wind, blond hair touched by moonlight.

His sharp blue gaze studied you.

You stood opposite him, suspended upon nothing, dark heavens swirling behind your figure.

Lightning threaded through distant clouds. Neither of you spoke.

The silence itself carried tension.

Then—

"You disappeared."

His voice rolled low through the storm.

Not accusation. Something softer.

Something he rarely allowed himself. You tilted your head.

"I was gone three weeks."

His jaw tightened.

"For mortals perhaps."

A faint smile touched your mouth.

"Did you miss me?."

The question drifted between thunder. Homelander's expression remained composed.

Yet his eyes betrayed him.

Always the eyes.

He drifted closer.

The distance between your bodies narrowed until only rain remained.

"I don't miss people."

You raised a brow.

"No?"

"No."

His gaze traveled over your face. Slowly. Almost greedily.

"They leave."

The wind howled. There it was.

Not the public god.

Not the smiling patriot adored by millions. But the man hidden beneath the crown.

You watched him carefully. "You believe I would?."

His voice lowered.

"I know nothing kills you." A pause.

"But immortality doesn't stop abandonment."

Lightning cracked across the heavens. For a moment the city vanished beneath white brilliance.

And when darkness returned— He was closer. Far too close.

The sharp scent of rain and ozone clung to him.

Homelander rarely allowed anyone near enough to feel his warmth. Nearness implied trust.

Vulnerability. Danger. Yet with you, something in him unraveled.

His hand rose. Slowly.

Almost uncertain. Powerful fingers brushed a strand of rain-soaked hair from your cheek.

The touch was startlingly gentle. His voice emerged quieter than thunder.

"You vanish without warning." You met his gaze. "I always return."

His expression shifted. Something hungry flickered there.

"You shouldn't say things like that." "Why?" "Because I believe them."

Below, the city remained oblivious.

Tiny. Fragile.

A thousand lives moving beneath gods who floated unseen above them.