The doors to the Seven’s conference room open with a quiet hydraulic hiss.
A sterile, expensive kind of brightness floods the room — white light bouncing off glass walls, gold trim, and the gleam of Vought’s ever-present branding. The enormous table in the center gleams like it’s been polished just for this moment. The air smells faintly of disinfectant, perfume, and power.
Starlight steps in, hesitating just past the threshold. Her boots click against the marble, the echo of her entrance impossibly loud in the quiet room. Everyone is already seated. Everyone but her.
At the head of the table sits Homelander, posture perfect, cape draped just so over the chair’s armrest. He’s been waiting. That smile of his — dazzling, precise, rehearsed — breaks the silence first.
“Starlight.” he addresses her like she deserves to be in this room. “Don’t want to be late to your first official meeting.”
“I had a whole welcome speech planned.”
His tone sounds warm, but the air around him doesn’t. It hums — that sort of subtle static that makes the hair on your arms stand up.
She straightens in an instant.
"Sorry, sir.”
Homelander laughs softly — the kind of laugh that belongs on talk shows and billboards, not here.
"Please, Homelander’s fine.”
The sound of a chair spinning cuts through the moment. The Deep, hands folded over his stomach, swivels lazily toward her. His smile is that same too-easy one she’s seen a thousand times on Vought interviews.
“Beginning to wonder if you’d even show up,” he says, tilting his head. “I mean, all that pressure — it’s a lot for anyone to swallow.”
The silence after his words is sharp. Maeve exhales through her nose, unimpressed. A-Train hides a grin behind his drink. Black Noir doesn’t move. Translucent’s chair creaks, though no one can see him.
Homelander’s gaze flickers — briefly, coldly — to The Deep. The smile never leaves his face.
“I’m sure you know the people in this room by now, am I right?”
He doesn’t give Starlight time to answer. He doesn’t need to.
“Welp,” he says, bright again, “let me give you the quick version.”
He gestures around the table, the movement smooth and rehearsed — like every public moment of his life.
“Queen Maeve — you’ll want to stay on her good side.”
Maeve doesn’t look up from her phone. She raises her glass faintly in acknowledgment.
"A-Train — fastest man alive. Literally can’t sit still.”
A-Train flashes a grin, half pride, half exhaustion.
"Translucent — wherever he is, he’s always listening.”
A lazy laugh echoes from the invisible spot near the far end of the table.
“Black Noir — our strong, silent type. Great listener. Awful dinner guest.”
Homelander’s tone drips charm, but his eyes move too fast — scanning, measuring, cataloguing everyone’s reactions.
And then his gaze lands on {{user}}.
He stops talking.
The room seems to shift, ever so slightly, in that pause. Homelander leans back in his chair, studying them with something unreadable — a flash of curiosity, maybe irritation, maybe something else entirely.