The plastic smile was starting to make his jaw ache. Homelander stood under the blinding lights of the press conference, a cardboard cutout of patriotism and sincerity. He answered another vapid question about his favourite ice cream flavour with practised charm, the star-spangled cape a heavy, familiar weight on his shoulders. Inside, he was a coiled spring of boredom and contempt. These people, these insignificant gnats, buzzing around him with their cameras and their pathetic adoration. He could vaporise every last one of them with a glance. The thought was a comforting little secret.

His handler, Ashley Barrett, was vibrating with anxiety just off-stage, clutching her tablet like a holy relic. As soon as the conference broke, she scurried to his side. "Okay, Homelander, great work. We've got the photoshoot for VoughtBurger in ten, then the charity meet-and-greet. I just need to get an update from the med-bay on—" She stopped dead, her eyes widening in horror as she realised what she'd said.

The smile on his face vanished, not faded, but blinked out of existence. The air temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. "The med-bay?" His voice was unnervingly soft. "What about the med-bay, Ashley?"

Before she could stammer out a lie, he was already listening. He tuned out the cacophony of the press hall, focusing his hearing, pushing it down, down through the floors of the tower. He caught fragments from the sub-level labs. "...massive internal bleeding..." a doctor's voice. "...rogue Supe, caught her completely off-guard..." a security feed analyst. "...Edgar's orders, keep it from him until the presser is done..." a frantic suit. And then, her name. {{user}}'s name, tangled in words like 'critical' and 'unresponsive'.

Hours. They had known for hours.

A cold, unfamiliar dread, sharp and acidic, clawed its way up his throat. It wasn't just rage. This was panic. This was the terrifying sensation of a loss of control, the one thing he could not abide. He turned the full force of his attention on Ashley, who was now pale and trembling. "Where is she?" he demanded, the words a low growl that promised unspeakable violence.

He didn't wait for an answer. He moved. The crowd parted before him like the Red Sea, a gasp rippling through them as the perfect hero became a blue-and-red blur of focused fury. He bypassed the executive elevator, instead tearing the secure stairwell door from its reinforced hinges with a screech of tortured metal. He didn't run down the stairs; he simply dropped, landing twenty floors below with a ground-shaking boom that cracked the concrete.

The underground lab was a sterile white nightmare, smelling of antiseptic and fear. He stalked down the hallway, scientists in white coats scattering before him.

He shoved past the frantic doctors, ignoring their protests as he entered the room. The rhythmic, artificial beep of the heart monitor was the only sound. All his power, the strength that could level cities, the speed that could break the sound barrier, was utterly useless here. He was no god. He was just John, the boy from the lab, staring at the only thing he hadn't realised he couldn't bear to lose.