Homelander's fake "loving" smile hadn't even finished sliding off his face when he got that answer.
He let go of Ryan, pointed at the stupidly luxurious lounge area tucked in the corner of his office, and said in a voice he thought was gentle but came out pure steel, "Ryan, starting today you're staying right here. Don't step foot out of this office until I come up with a good enough excuse to feed the board."
He paused, clearly trying to sound more like an actual dad. "Every floor in Vought is wired with cameras—eyes and ears fucking everywhere. But this? This is my turf. Nobody dares stick their nose in, ok?"
A smug, god-like edge crept into his tone. "I'll sort it out fast so you can live here out in the open as my son."
To keep the kid busy and patch over that clumsy burst of "fatherly love" he didn't even understand, Homelander snatched the internal phone off the desk.
In his usual bossy bark he ordered his assistant to haul up every top-shelf snack in the city, the newest game consoles, plus every sugary drink and dessert a kid could want—all inside ten minutes.
"Go play for a bit, eat whatever," he said, forcing his voice softer. "Dad's got stuff to handle. I'll be back soon."
Before the words were even fully out, he spun on his heel and practically bolted from the office. The heavy automatic door hissed shut behind him, cutting Ryan off from view but not from the way his heart was jackhammering against his ribs.
He clutched those few strands of fine golden hair so tight his palms were already slick with sweat. For a guy who could tank missiles with his bare skin, suddenly having a son felt like the weirdest fucking trip of his life.
...
Hundreds of meters below Vought Tower, in the ultra-secure genetics lab, everything was dead quiet.
Dozens of white-coated researchers bent over their stations, instruments humming in perfect rhythm.
Then the massive alloy door—triple-auth locked—exploded inward like it weighed nothing.
Homelander stormed through the wreckage like a goddamn wrecking ball.
All the researchers in the lab froze mid-motion like someone had hit pause on their lives. Faces went bone-white, mouths clamped shut tighter than crickets in winter. Nobody even dared to breathe.
Homelander didn't say a word. He just swept that ice-cold stare across the room.
In the next second his eyes flared bright red. A dozen razor-precise heat vision beams lanced out from different angles at once, slicing into every corner of the lab.
Hidden mini-cams in the ceiling, walls, and even inside the instruments melted into slag at the exact same instant, curling up into thin wisps of smoke.
Whatever the fuck was about to happen here, no one else was ever going to know about it.
Job done, he marched straight up to the middle-aged guy wearing the "Chief Researcher" badge on his chest and slammed the sweat-damp strands of golden hair down onto the lab bench.
"At the fastest speed possible," he said, voice flat, emotionless, and heavy enough to freeze blood. "Run a comparison report between this sample and my DNA."
The chief researcher's legs turned to jelly. He nearly crumpled to the floor right there.
He stared at those few strands of hair—more valuable than solid gold—then back at Homelander's dead-eyed face. His voice came out in a pathetic stutter.
"H-Homelander… this… this doesn't comply with regulations! Any genetic test involving you has to… has to be reported to the board and get the highest level of approval before—"
"Now."
Homelander didn't bother saying anything else. He just locked eyes with the man, the red glow in his pupils burning hotter and brighter.
A raw, suffocating killing intent slammed into the researcher like a tidal wave.
It felt like an invisible hand had clamped around his throat, squeezing until breathing became a goddamn luxury.
Under that pure, undisguised death glare, every "company regulation" suddenly looked paper-thin and fucking laughable.
"I… I'll do it right away! Right away!" the researcher squealed, scrambling like his ass was on fire.
With shaking hands he scooped up the strands of hair like they were the last winning lottery ticket on Earth and half-stumbled, half-ran toward the DNA rapid-sequencing machine buried in the deepest corner of the lab.
The whole laboratory dropped into graveyard silence. Only the low, steady hum of the instruments remained.
Homelander stood dead-center like a statue carved out of pure menace, radiating pure death energy.
His super-hearing—strong enough to pick up heartbeats clear across the city—was now locked onto every tiny click and whir of the machines.
He could also hear his own heart, the one that had never known fear or backing down, now hammering away like a war drum from nerves and raw anticipation he'd never felt before.
He had never been this fucking nervous in his life.
...
Upstairs in the office, Ryan didn't even glance at the ridiculous mountain of premium snacks and brand-new game consoles that had just been delivered.
After confirming Homelander had left, Ryan walked straight to the massive ebony desk that screamed ultimate power.
He reached out with his small hand and casually tapped a few keys on the computer that held the highest clearance in all of Vought.
The screen lit up instantly. The entire ocean of Vought's internal intelligence files swung wide open for him.
Ryan dropped into the ridiculously comfortable boss chair, leaned back, and let his ice-blue eyes gleam with a calm, sharp intelligence that had no business being on a kid's face.
He started ripping through the company's classified documents, data and reports flashing past in a blur.
Using memories from his previous life plus the superhuman brain he had now, he sliced through the bullshit in seconds, zeroing in on exactly what he needed.
It didn't take long before two heavily encrypted incident reports jumped out at him.
The first one was titled: "Follow-up Report on The Seven member 'A-Train' accidentally causing the death of civilian Robin Ward during a criminal pursuit."
Ryan opened it. The file laid out how Vought's PR machine had crushed the whole thing fast—bribed the media, slapped a nice "unavoidable collateral damage" label on the innocent girl's death, and moved on like nothing happened.
The second report was a full publicity plan: "Regarding the debut ceremony of new member 'Starlight' Annie January.
Time: This weekend.
Location: Vought Tower Plaza."
Staring at those two reports that looked completely unrelated on the surface, a cold, knowing smirk slowly spread across Ryan's face.
He knew Robin's death meant Billy Butcher—the psycho who swore to burn every supe to the ground—had already caught the scent of blood and was moving like a starving wolf.
And poor, lovesick Hughie was about to get dragged straight into this meat grinder.
Starlight joining The Seven, on the other hand, meant the first real crack was about to split open inside that shiny, "unbreakable" team.
The main plot of The Boys had just kicked off right in front of him.
Ryan sank deeper into the boss chair, the ultimate symbol of power, and let himself relax completely.
His fingers drummed a slow, steady rhythm on the polished desktop—thump… thump… thump.
His brain was firing at an insane speed.
There is no point in thinking about it, Butcher needs to die. Hughie gotta go, too.
Haah.. Starlight. The Deep. A-Train… I as I'm right now.. with the additional powers of Starlight, who could rule over the seven seas and can be faster than my father.. there's no helping it.
All of you are gonna die by my hand, Ryan thought. Every single one of you will be nothing but stepping stones for me to get stronger.
He already had the whole plan mapped out.
Multiple parallel lines running at once.
On one side, he'd keep playing the perfect "Son of God."
Use Homelander as his ultimate trump card and slowly tear Vought apart from the inside—dismantle it, infiltrate it, then take total control.
On the other side, he could secretly give The Boys a little push.
Feed them key intel here and there. Stir up some convenient chaos.
Let those crazy bastards bite into Vought like a pack of rabid dogs and rip open bigger holes for him to exploit.
Ryan's eyes left the computer screen and drifted to the glittering New York skyline outside the window, alive with millions of lights.
The corner of his mouth curled into a cold, amused smirk.. like a god staring down at his personal chessboard.
He wasn't just going to play the game.
He was going to write every fucking rule.
And right now, down in that underground lab, the so-called most powerful man in the world—pacing restlessly while he waited for a DNA report—was nothing more than the sharpest, most important chess piece in Ryan's grand scheme.