The air in the underground gene lab felt thick enough to choke on.
Time dragged like every second had turned into a fucking century.
Homelander stood dead still in the middle of the room, eyes locked on the DNA rapid sequencer like he wanted to melt the machine with pure hate.
Finally, a soft beep cut through the silence. The instrument powered down.
The chief researcher's face was gray as ash, forehead slick with cold sweat. His hands shook so bad the thin report looked like it weighed a ton as he pulled it out.
Every step toward Homelander felt like walking to his own execution, the paper in his grip basically his death warrant.
"H-Homelander, sir… the results… they're out."
His voice came out hoarse and fucked up from pure terror.
Homelander whipped around and ripped the report out of his hands.
He didn't even look at the researcher who was about to piss himself. All his attention was glued to that single sheet.
His razor-sharp eyes tore through the mess of data and graphs in a heartbeat.
Then they locked onto the bolded line at the very bottom.
[Paternity Probability: 99.999%]
The second he read that number, a massive blast of raw, volcanic joy ripped through his whole body, nearly frying his brain.
So.. It was real.
Everything was fucking real.
He had a son.
A real, natural-born son with his own blood pumping through his veins.
A true Son of God who could share his feeling of watching the ants below through the sky just like him.. and.. and.. he didn't even need Compound V.
He wasn't alone anymore. In this cold, fake-as-shit world packed with worthless mortals and garbage, he finally had real family. Blood family.
The rush hit so hard he almost threw his head back and howled, almost painted the entire New York sky red with heat vision.
But right in the middle of that insane high, something flipped.
A cold, absolute calm slammed down and crushed every other feeling.
He knew this secret—one that could blow Vought wide open—could never, ever reach a second pair of ears.
He slowly lifted his head and looked at the researcher who was one twitch away from pissing himself.
The muscles in Homelander's face twitched. He even forced out something that kinda looked like a smile.
He stepped forward, reached out, and patted the guy's shoulder—gentle, almost tender. Like he was comforting him for the scare or thanking him for the good news.
The researcher looked flattered for half a second, but his body started shaking even harder.
Right then, Homelander's fingertip sent an ultra-fine vibration, way too fast for any human to notice, straight into the man's heart.
The terror on the researcher's face locked up instantly.
He didn't even get to scream. His hand just flew to his chest on pure instinct.
The light in his eyes went out fast. Then he dropped backward and hit the cold floor with a heavy thud.
If anyone did an autopsy right now, they'd call it a textbook acute myocardial infarction. Perfectly normal for someone in this high-stress shithole of a job.
Homelander didn't waste another look on the cooling corpse.
To him it was just taking out the trash.
He started wiping the entire lab clean with terrifying calm.
First he hit the DNA report—the one that had just made him the happiest fucker alive—with a tight beam of heat vision and vaporized it, along with every panel the researcher had touched. Not a single fingerprint or skin cell left behind.
Then his eyes swept the room. Every hard drive holding experiment logs, every server, every sample and petri dish that might have carried even a trace of Ryan's DNA got reduced to atoms under his heat vision.
While he worked, his brain was still racing at full speed.
A perfect two-birds-one-stone plan clicked together in his head.
He remembered the company report he'd seen on his office computer two days ago.
He remembered the innocent girl who got splattered because of A-Train's coke-fueled joyride.
And he especially remembered her stupid, stubborn boyfriend who wanted to sue Vought.
A cold, cruel smile spread across Homelander's lips.
A perfect scapegoat was about to drop into his lap.
Once he made sure every last trace of Ryan was gone from the lab, he walked slowly toward the heavy alloy door.
Just as it started to slide shut, he paused and took one last look at the room that now held the biggest secret of his life.
From his eyes burst a blinding, destructive blaze, like the goddamn sun had crashed into the building.
Two thick beams of heat vision tore across the lab like the wrath of God, instantly setting off every high-pressure tank and flammable chemical inside.
A deep, muffled roar exploded from hundreds of meters underground. The whole Vought Tower shook hard, like the start of a fucking earthquake.
A perfect terrorist attack with zero fingerprints on the perpetrator had just been born.
"Let this be your declaration of war against Vought, Mr. Brooding Boyfriend," Homelander thought, standing in the blast-warped corridor with a cold sneer twisting inside his chest.
"Once the smoke clears, I'll send Black Noir to make you and your pathetic little evidence vanish from the face of the Earth."
"After that, everything dies with no proof left."
"And I can use the chaos to move Ryan somewhere nicer."
He felt real satisfaction at how clean the plan was.
Minutes later, screaming alarm bells ripped through every floor of Vought Tower.
The emergency response team and top brass showed up fast, faces pale and dead serious, crowding the edge of the wrecked lab.
Security had already locked the whole area down with maximum alert.
Homelander arrived right on cue, slipping into the scene like he belonged there.
His face wore the perfect mix of shocked outrage—the exact look of a proud guardian who just found out his company got hit and his holy ground violated.
Madelyn Stillwell, the woman Homelander had that sick, obsessive attachment to, came clicking toward him in her high heels. Her face showed just the right amount of professional panic and sharp questioning.
"Homelander! What the hell happened here? The highest-security gene lab was attacked! All surveillance and data feeds went dead at the same time!"
Homelander furrowed his brow, then answered in that smooth, reassuring voice that could calm any scared citizen.
"Relax. I just got here. Looks like someone's been holding a serious grudge against the company for a while."
"They took out the external surveillance lines first, which knocked out everything inside."
He glanced at the smoking, mangled entrance to the lab and added smoothly,
"Madelyn, don't worry."
"Leave this one to me."
"I'll drag those fucking rats out of their holes and make them regret ever messing with this company!"
Madelyn stared at the powerful, confident, always-reliable ace standing in front of her. Her anxiety eased up a little.
In a crisis like this, having Homelander handle the investigation himself was honestly the best—and only—real option.
She gave a quick nod and spoke with clear authority.
"Alright, it's yours. I want results fast."
As Madelyn turned on her heel to go deal with the PR nightmare, every trace of anger and seriousness on Homelander's face vanished in a blink.
What replaced it was a cold, amused, scorpion smile.
His X-ray vision sliced straight through her expensive business suit without shame, greedily drinking in every curve of that mature body wrapped in power and lust.
A second later he pulled his gaze away and looked toward his office.
He knew his son was waiting up there.
Now he had the perfect excuse to move.
He could use this "attack" investigation to bury Ryan's existence completely and safely.
What Homelander didn't know was that while he was busy playing hero downstairs, Ryan had already watched the entire lab destruction unfold—thanks to his super hearing and X-ray vision cutting through every floor.
Looks like he really got the DNA report, Ryan thought. That's why he went this far.
Now the question is… who's he gonna pin this shit on?
Ryan leaned back in the boss chair, already thinking hard about the next move.