Lucas Vance stood in the elevator for the half-second before the doors closed and heard those words.
The doors shut.
Steel cables pulled the car downward, the B3 button glowing with a cold white light.
He refastened the undone button at his collar, his fingertip gliding over its surface with a steady, unhurried rhythm.
The elevator paused briefly on the twenty-second floor.
The doors slid open, revealing no one.
The doors closed again.
He stepped out on floor B3, walked down the corridor, and returned to his office.
The rubber seals along the door seam were intact, and the record player hadn’t shifted an inch.
He placed his briefcase on the right side of his desk, sat down, and left the lights off.
Outside the window, the artificial sky system remained on, bathing the entire office in the warm amber glow of lingering twilight.
His phone screen lit up.
A text from Homelander.
“I need to know where you went and who you spoke to.” Lucas looked at the line of text without replying.
He placed the phone face down on the desk.
Three minutes later, the phone buzzed a second time.
“You don’t have to answer now.
Tomorrow at four.” Still, he didn’t reply.
This time, he slipped the phone into his pocket.
The next afternoon at 3:55, Lucas pushed open the door to the evaluation room.
Homelander was already there, sitting on the sofa, his fingers resting lightly on the outer rim of the turntable, though the needle wasn’t set.
The blanket lay over the armrest, and the lamp was on.
The room’s setup was identical to how Lucas usually prepared it upon arrival, meaning Homelander had come early, inspected everything, then sat back down in his spot, waiting for Lucas to initiate.
This was a shift.
In the past, Homelander wouldn’t touch a thing when he came in.
Lucas sat in his usual spot on the floor, his back resting against the wall, a book resting beside his knee.
He made no move to grab the record needle.
“What do you want to know?” he spoke first.
Homelander shifted his gaze from the record player to Lucas’s face.
The intensity of the scrutiny in his blue eyes was slightly lower than it had been in the lobby last night, but the underlying hardness remained.
“What did you talk about with them?” “Budgets, advertising contracts, content censorship clauses.” “That’s all?” “That’s all.” Homelander leaned forward three centimeters, elbows resting on his knees.
Lucas had seen this posture before—Homelander had used it during the debriefing meeting when scolding Starlight.
It was a preparatory stance for an aggressive posture.
But today, the direction of that aggression was not in this room.
“Then why didn’t you tell me you were going?” “That wasn’t something I needed to tell you.” “You said the exact same thing yesterday.” “And I’m saying it again today.” Silence hung in the room for a few seconds.
Chopin wasn’t playing; only the low-frequency hum of the air conditioner vent filled the air.
Homelander stared at him, the corner of his mouth tightening briefly before relaxing.
“You think I shouldn’t know your whereabouts.” “I think you don’t need to know all of my whereabouts.” “But you need to know mine.” Homelander’s voice didn’t rise, but the weight behind every word was half a beat heavier than before.
“My floor location, my emotional state, who I’m talking to.
You need to know.” Lucas didn’t evade his gaze.
“Because I’m responsible for your safety.” “You’re responsible for *me*,” Homelander corrected him.
“Safety is only part of it.” Lucas made a mental note.
That was an extraordinarily lucid statement.
So lucid it didn’t sound like something a subject in the middle of being conditioned would say.
He adjusted his strategy.
“Do you think I went to that banquet to side with them?” Homelander didn’t answer.
However, the line of his shoulders dropped from the aggressive forward hunch back to a neutral position.
“I went because,” Lucas said in a steady tone, stretching the gap between each word slightly, “the better I understand how they think, the better I can help you.” The sentence hung in the air for three seconds.
Homelander’s shoulders dropped completely.
He leaned back against the sofa cushions, his eyes shifting from Lucas’s face to the tiny crack in the ceiling paint.
“Help with what?” “Help you know who’s plotting against you, who’s using you, and who says one thing behind your back and another to your face.” “You heard those things at the banquet?” “I heard a few.” “Like what?” “Someone said Madelyn isn’t fit to shine Edgar’s shoes.” The corner of Homelander’s mouth twitched—not a smile, but a subtle muscle spasm caught between contempt and rage.
“Who said it?” “A man sitting at the end of the long table.
He had too much to drink and didn’t lower his voice enough.” “Name?” “I remembered it.
But today isn’t the time to discuss him.” Lucas flipped open his book to the page he had folded earlier.
The movement was slow, the sound of the page turning amplified in the quiet room.
“What we need to discuss today is what you were thinking while waiting for me in the lobby last night.” Homelander pulled his gaze back from the ceiling, letting it rest on Lucas’s profile.
“I was thinking about whether you were ever coming back.” When those words were spoken, Homelander’s vocal cords showed no extra vibration.
The airflow was steady, delivered in the exact same tone as if mentioning the weather was nice.
Yet the weight of the content was vastly different.
Lucas turned another page without looking up.
“Why did you think that?” “Because while you were with them, I was on the seventy-second floor.
I didn’t know which floor you were on, who you were talking to, or when you’d finish.
During those hours, you didn’t belong to me.” “I don’t belong to anyone.” “You belong to me.” Homelander’s tone held no anger, only simple assertion.
“You’re my psychologist.
You need to be here waiting for me.” Lucas’s finger paused on the edge of the page.
He closed the book, stood it upright beside his knee, and turned his head to look at Homelander.
“What is it that you want?” “I want you to let me know about every executive meeting you attend from now on.” “Fine.” The answer came too quickly.
Homelander’s brow furrowed slightly, as if unprepared to catch such a direct response.
“Really?” “On one condition.” “What condition?” “I attend those meetings to gather information to help you.
I need you to trust that.” Lucas’s voice remained entirely flat.
“If you trust me, I will tell you every detail.
If you don’t, I will say nothing.” Homelander stared at him, something shifting beneath his eyes.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” “You don’t need to know.
You need to choose to trust me.” A long silence settled over the room.
The air conditioner vent shifted frequencies, its hum dropping half an octave lower.
Homelander rested his head against the back of the sofa, shifting his eyes to the lampshade.
Warm light traced a soft contour along his profile.
“Fine,” he said.
“I choose to trust you.” Lucas nodded without speaking.
He lowered the stylus onto the record.
Chopin’s melody flowed out from the very first note, filling the air between them.
Five minutes later, he opened his book and turned to a new page.
At ten o’clock that evening, he sent a message to Madelyn.
After three revisions, the final text was just two lines: “In the future, please ensure I am present at any meetings or affairs involving Homelander.
Reason: To reduce the risk of emotional volatility caused by information gaps.” Madelyn’s reply arrived four minutes later.
A single question mark.
Lucas sent another line: “He is adapting to a new emotional management framework.
Any information asymmetry will trigger his defense mechanisms.
Having him know I am present will actually lower his aggressiveness.” This time, Madelyn replied much faster: “Are you taming him, or is he taming you?” Lucas looked at the words, his thumb lingering on the edge of the screen for three seconds.
He replied: “Both.
That is precisely why it works.” Madelyn didn’t reply again.
Lucas locked his phone and set it on the nightstand.
Outside the window, the artificial sky system had switched to late-night mode, submerging the room in a faint lunar blue.
He lay down, eyes fixed on the ceiling, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the texture of the blanket edge.
The escalation of possessiveness was a signal.
The deeper the reliance, the stronger the possessiveness, and the violent backlash would be proportionately greater.
Homelander now needed to know where he was, who he spoke to, and when he would return.
Take another step down this path, and it would become needing to know what he was thinking.
By that stage, it wouldn’t be conditioning anymore.
It would be fusion.
And what Lucas wanted was not fusion.
It was control.
He closed his eyes and mapped out a timeline in his mind.
Establishing reliance required three to six months.
Stabilizing possessiveness required another two months.
After that came the consolidation phase, and only after consolidation could he begin guiding external behavioral output.
It was only the first month.
He rolled over to face the wall.
In the darkness, there was nothing except the faint circular shadow cast by the air conditioning vent on the wall.
The phone buzzed on the nightstand.
He reached out to grab it, the screen’s light making his eyes squint slightly.
A text from Homelander.
“Tomorrow at four.” Lucas blinked in the dark, then typed a single word in reply.
“Okay.” He locked the screen, placed the phone back, and closed his eyes.
In the late-night quiet, the air conditioning ducts in the adjoining room let out a low resonance before going quiet.
He thought of something.
Madelyn had asked if he was being tamed or doing the taming.
He hadn’t given the real answer.
The real answer was neither.
He was acting.
And Homelander was the sole audience.
An audience who was transitioning from passive viewing to actively demanding an encore.
Tomorrow at four.
He would be there on time.