Luke Vance stared at the name for five seconds.
*Serena Shaw.* Appearing on the attendee list for this Wednesday’s meeting.
He locked his phone screen and slipped it into his pocket.
There were still two days to prepare for the asset routine meeting, but at present, there was a far more pressing variable to manage.
Tuesday afternoon.
Madelyn’s secretary sent a message at noon: *Homelander crushed a coffee machine with his bare hands in the 72nd-floor hallway this morning because an intern posted an old photo of a commercial plane crash on social media and re-tagged the official Vought account.* Public Relations had managed to delete the post and ban the account within forty minutes.
However, Homelander’s anger had not vanished alongside the post.
At two o’clock in the afternoon, Luke’s office door was violently shoved open from the outside.
There was no sign of damage to the lock, but a faint bend had formed near the top of the doorframe—the result of the metal strip giving way under extreme force.
Homelander stood in the doorway.
The hem of his star-spangled cape swayed gently behind him.
There was no wind in the hallway; the movement stemmed from the air currents produced by the rapid, heavy breathing deep within his chest.
His eyes were bloodshot.
Not the red glow of heat vision.
Actual engorged blood vessels.
“Did you see it?” Luke was sitting behind his desk, sorting through files retrieved from the Sub-level 2 archives.
He raised his head at the sound.
“See what?” “That post.
Those comments.” Homelander’s pitch was half an octave higher than usual, the resonance shifting from his chest to his larynx.
The change in vocal mechanics indicated his emotions had shattered his usual broadcast-controlled voice modulation.
“I don’t check social media.” “They’re calling me a murderer.” Luke closed the folder in his hand and set it to the side of his desk.
“Who is?” “Everyone.
Every single comment.
Every retweet.” Homelander stepped into the office, the floorboards emitting faint squeaks under pressure with every stride.
“I’m protecting them.
I fly through the sky every single day protecting them, and they turn around and call me a murderer.” His right hand clenched into a fist at his side, his knuckles turning white as blue veins bulged on the back of his hand.
Luke didn’t stand up.
“What do you want me to say?” “I don’t know!” The sheer volume of the shout sent visible ripples across the surface of the water in Luke’s glass.
Homelander marched up to the front of the desk, slammed both hands down onto the surface, and leaned forward, his face less than thirty centimeters from Luke’s.
A red glow flickered at the edges of his pupils.
Brightening, dimming.
*Charging phase.* “You want me to say they’re wrong?” Luke sat in his chair, back pressed against the cushion, hands resting on the armrests.
“Aren’t they?” “There were two hundred and thirty-nine people on that plane.” Homelander’s fingers sank a centimeter into the wooden desk.
“That wasn’t my fault.” “I didn’t say it was.” “Your tone says it is.” “My tone is stating a fact.” Luke’s gaze never left his eyes.
“Two hundred and thirty-nine people are dead.
You can tell me it wasn’t your fault, but you need to tell yourself first.” The red glow intensified.
The air inside the office began to heat up rapidly, the ambient temperature rising by at least three degrees within five seconds.
The fine hairs on the back of Luke’s neck stood on end.
Homelander strode around the desk.
His hand clamped onto Luke’s neck.
Luke’s body was lifted straight out of the chair, his toes hovering roughly eight centimeters off the floor.
The heat radiating from Homelander’s palm was scorching, his fingers possessing enough force to flatten steel pipes, yet at this moment, they merely clamped down without closing completely.
Luke’s trachea was constricted by roughly forty percent.
Breathing became difficult, but it wasn’t completely cut off; his vocal cords could still produce sound.
He didn’t struggle.
His hands slid off the armrests, hanging naturally at his sides, fingers comfortably extended.
Homelander’s blue eyes were inches away, the red glow pulsating along the perimeter of his irises.
“Give me a reason,” Homelander gritted out from deep within his chest.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t burn every single person in this building to ash.” Luke’s throat emitted a rough, squeezed rasp.
Under the lack of oxygen, his lips took on a faint purplish hue.
He spoke.
His voice was faint, each word needing to be pushed out one by one through his compressed windpipe.
“The way…
you look right now…” He coughed, a thin streak of blood seeping from the corner of his mouth—the result of minor trauma to his throat lining.
“…is exactly like…
the people who locked you in that lab.” Homelander’s hand convulsed.
His five fingers trembled violently against Luke’s neck as if electrocuted.
He wasn’t tightening his grip—he was losing control of it.
The red light snapped off.
It didn’t fade gradually; within the span of a single heartbeat, it completely receded from the edges of his irises.
Luke saw what was exposed beneath that extinguished crimson glow.
It wasn’t anger.
It was a child raised between sterile white lab walls.
At the sound of that word, every deeply buried memory rushed up through the cracks like rising groundwater.
He had been seen right through.
Homelander’s hand opened.
Luke’s body dropped back into the chair, his spine striking the backrest with a dull thud.
He bent over, coughing violently, his right hand propping himself up on the desk edge while raspy, damaged friction sounds tore from his throat.
Homelander took a step back, then another.
His knees backed straight into the wall behind him.
Then he slid down along the wall, collapsing onto the floor.
He clutched his head with both hands.
The star-spangled cape crumpled into a heap on the carpet, blonde hair peeking out through his fingers.
His shoulders were shaking.
Luke got out of the chair.
Before his coughing fit had fully subsided, four red finger marks were clearly visible on his neck.
The swallowing reflex after tracheal compression brought a sharp pain with every breath.
He squatted down in front of Homelander.
The position was calculated to be level with Homelander’s line of sight, maintaining a distance of roughly forty centimeters—right on the threshold between social and personal space.
“Look at me.” Homelander didn’t move.
“John.” The name caused the figure clutching his head to shudder violently.
No one called him that.
At Vought, he was HL-001, Homelander, an asset, a product.
John was a name given to him by a long-departed researcher before his lab designation replaced it—a detail that appeared only once, on page thirteen of File Seven.
He slowly raised his head.
His face was wet.
Luke looked at that face, reading many things written across it, but he needed to address only one.
“I’m not going anywhere.” His voice carried a raspy, broken texture from the coughing, but every word landed with absolute stability.
“No matter what you turn into, I’ll be right here.” Homelander’s lips quivered.
His eyes were fiercely red as tears spilled from his eye sockets, streaming down his cheekbones and dropping onto the star-spangled cape, soaking into dark spots.
He didn’t make a sound.
Yet his hands released his hair, dropping down to rest beside his knees.
Palms facing upward.
In behavioral science, this was a signal with almost no ambiguity: a complete surrender of defense, a total handoff of control.
Luke knelt before him, slowly raising his right hand until it rested on Homelander’s shoulder.
The pressure was gentle.
Almost identical to the force Homelander had used when touching his shoulder at the end of their first session.
Homelander’s body flinched the moment the hand made contact, and then— The muscle tension across his entire body seemed to deflate.
His shoulders slumped, his head dropped, and his forehead nearly touched the back of Luke’s hand.
Luke’s other hand hung quietly at his side.
His gaze traveled over Homelander’s bowed blonde head, landing on the three old scratch marks on the opposite wall.
His eyes were utterly calm.
The finger marks on his neck flared red and purple under the lights, and his throat still burned from the choking pressure.
Yet the corner of his mouth, at an angle invisible to Homelander, tugged upward in an imperceptible shift.
It was faint.
So faint that even the security cameras on the wall might not have caught it.
Silence filled the office, save for the intertwined sounds of two people breathing—one raspy and broken, the other ragged and sobbing.
Three minutes later, Homelander stood up.
He didn’t wipe his face.
He stared at the finger marks on Luke’s neck, his lips moving twice, but no sound came out.
Then he turned and walked away.
This time he didn’t slam the door; he even eased his movement as he shut it, as though afraid of breaking something fragile.
After the door clicked shut, Luke sat alone against the base of the wall.
He raised his hand to his neck, pressing his fingertips against the bruised spots.
Pain surged along the nerve endings, sharp and concrete.
He pulled the folded sheet of white paper from the secret compartment in his pocket, unfolded it, and added a sentence beneath the last line of text: *Trauma bonding: Complete.
Subject accepted physical comfort from evaluator post-extreme stress event, marking the evaluator’s integration into his core attachment sequence.* He folded the paper, slipped it back into his pocket, and leaned his head back against the wall, staring up at the cold white lights on the ceiling.
His phone vibrated on the desk.
He reached over and glanced at it.
A message from Madelyn: *Office security shows a physical confrontation between you and HL-001.
Is your neck okay?
Do you need a medical team?* A second message followed immediately: *Also, did you see the asset meeting list for Wednesday?
A new consultant for the Asian market was added, personally approved by Edgar.
Do you know anything about this person?* Luke read both messages twice.
He replied to the first: *No need.
Just superficial.* He left the second unreplied.
*Serena Shaw.* The name spun through his head, but he couldn’t find any corresponding memory from his past life.
There was no such character in the original show.
He set the phone down and leaned back against the wall once more.
The bruises on his neck throbbed faintly in the cool draft of the air conditioner.
From the far end of the hallway outside came the rapid clacking of high heels.
The footsteps approached, paused for two seconds in front of his office door, and then turned back.
It was Madelyn’s pace and stride length.
She had come, and she had left.
Luke closed his eyes, tapping his finger against his knee three times.
One for Homelander—already in the game.
Two for Edgar—watching from the shadows.
Three for Serena Shaw—an unplanned variable that had just landed on the chessboard.
The footsteps in the hallway vanished completely, and the low hum of the air conditioner flooded the room once more.
He opened his eyes, stood up, and walked over to the desk.
Pulling open the bottom drawer, he retrieved a small round mirror.
In the reflection, four dark purple finger marks lay neatly across his neck, their spacing precisely matching the skeletal structure of Homelander’s right hand.
He turned the mirror face down on the desk, picked up the phone, and dialed Ashley’s extension.
“Look up Serena Shaw’s onboarding file for me.
Email it to my inbox by today.” Ashley paused on the other end for a second.
“Dr.
Vance, her clearance level is half a step higher than yours.
I can’t pull it.” Luke tapped his finger against the edge of the receiver.
“Then just tell me one thing.
Who recommended her?” Ashley lowered her voice.
“Edgar.
He signed the offer letter himself.”