“Doctor, what were you looking for in my childhood?”
Homelander’s voice sounded pleasant enough, but his blue eyes held not a single drop of warmth.
The air around the elevator felt stripped away, suffocatingly tense.
Lynn knew this was a test of life and death.
Answering “Just taking a look” meant death.
Answering “Investigating your past” meant death just the same.
He didn’t step back, nor did he show any panic.
He simply met Homelander’s gaze calmly.
“I came to find an answer.”
“The answer to the question you asked me yesterday.”
Homelander’s smile flickered.
Yesterday, he had asked: *What am I actually afraid of?*
In an instant, Lynn reframed his actions from “spying” into “fulfilling a promise.”
This caught Homelander’s prepared interrogation right in his throat.
“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow, the scrutiny in his eyes undiminished.
“And did you find it?”
“I did,” Lynn nodded.
Without waiting for Homelander to press further, he took the initiative.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it echoed clearly through the deserted hallway.
“I saw a room. A white room, built like a cage.”
The smile completely vanished from Homelander’s face.
“I saw words scratched into the wall by a child’s fingernails,” Lynn continued, his tone like that of an objective narrator recounting someone else’s history.
“‘Will someone come today?'”
“‘Was I good today?'”
“‘Why isn’t she coming anymore?'”
Every single question was a needle thrust deep into Homelander’s heavily guarded memories.
Homelander didn’t say a word, but his hands at his sides tightened involuntarily into fists.
“On the tape, that little boy completed a series of tests. He did wonderfully, stayed quiet, and didn’t break a single thing.”
“A researcher told him, ‘You did very well today. I’ll come see you again tomorrow.'”
“For the first time, light shone in that little boy’s eyes.”
Lynn’s eyes locked onto Homelander, not letting a single micro-expression slip past.
“And then?” Homelander suddenly spoke, his voice raspy, barely sounding like him.
“Then, the next day, he waited from morning till night. The door never opened.”
“On the third day, he was still waiting. The door still didn’t open.”
“He wasn’t afraid of loneliness, nor was he afraid of punishment,” Lynn’s voice turned sharp, cutting through the final layer of disguise like a scalpel.
“He was afraid that the door—the one he placed all his hopes on—would never open again.”
Lynn took a step forward, directly confronting the dangerous light beginning to brew in Homelander’s eyes.
“So what you really fear has never been their betrayal.”
“It’s that when you finally bring yourself to believe they will stay…”
“…they throw you away anyway.”
Silence.
A long, suffocating silence that felt as if it could stop a heart from beating.
Homelander stared fixedly at Lynn, his breathing turning ragged, his chest heaving violently.
He wanted to erupt in rage, wanted to incinerate the man before him who had seen right through everything with his heat vision.
But he couldn’t do it.
Because every single word Lynn said was true.
After a long time, his tense body suddenly slumped, as if drained of all strength.
He lowered his head and murmured in a voice barely above a whisper:
“They… all leave.”
It wasn’t a full sentence, sounding more like a hopeless sigh.
But it was enough.
[Main Mission Completed: Force Homelander to state his true fear.]
[Target Core Fear Confirmed: Abandonment after promise.]
[Reward: Super Hearing Shard × 5]
[Integrating Ability… Super Hearing Enhancement Complete!]
A sensory awareness clearer and more powerful than before flooded Lynn’s ears in an instant. Get faster updates on g.com.
This time, what he heard was no longer muffled static.
The sounds of the world formed a precise map in his mind.
He could hear the rush of his own blood, and the rapid, agonizing pounding of Homelander’s heart.
He could also hear…
Behind the fire exit door at the end of the hallway leading to the surface, four suppressed heartbeats and shallow breaths.
A Vought International tactical squad.
They had been lying in wait here all along.
Lynn’s hearing penetrated the thick fireproof door, clearly catching the faint electric crackle coming from their earpieces.
A calm voice was issuing orders:
“Target has entered the designated zone. Maintain surveillance, do not make any rash moves.”
“Repeat: if target ‘Homelander’ shows signs of losing control, primary priority target for elimination—Lynn.”
Lynn’s heart sank to the bottom of his chest.
Vought International had never intended for him to be a real consultant.
He was just a fuse.
A disposable tool to be sacrificed to buy a fraction of a second of reaction time when the nuclear bomb that was Homelander threatened to go off.
Lynn raised his head to look at Homelander, who was still drowned in his own emotions.
Lynn spoke up suddenly, his voice quiet yet carrying a cold touch of amusement.
“It seems someone wants to see you lose control even more than you do.”
Homelander snapped his head up, confusion flashing across his eyes.
Lynn offered no further explanation, simply tilting his chin toward the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway.
“There are people outside who want to kill me.”
Homelander froze.
Following Lynn’s gaze, the dangerous glare in his blue eyes—which had just faded—flared up once more, far more intense than before.
He smiled.
It was a smile born of violated territory—overflowing with extreme delight and cruelty.
“Then let’s go take a look.”
“Who could be so brave?”