Alex didn't have many talents. He knew some basic juggling, he could cook an Italian pasta that would make you cry, and he was damn good at getting out of trouble where others ended up feet first. His strong suit, his true weapon, was improvisation. If the world threw shit at him, he'd build a castle out of it.
He forced himself to move. His legs, fragile and shaking, carried him to the center of the suite. There was only one armchair that stood out: a piece of black leather with gold finishes that looked more like a throne than a piece of furniture.
"If I'm going to die, I might as well be comfortable," he thought with a cynicism that burned his insides.
He dropped into the chair, crossing one leg with an elegance he didn't feel. He rested his arms on the golden armrests and waited, controlling his breathing so it wouldn't betray the panic making his lungs tremble.
SHHHH!
The pneumatic door slid open.
Homelander entered the room.
He was massive—taller than in the show—blonde, packed with muscle, blue eyes; he had the square jaw from the comics and that bright blue suit that looked like a living flag.
"Hommy!" Alex raised a hand in a casual wave, as if greeting an old college friend. "You're late. I was about to order room service."
America's "Hero" stopped dead in his tracks.
His golden cape billowed softly as his eyes scanned Alex from head to toe. For three seconds, he maintained that catalog smile, that mask of politeness he used for the cameras.
"Do we know each other?" Homelander asked. His voice was soft, dangerously calm. "I don't recall authorizing any visitors in my suite. Much less..." his eyes glowed with an almost imperceptible red tint "...in my seat."
"Oh, come on. Don't be like that." Alex leaned forward, visually invading the Supe's space with suicidal audacity. "After everything we've been through, is that the welcome I get? You hurt me, truly."
The mask shattered.
Homelander's smile didn't disappear, but it turned frigid, twisted. He took a step toward Alex, and the air pressure in the room seemed to spike.
"Listen to me closely, you little piece of shit," Homelander hissed, leaning in until Alex could smell the scent of milk and death on his breath. His eyes turned a deep red; Alex could feel the heat and the desire to cook him alive. "I don't know who you are, or how you bypassed security, but if you don't get out of that chair in the next three seconds, I'm going to use your intestines to strangle you."
Alex felt a cold sweat running down the back of his neck, but he didn't budge. He held the gaze of the world's most powerful maniac and let out a dry laugh.
"Invasion?" Alex shrugged, maintaining his sarcastic tone. "I call it an [unexpected reunion]. But you're right, manners first. My name is John... John 2." He made a deliberate pause. "And believe me, I'm the only person in this building of idiots who isn't afraid of you. Or at least, the only one who knows the suit is fitting a bit tight in the shoulders today."
Alex could almost sense the Supe's thoughts: Would the blood stains come out of the rug? Killing wasn't the problem; the problem was the smell of blood and ash. Homelander had super-senses; it would be... unpleasant.
"But strangling me with my own intestines... seems we share many hobbies." He smiled. "It seems they never told you about me. I'm your brother... your test-tube brother, Project HomelandZ."
Homelander went ice-cold. His pupils contracted into two black dots surrounded by an electric, deadly red. The silence in the suite became so dense Alex felt like the oxygen was vanishing, replaced by the static pressure emanating from the Supe.
"Brother?" Homelander repeated the word with a softness that made skin crawl. He let out a dry chuckle, a discordant note that didn't reach his eyes. "Project HomelandZ? What a... vivid imagination you have, John 2."
The Supe began to pace in circles around the armchair, like a shark circling wounded prey. Alex didn't turn his head; he kept his eyes forward, forcing himself to project an absolute calm he did not possess.
Come on, take the bait, you psycho piece of work, Alex thought, feeling his heart hammer against his ribs like a caged animal. I know you're dying not to be alone. I know you hate Vought as much as I hate being here. You just have to believe there's another genetic mistake like you in the world.
Homelander stopped right behind him. Alex felt the chill of the golden cape brushing against the back of the throne.
"It's a charming story," Homelander whispered into Alex's ear, his breath grazing his neck. "But there's one small problem. I've been through every lab. I've checked every data file on the project and none mentioned a brother... especially not one that smells like cheap whiskey and fear."
BAM!
Homelander slammed his palm onto the armchair's armrest. The metal buckled like paper, but Alex didn't even blink.
"Fear? Of you...? Why would a man addicted to breast milk be afraid?" Alex replied, his tone sharp, making Homelander blink at the mention of one of his secrets. "It's not fear, John, it's excitement... They kept me under deep sedation, barely conscious, in a black hole that even Vogelbaum didn't remember. For 30 years they kept me hidden. Sit down, John, I'm going to tell you a story."
Surprisingly, the Supe didn't kill him. He remained standing, hovering a few inches off the floor, his cape billowing like a golden specter.
"Vogelbaum didn't just want to create perfection; he wanted eternity," Alex began, his voice becoming deep, almost melancholy. "He wanted a life insurance policy. You were the sun, John. The perfect specimen. But you were too perfect, too powerful. That's why they created me: Project HomelandZ."
Alex leaned back in the throne, letting his fingers stroke the metal Homelander had just bent.
"While you were growing up under white lights and thermal blankets, they had me in Sublevel 4, a hole that wasn't on the official blueprints. Dr. List and Dr. Sharma treated me like a biological organ bank. If your heart failed, mine was ready. If you needed tissue, I was the source. They kept me sedated for 30 years, only half-conscious, listening to the screams and the whispers."
'Come on, take the bait... feel the injustice, identify with it', Alex thought, feeling the cold sweat soaking his back.
"But there was a problem Vogelbaum couldn't predict. My mind. Unlike you, who were molded to seek approval, to be the perfect 'product,' I came out flawed. Too free. Too independent. They couldn't control me with videos of happy families or the approval of a corporation. They tried, believe me, they tried... it just didn't work."
CREAK!
Homelander clenched his fists, the sound of his leather gloves straining was the only thing breaking the silence. His face was a mask of pain and blind fury. The idea that Vought had hidden something so intimate, so his, from him was tearing him apart inside.
[Current Friendship Rate: 12% (Shared Hatred Bond)]
"Independent?" Homelander whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "Are you telling me they think they can tame me like a circus monkey?"
"Exactly." Alex held his gaze, unblinking. "They sing and you dance, John... you do what they say, you smile when they tell you, you act when they tell you. You live, eat, and show up when ordered... the perfect pet. But me... I'm not that simple. Because you are their greatest success, but I am their contingency."
Homelander landed slowly, his boots hitting the floor with a dull thud that seemed to vibrate the very foundations of the tower. He stepped closer to Alex. His physical presence was crushing; it was like standing before a sun about to go supernova.
"Their contingency?" Homelander thrust his face millimeters away from Alex's. His eyes glowed with an incandescent red, the heat of his lasers beginning to sear the air. "You're saying you're like me? That you have what I have?"
Alex felt the cold sweat running down his back, but he kept the crooked smile.
'Okay, System, don't fail me now, because otherwise we're both fucked', he whispered in his mind, seeking the system's activation. A strange "ping..." resonated within him.
It was as if time stopped.
The air became thick as mercury and the noise of the world vanished. In that instant, Alex felt reality itself bend. An unprecedented power, wild and ancient, invaded every one of his cells, transforming his blood into liquid fire.
BOOM!
Homelander's fist moved with the speed of a supersonic projectile—a cannon of flesh and bone designed to demolish buildings—aimed straight at his face. The air compressed from the imminent impact, creating a shockwave that shattered the glass cups in the suite.
But the blow never landed.
Alex saw it... as if in slow motion.
With a lazy, almost bored movement, Alex raised his left hand.
CLACK!
The sound of the impact was dry, solid, as if one planet had collided with another.
Alex stopped Homelander's fist mere millimeters from his nose. The force was so great that the marble floor beneath Alex's feet fragmented into a thousand pieces, creating a spiderweb crater, but his arm didn't yield a single millimeter.
The silence that followed was sepulchral.
Homelander's eyes widened; his mask of invulnerability cracked completely. For the first time in his life, someone had not only survived his punch but had neutralized it with the ease of someone stopping a toddler's tantrum.
The confusion on the Supe's face was delicious: a mix of shock, primal fear, and an existential doubt that left him speechless.
Alex felt the power vibrating in his palm, Homelander's energy flowing against his own. He might have looked cool and calm, but inside he was terrified and sweating bullets.
Holy shit, it worked. By all the fish in the sea, I almost died, he whispered in his mind.
[Current Friendship Rate: 17% (Recognition Bond)]
Alex looked up, meeting the blue eyes of a stunned Homelander. The protagonist didn't back down; he showed no pain. Instead, he let his smile widen, transforming into a smirk.
"Is that all, John?" Alex asked, his voice now vibrating with playfulness. "I told you I was the contingency. A spare is useless if it's weaker than the original."
Slowly, Alex closed his fingers over the Supe's fist, squeezing hard enough that the leather of the glove began to groan under the pressure.
"Now..." Alex smiled, enjoying the flash of genuine surprise in the pupils of the most dangerous man in the world. "Do we start talking like brothers, or do you prefer we murder each other?"
Alex released Homelander's fist with calculated serenity. His own fingers tingled from the discharge of power, but he maintained the composure of a bored monarch.
"They kept me locked up a long time, John," Alex continued, walking toward the window, turning his back on the Supe with suicidal confidence. "I escaped less than a month ago. I'm still learning how this outside world works, but what I've seen... has left me deeply disappointed."
He stood looking down at the human anthill below, the lights of New York shining like incandescent trash.
"Look at those humans," Alex spat, his voice laced with a feigned but convincing disgust. "They are fragile, noisy, and pathetic. They spend their miserable lives worshiping idols of clay, consuming garbage, and complaining about their own irrelevance. They are slaves, John. Cattle that think they own the slaughterhouse because they're allowed to choose the color of their tag."
'God, this is pure bullshit' Alex thought to himself, feeling a real wave of nausea. "If these guys knew I just want a taxi and a burger... but keep talking, keep selling him his wet dream."
He turned back to Homelander.
The Supe listened with a mix of awe and joy, as if he had found a kindred spirit—someone who knew his deepest thoughts and desires, those he felt in his flesh but could tell no one.
"They are servants... but they are ours. However, what disappoints me most isn't them," Alex stated, taking a step toward John. "It's our own. The 'Supes.' Look at the Seven, look at the others. They waste their gifts like spoiled children. They sell themselves for cereal bar endorsements, they cry about their approval ratings, and they let themselves be leashed by executives who wouldn't last a second in a real fight... It's humiliating."
BAM!
Alex slammed his palm against the reinforced glass.
"Our superiority should make us better, John. Not better 'employees,' but better rulers. The world doesn't need heroes who save cats from trees; it needs owners. It needs someone who stops asking for permission to exist and starts dictating the laws of existence. We are made to rule, not to be the star product of a corporation."
[Current Friendship Rate: 35% (Interested)]
Homelander took a deep breath, his chest swelling beneath the blue suit, and a spark of genuine ambition—far more dangerous than his usual rage—ignited in his eyes.
"Rule..." Homelander whispered, savoring the word. "No one has ever said it to me like that. It's always 'responsibility,' it's always 'Vought'... but you see it. You see what I see."
Alex forced a complicit smile while his mind screamed: I've got him! The big fish took the bait hook, line, and sinker.
"I see many things, John, many things... more than you imagine." Alex breathed deeply, looking at the horizon. "But that's enough for one day... you have a lot to digest. I'm leaving for now."
Homelander remained static, his jaw tight and his eyes fixed on Alex's back.
His personality in the series was always a mix of a needy child and a relentless predator; now, Alex had given him a new toy: FAMILY.
"You're leaving?" Homelander said, his voice regaining that authoritative and slightly childish tone. "No one leaves here unless I allow it, [Brother]."
Alex turned slowly, holding the gaze with an absolute coldness that hid the fact that his legs felt like jelly.
"I am not one of your pets, John. I don't ask for permission. We will meet again when you've processed that the world belongs to you. Don't look for me... I'll find you."
Please don't kill me, please don't kill me, Alex's brain repeated like a desperate mantra.
Alex walked toward the reinforced window.
CRACK!
Alex didn't open the window; he simply jumped through it. The reinforced glass, designed to withstand explosions, shattered into a thousand pieces under the force of his empowered body.
WHOOSH!
He hurled himself into the void from the 82nd floor. From the outside, he looked like a silver projectile descending with the grace of a falling rock.
Inside, Alex was screaming silently, his heart in his throat and his stomach rising to his teeth. The terror was so pure he almost lost consciousness as he fell at hundreds of miles per hour.
In the office, Homelander leaned over the edge of the broken window. The wind whipped his cape as he watched Alex's silhouette pull away with a super-jump that led him to disappear among the skyscrapers. A disturbing smile, a mix of joy and madness, spread across the Supe's face.
"Brother... heh," he murmured, licking his lips.