Chapter 30

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Man, I'm spoiling you guys! Three chapters in one month? Insane! Better stop before I spoil you guys too much!

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Chapter 30

The silence was deafening.

What was probably the two most powerful men in the world stared each other down.

Blue eyes met blue, neither one showing a single emotion.

"...That's a scary thing to say, Noir. Mind explaining yourself before I jump to conclusions?"

John asked, voice tense, waiting patiently for him to answer.

Noir's pen hovered over the page for a long moment.

He didn't blink.

Just stared.

John didn't move either.

The air in the room felt different now, more tense, electrified, like a storm cloud pressing down on the building.

The hum of the fluorescent lights above them seemed louder, and even the far-off sound of rain felt sharper, more precise, like each drop was punctuating the silence between them.

Finally, the pen moved.

Noir scribbled slowly, as if choosing the exact right phrasing could prevent something from exploding.

He turned the notepad and held it out again.

"Because I thought you were a threat, because I was told you were since the day I was made."

John read it once, then again.

His jaw worked silently, a muscle twitching in his cheek.

He learned forward, eyes narrowed. "Told by who?"

Another pause.

Another scribble.

"By the people who made us."

John exhaled through his nose.

"Be specific."

Noir looked up at him, but his pen didn't move this time. Instead, his shoulders shifted, and for the first time in a long time, John saw something almost like discomfort flicker across the other man's face.

He turned the notepad around again.

"Vought."

John sat back down.

Hard.

Like the wind had been knocked out of him.

He dragged both hands down his face, fingers tangling briefly in his hair before he let them drop. 

"Alright," he muttered. "Let's start from the beginning."

Noir tilted his head but didn't move.

John pointed a finger vaguely in his direction. "You're like me."

Noir nodded once.

"So what the hell are you? A clone? A replacement? A… test subject?"

A pause.

Noir's eyes narrowed slightly, the most emotion he had shown so far. 

Then he wrote:

"...Failed product."

Silence stretched again.

John stared at the words like they'd slapped him across the face.

"Failed?" he echoed, voice low, dangerous. 

Noir didn't respond right away.

Just held his gaze.

Unflinching.

"I was not what they were looking for. I didn't inspire awe, didn't have enough powers, and I didn't shine on camera. I. Wasn't. You ."

The pen paused.

"But I was quiet. Obedient. Useful."

John's throat tightened.

It wasn't the words themselves that shook him, it was how plainly they were written. 

No bitterness, no self-pity, just facts. 

Cold and clinical.

Like he'd accepted it a long time ago.

John leaned back again, fingers steepled in front of his mouth.

"So you were their backup plan."

A slow nod.

"Meant to replace me?"

A shake of the head, this time. 

"No." 

Noir stared him dead in the eye, more emotion in them than ever before.

"You were born to be a god."

He paused before taking a deep breath.

"I was born to kill him."

John let out a slow breath, rubbing his chest as if he could press down the twist building there.

"You were their failsafe."

"Yes."

John looked away.

The silence dragged again, thick with unspoken things.

Then he asked quietly, "And were you going to do it?"

Noir tilted his head, like the question didn't make sense.

He wrote without hesitation.

"Back then, without hesitation, I would have enjoyed it."

John nodded slowly. 

That was fair.

"...Not anymore."

It was now Noir's turn to look away, rubbing the back of his head. 

That got a smile out of John, looking at his look-alike with warmth.

"I guess I can't blame you," he murmured. "I would've done the same if I were being honest. Hell, I've done worse."

Noir watched him carefully. 

John's eyes flicked up.

The pen moved once more.

"And the longer I watched you… The more I realized you weren't what they said you were."

"You weren't a bomb waiting to go off, a monster to be dealt with."

"You were… a good person."

John laughed, but it wasn't mocking. 

Just tired.

"Yeah, well. Try telling that to the governments, those bastards sure don't think so."

Noir didn't smile. 

But there was something gentler in his posture now. 

His hands rested in his lap, the pen limp between his fingers. The tension that had gripped his frame like steel was slowly beginning to uncoil.

John leaned forward again, elbows on his knees.

"So you've had all this in your head for years, and you never told me."

A shrug.

John sat there for a long moment, elbows resting on his knees, gaze lingering on the notepad in Noir's lap.

All the silence, all the distance.

And for the first time… it didn't feel hostile.

John leaned back with a sigh, rubbing a hand through his hair before looking at Noir again. 

"Thanks," he said quietly. The word felt strange, too small for what it meant, but it was all he had. "For telling me the truth."

Noir dipped his head slightly. A nod. Nothing more. But it was enough.

John stood.

"I've got a file to find," he muttered, stretching his shoulders as though the weight on them had somehow grown heavier. "Whatever's in there… I think it's time I finally looked."

He turned toward the door. 

He stopped with one hand on the frame and glanced back.

"I don't know what all this means yet," he said, voice softer than before, "but… you're not a failed product to me."

Noir didn't move. 

But his eyes shone a little more in the dim light.

Then John was gone, the door sliding shut behind him with a muted click.

The room fell into quiet again, the TV's blank screen reflecting the faint glow of the overheads.

Noir sat there for a while, unmoving.

Then, slowly, he reached into one of the pouches on his belt and pulled out a small, worn photograph. 

The edges were bent, creased, faded, and old.

Two boys, barely a few months old, looking eerily alike. 

And with them was a blonde-haired woman.

Smiling at them, full of emotion that Noir couldn't quite place.

Her arms wrapped around them both.

Noir stared at the photo, thumb brushing the edge.

His mind drifted back to the past, to the lab.

To the cold, bright lights.

The rows of tanks. 

The harsh whispers came through the glass. 

The painful surgeries. 

The agonizing training.

Noir stared down at the photo, thumb brushing over the woman's faint smile, soft and full of warmth, like something from another life. 

The edges of the photo were bent, worn thin by years of being touched, hidden, stared at when the weight of silence got too heavy.

His mother.

"You want to know why you're here, subject Two? We went over this, you know why."

The memoirs came back of his time in the lab, of his time with the scientists that made him who he is.

"What happened to your mother? Strange, don't you remember?"

That was Dr. Cardosa's voice, firm and sharp like broken glass.

"Why you're not outside? Why don't you have a family? Why you don't even have a name like Subject One?"

The boy had nodded once, silently.

"The trauma made you forget it seems."

And Cardosa, with that same dispassionate tone, smiled at him, crouched down, and told him the story.

"Because your brother killed her."

The words hit like gunfire. 

"Can you imagine that? You were both born in the same facility, yet here you are alone. She only ever had eyes for him. John. The golden child. Unlike a failed product like you."

Cardosa's lip curled with something like disdain. 

"But he wasn't perfect, not on the inside. No matter how shiny they made him on the outside. You see… Subject One? He had dark urges."

He leaned in closer, voice lowering to a near whisper.

"One day, your mother tried to escape; she wanted to only take Subject One with her, but luckily for you, you were in the same room as him." 

The Doctor smiled, as if he were telling a joke.

"She wanted out, she tried to run, and do you know what John did?"

Cardosa smiled, thin and cold. 

"He watched, he watched her beg the guards, watched her scream at him for help, thinking he would do so because he was her precious boy, but do you know what he did?"

He had shaken his head then, his emotions running wild, his breathing erratic, his heart pounding against his chest.

"He tore her neck apart. And when we asked him why? He said he did it because he found her voice annoying."

He had gone still, shock taking over his entire body.

But Cardosa didn't stop.

"He did it without blinking. Didn't cry. Didn't panic. He just stood over her body, like it meant nothing to him."

The doctor's smile got wider, enjoying the effect he had on him.

"And you? You were there, in her arms. That's how they found you, crying under her body, covered in her blood."

Cardosa stood.

"Don't ever forget who took her from you. Why you're in this lab, why you don't have a name, why you were made. You're here to stop the monster that killed your mother."

And from then on… Noir hadn't asked about her again.

Not when Vogelbaum repeated the story with clinical precision.

Not when Stan Edgar confirmed it with bored indifference.

They didn't talk about her like a person.

Just a consequence.

Just a mistake that got in the way.

Noir clenched the photo in his hand, careful not to crumple it.

He used to stare at John and see a monster with his own face.

Used to feel his blood boil, dreaming of ripping apart his face and tearing him limb from limb.

But then… he met John.

He saw him kneeling beside a little boy, whispering that no one would ever hurt him when he's around.

He saw him holding and hugging an elderly man, calming him down as he cried on his shoulder.

He saw him brushing a little girl's hair behind her ear when she was hurt, pacing the halls like a restless father trying to keep the shadows at bay.

And that monster?

That killer they'd warned him about?

He hadn't seen him.

Not once.

Noir sank back down on the edge of the couch, still staring at the photo, heart pounding harder than any battle ever had.

What if… they lied?

What if they all lied?

And what if John, who was supposed to be the monster he had to kill, wasn't the villain?

What if he'd never been?

Noir's fingers curled tighter around the photo.

Because if that were true…

Then his whole life, his whole purpose, had been nothing but a weapon forged from someone else's lie.

The door creaked open gently, the sound barely louder than the soft patter of rain against the windows.

Kimiko stepped in, cautious, quiet, her presence barely a whisper on the air, yet something in her eyes betrayed urgency. 

She scanned the room like she expected something broken, or bleeding, or gone.

Her gaze landed on Noir.

And then she froze.

Noir looked up from the photo, puzzled at first by the sharp inhale she made. 

She wasn't usually so expressive, not unless something was wrong. 

Her eyes, wide and darting, locked onto his face, and then she was moving.

She crossed the room faster than he could react, a blur of movement, her boots scuffing the floor as she dropped to her knees in front of him.

Her hands cupped his face before he could flinch away.

And then… he understood.

She wiped at something on his cheek.

Wet.

Her fingers came away damp.

Tears.

His.

Noir blinked, startled. He hadn't even realized.

Kimiko's touch was gentle, feather-light as she brushed away the streaks with her thumbs, her brows furrowed tight. 

She just looked at him like—

Like she saw him.

Not the mask. 

Not the weapon. 

Him.

He didn't know what to say. He never did. But she didn't ask for words.

Kimiko pulled the photo from his limp hand and stared at it, her expression flickering from confusion to quiet understanding.

Two infants.

A woman.

Her fingers ghosted over the woman's smile before she looked back at him again.

Noir didn't look away.

Kimiko gently rested her forehead against his, eyes closing, hands still on his cheeks.

A promise without sound.

He didn't have to be alone.

Noir's shoulders, stiff for hours, finally dropped as he leaned forward, his body trembling like something inside had finally cracked. 

Kimiko held him like that, one hand moving slowly through his hair, the other pressed to the back of his neck.

______

The sky cracked open with the sound of thunder.

John rocketed through the clouds like a living missile, air splitting around him in violent shockwaves as he flew at speeds that blurred the world into streaks of gray and white. 

The rain stung his skin but disappeared instantly from the speed he was going.

His mind buzzed with everything Noir had told him before he shook his head and sighed to himself.

The file didn't matter, he wasn't the real Homelander anyway.

What mattered was Vought.

He had given them time, given them enough chances, but it was clear they weren't going to change.

It was time to put an end to Vought once and for all and take over the ashes that remains. 

The clouds parted.

Vought Tower loomed in the distance, its spire a jagged crown piercing the storm.

And then—

A shape.

John's eyes widened.

It was fast, small, tumbling through the sky like a broken bird.

He stopped midair so hard the sonic boom shattered the rain around him. He hovered for just a second before diving down toward the falling figure.

His heart lurched when he saw the familiar glint of silver.

"Maeve!"

She was unconscious at first, limp, body ragdolling through the air. Blood streamed from her temple, her arm hung at the wrong angle. Her armor was cracked.

John caught her gently but firmly, wrapping both arms around her as he steadied their flight, lowering them to the nearest rooftop.

"MAGGY! Hey! Look at me!" he said, voice sharp, panicked, but not angry.

Not yet.

Her eyes fluttered, then slowly opened.

She gasped.

"J-John…"

"I've got you. You're okay, I've got you." His hands hovered around her, unsure where to touch without hurting her more.

"Who did this?" he asked, barely above a whisper.

She grimaced, trying to sit up, but winced. "No—listen. You need to—"

"Who." His voice was cold now.

Her breathing hitched. She looked up into his eyes, and what she saw there made her swallow hard.

Her hand gripped his sleeve. "John…"

"Who did this to you."

His gaze didn't waver.

Her lips parted.

"Edgar h-he set it all up. I-I tried to stop him, b-but he had a team, some kind of supe kill squad. H-He wanted to keep you from finding a file, I-I don't know why."

The words barely finished leaving her mouth before John's eyes began to glow.

Bright.

Furious.

Red.

The light reflected in the puddles at their feet, casting a hellish glow across Maeve's battered face.

He stood slowly, his body trembling with restrained power.

"John—no." Her voice cracked. She pulled at his sleeve. "P-Please d-don't go."

"He hurt you," John said quietly, but the storm behind his voice shook the sky.

Maeve grabbed his hand. "He wants you to come. I-It's a trap."

"I don't care."

"J-John, please." Her voice was almost a sob. 

He looked down at her.

She stared into his face, desperate, her fingers trembling as she clutched his hand like it was the only thing holding that mattered.

He stood there, eyes still glowing a deathly red.

"P-Please…"