Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Homelander is scared, and ain’t that something. Butcher can see it in his eyes, and relishes in the burst of euphoria that gives him.

“Not so fun with a level playing field, is it, ya cunt?” Butcher is smiling despite the blood dripping across his teeth and from the corners of his mouth.

Panting, and Butcher knows the only reason he can hear it is due to his own, newly enhanced sense of hearing, Homelander straightens back up, eyes brightening with the red sight. “Just surprised, is all.”

Butcher meets the red beams with his own gold, running towards the super asshole, dropping into a slide on his knees that breaks their gaze but brings him close enough to Homelander to catch him around the legs, toppling him.

Homelander scrabbles to get away, elbow coming down to catch Butcher in the chest, and Butcher relishes the burst of pain knowing that a month ago a move like that would have put him in the grave but as of now, it only knocks the breath out of him for a moment.

“Surprised I’m here?” Butcher grunts, grabbing Homelander by the ankle to drag him back, wrestling himself on top of him, Homelander on his belly with his arms pulled back sharply in Butchers tight grip.

Homelander is struggling, he has every right to be surprised, having been ambushed in his own home, a gaudy as all fuck apartment at the top of Vought tower. He’s not even wearing his costume, and Butcher feels an odd sense of relief to know that even Homelander prefers to sleep in soft cotton pajama pants. Butcher had every reason to believe the cunt never took the costume off, wearing it even in the shower. He giggles a little at the image, and feels Homelander tense at the sound, which even Butcher can admit is more than slightly deranged.

It's almost not a fair fight. Almost, because while Homelander has had his powers since birth, and all of that time in between to learn how to use them, Butcher is still figuring out how everything works, how to filter out the sounds and scents that are almost beyond overwhelming, how to ignore the ability to literally see through walls and clothes and fucking human beings.

On the flip side, their powers are exactly the same – and that’s not something Butcher wants to look into too deeply right now, the fact that out of all the effects he could have gotten from temp V and later perma V, he’s like a fucking mirror image of the man he hates most.

But what evens it out, negating Homelander’s years of experience and Butcher’s sensory overload is the hereto ignorable fact that Butcher is a lot bigger than America’s Greatest Hero.

He’d known he was taller, it’d been something of a point of pride before. But here, now, spread out over Homelander and using his body weight to hold the squirming cunt down, he can see just how much that costume has been padding him up, making him appear larger than he really is.

“Did you plan to do anything,” Homelander grits out, trying valiantly to buck Butcher off, ass grinding into Butcher’s hips in a way that skirts a tad too close to enjoyable. “Or are you just here to piss me off?”

“Kinda just enjoying you unable to get away,” Butcher drawls. “That’s gotta be a new experience, huh?”

Homelander’s eyes crease in irritation, but not so much that Butcher can’t see the red glow pooling in them.

“Nu-uh-uh,” Butcher bites out, sliding up quickly to place a knee into Homelander’s lower back, pulling his elbows behind him with a tight grip until he can actually hear the creaking of his joints. If Butcher focuses hard, he can see the muscles pulling painfully under Homelander’s skin.

There are so many scents Butcher has had to sort through since shooting up the blue shit. The normal everyday alpha and omega bullshit, but ramped up to a thousand, plus the new stuff, piss and shit, blood and saliva, sweat, sickness, arousal.

But Homelander’s place is almost devoid of all scent, sterile as a hospital, or a lab facility even.

“You make ‘em do that?” Butcher wonders aloud, sniffing at the air.

Homelander tests his grip again, pulling uselessly at where Butcher’s large hands are wrapped tight at his elbows, fingernails digging into skin.

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually read minds William, so I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.”

“Make it smell so clean.” Although that’s not exactly it either, cleanliness has a smell too, Butcher is learning, and this place doesn’t even have that. It’s like the absence of scent.

Homelander huffs. “Air purifiers, military grade.”

“Ah, makes sense,” he lifts his head again, giving another sniff. “Might wanna kick ‘em up a little higher though, I can still catch whatever omega escort you had here last.”

At these words, Homelander tenses, entire body going still as a stone.

“I’ll be sure to pass that along,” he grits out, before using Butcher’s momentary distraction to throw his head backwards, knocking them both free.

Butcher skids backwards and is hit with a beam of red sight right to his throat.

The fight that ensues is catastrophic, both of them throwing each other into walls and statues, cracks spreading through the floors and ceiling from red and gold lasers. What Butcher can only imagine are priceless paintings slip shredded from their frames, bits of broken marble and mahogany wood littering the chipped tile.

Still, it isn’t long before Butcher has Homelander up against the wall, the smoking, frayed edges of the massive American flag falling down around their shoulders.

Homelander is gasping, struggling to remove Butcher’s hand from its position just under his chin, where it keeps his head tilted up and his throat exposed. Butcher can see his pulse fluttering wildly, can hear the elevation of his heartbeat, just as easily as he sees the tips of Homelander’s toes scrabbling at the floor while Butcher hover’s leisurely in the air.

The air is dusty, rank with fire and ozone from their battle, the scents so cloying Butcher is surprised he can smell anything else, but this close to Homelander – face almost buried in his throat – Butcher does.

It’s shocking enough that Butcher almost lets go, feels his fingers loosen briefly before they tighten with newfound resolve.

“Hold the fuckin’ phone,” Butcher’s eyes widen, mouth twisted in a sickening grin as he shoves his face even closer, enough that he could lick that trembling pulse if he wanted. It’s faint but it’s there. He lifts his head, sees Homelander’s eyes widen in fear as he smirks viciously. “You’re the omega tart I been smellin’.”

This brings the fire back to his eyes, Homelander kicking out wildly to no avail. The scent in question sours in fear and anger. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he says, voice barely audible around Butcher’s tight grip.

“Nah, nah, see, I think I do,” Butcher pushes forward, knee digging painfully into Homelander’s stomach. “Explains why you’re such a little cunt, anyway.”

Butcher leans in, gets a good, long sniff of Homelander’s throat, relishing in the way he trembles. He smells good, Butcher hates to admit, but as an alpha it’s not surprising he’d think so.

“Well, can’t say I’m surprised this ain’t common knowledge,” Butcher muses. “People find out all it’d take to subdue you is one good bite to the throat, you’d be outta the game faster than you can say mating bite.”

Homelander coughs, obviously trying to speak, and Butcher loosens up a little, curious about what the man can possibly say for himself.

“It wouldn’t take, you brainless gorilla, I’m the strongest supe alive, you think anyone could control me like that?”

Butcher chuckles and retightens his grip. “Our positions here seem to say otherwise, eh?”

Homelander just shakes his head, clearly adamant on this, hissing quietly. “It doesn’t fucking take.”

And Butcher, riding the adrenaline high of winning this fight, Butcher, who has never wanted, never even considered biting an omega, Butcher, who is imagining the defanged, docile, submissive omega Homelander, grins wildly and speaks.

“Guess we’ll just have to find out, huh?”

It’s the work of a second, a flash of movement before his teeth are buried in Homelander’s throat, crunching through skin and muscle like tissue paper, blood and mating fluid flooding his mouth in a rush. It’s mouthwatering – bitter copper but also sweet with the oil from his mating gland. Butcher feels it pour down his own throat, not conscious of the way he’s applying suction to take in more, as much as possible. He doesn’t even realize he’s loosened his grip on Homelander’s throat, but it doesn’t matter, he’s not even trying to escape as they both sink down to the floor.

Homelander is tilting his head to the side, giving Butcher more room to bite down again and bring more blood and oil to the surface. His hands are clutching loosely at Butcher’s shoulders, holding him in place. It takes Butcher a minute to realize the ringing in his ears isn’t the rushing of his blood but something else, something softer.

It’s purring. Homelander is purring.

Butcher startles backwards, falling onto his ass, his chest heaving with the exertion of tearing himself away.

Homelander is watching him, pupils blown so wide there isn’t even a sliver of blue around them. He’s still purring, but it’s becoming more erratic as his chest starts heaving in what looks like the beginning of a panic attack. Around the bruises on his face, Butcher can see that his cheeks are pink. Looking down, Butcher can see the outline of his erection through his soft sleep pants.

Butcher doesn’t need to look down at himself to know he’s in a similar state.

“What,” Homelander coughs, reaching up to touch the still bleeding mark at his throat. “What the fuck did you do?”

Butcher startles, looking back up to Homelander’s face just in time to see the tears gathered in his eyes start to fall, leaving muddy tracks through the grit and grime from their fight.

Deep inside himself, something clenches at the sight, chest tightening as the brightness of those tears, at knowing he put them there.

His omega is crying, and he did it.

His omega.

Fuck.

What the fuck was he thinking, what had come over him? What had that fucking V injection turned him into?

In a flash, Butcher stands, walking backwards toward the balcony he’d originally entered though.

“William, wait,” Homelander cries out, moving to his knees with obvious pain, hand outstretched.

Butcher realizes it’s the first time he’s even seen Homelander without his red leather gloves. His hands are small, soft. Even from across the room, Butcher can see the perfectly-filed square nails, the undersides caked with dirt and little bits of Butcher’s own skin.

He can smell Homelander’s fear, his desperation, can feel it thrumming through the bond they now share.

“Fuck,” Butcher mutters. “Fucking, fuck!”

He’s out the door and off the balcony in seconds, flown halfway back to his own piece of shit apartment in minutes.

+

John is thirteen and very confused.

Confusion is not that unusual for him, often sitting through hours of experimentation and interrogation that he never quite knows the purpose of.

Vogelbaum explains things to him sometimes, though never to the full extent, John knows.

John is thirteen, but he is not an idiot.

He’s been educated by private tutors, six hours a day, since he was old enough to talk. He is far beyond children his own age, if the tutors are to be believed. John has never met anyone else his own age, so he doesn’t know if that’s actually true, but he doesn’t understand why they would lie about something like that.

Adults lie though, of that one thing, John is certain.

So he’s educated enough to know what was happening when he woke up last week, sweaty and aching, insides clenching painfully on nothing. It’s still scary.

Vogelbaum calls it a pup-heat, voice clinical and calm as he tells him that it means John is growing up.

John is worried though. Everything the tutors ever told him about secondary sexes led him to believe that he would be an alpha. Strong, powerful, in control. That’s what he is supposed to be. That’s what all of this is for.

Vogelbaum isn’t upset though, if anything, he seems pleased. He tells John that his designation won’t interfere in their research, or John’s destiny as the greatest superhero of all time. In fact, Vogelbaum tells him, this may be a blessing in disguise.

John doesn’t know how that could be the case. Omegas are weak, everyone says so. They’re soft and needy, and easily controlled by alphas. John is being controlled now, he knows that, but eventually they’re going to let him out of here. Eventually, he’s going to be in control.

Right now though, at age thirteen, one week into his new designation, John is anything but in control.

He’s strapped to a table, and John knows that the metal they’re using to hold him down nullifies his abilities just enough to make breaking free difficult. It doesn’t matter anyway, because even if he did get free, they’ll just have him strapped down again within the hour.

Sometimes, it just isn’t worth the fight.

“Okay John, just lay back and remain calm,” a soothing voice says over the intercom. It’s not Vogelbaum, but John knows he’s there. They’re using the room with the two-way mirror, and despite every other surface of this room being painted with something that stops him from looking through the walls, the mirror might as well be glass for how well John can see them all.

What he doesn’t see, until the door is opening, is the man that enters the room. He’s tall, older than John by at least a decade, and reeking of alpha pheromones. John wrinkles his nose at the scent. Usually the scientists and tutors shower before coming in, they know the smells overwhelm him unpleasantly.

The man moves to the side of the table John is strapped to, and smiles down at him tightly. John isn’t especially gifted at reading the emotions in scents, but he thinks this man might smell angry, perhaps even resigned.

“Hullo,” John says, politeness drilled into him from a young age.

The man says nothing, his smile growing brittle, before he looks up at the mirror, obviously waiting for something.

“Okay John,” the voice on the intercom speaks. “Please turn your head towards the wall, away from the window.”

John glances at the man, who is still not looking at him, before doing as he’s ordered. It’s awkward, strains his neck to keep his head turned while remaining flat against the table.

“Alright Richard, go ahead,” the voice says, and before John has time to wonder if that’s the name of the man standing next to the table, he feels teeth at his throat.

John cringes, it’s wet and the man’s breath is gross, like coffee and cheap toothpaste. It feels like almost nothing at all, until the man’s – Richard, John guesses – sharp canine catches just enough to tickle. John starts, head whipping back towards the mirror fast enough to catch Richard in the face. The alpha scent spikes with terror.

He smells the blood before he sees it, Richard’s nose smashed in and jaw hanging at an awkward angle. He starts screaming almost immediately, and John grits his teeth at the grating noise.

A handful of scientists run into the room, ushering Richard out, as John finally looks through the mirror to see Vogelbaum, forehead creased in intrigue.

They try again, many times, over the next few years. Alpha after alpha, male, female, enhanced, unenhanced. They make John sniff handkerchiefs doused in alpha scent, bring in the ones that don’t immediately turn his stomach. John tries, he really does. He doesn’t know why they want him mated so badly, but Vogelbaum clearly thinks it’s important and John will do anything to please the head scientist.

Sometimes the alphas even manage to break skin, leaving a perfect set of teeth prints in his throat, only for the mark to fade within a few hours.

In the end, Vogelbaum tells him that it’s impossible, a mating bite will never take. His skin is too strong for most, and those enhanced enough to get through never penetrate deep enough to break the gland.

“It’s the oil, you see, that creates the bond,” Vogelbaum tells him. “Even if they can bite you, the Compound V in your system is protecting the mating gland. Blood isn’t enough for the bond to take, you need the oil.”

John is seventeen now, and he has a better idea of why they want him mated so badly. He’s better at controlling his expressions and his scent now, so he doesn’t let the joy he feels at those words show.

“So what does that mean?” He asks anyway, just to be polite.

“You’ll never be mated, but I guess that’s not such a great loss.”

It’s only a tick of his eyebrows, so John is hopeful that Vogelbaum doesn’t see how strongly those words affect him. He’ll never be mated, for better or worse.

“Also, you’ll never have children.”

Confusion spreads across his face before John even has the chance to try and fight it. “But I thought–“

Vogelbaum cuts him off. “It’s true that omega males can impregnant beta females, but it’s rare. And with the amount of V your body produces, it’s unlikely any female’s uterus will see your sperm as anything but a foreign body to kill off. I’d had hope for you to conceive, but without a mating bite, you’ll never be fertile.”

It’ll be years before John understand that’s Vogelbaum is able to speak with so much conviction because they’ve been using his sperm in breeding experimentation since he was old enough to produce any. It’ll be even more years before John realizes that as an omega unable to bond, he’ll never feel any sense of completeness.

+

Surprisingly, it’s Hughie’s idea, which is the only reason Butcher pauses to consider it.

Still, it’s quickly dismissed.

“Ain’t no way in hell,” Butcher barely mutters before snorting up a wad of blood and cerebral fluid from this throat into his mouth, spitting it on the floor.

Behind Hughie, Annie cringes, stepping away from the stinking puddle. Still, she sounds genuinely caring when she speaks.

“We don’t even know if it will work Hughie, it could kill him.”

“He’ll die either way! Look at him!”

As one, the occupants in the room swing to face Butcher, expressions a mixture of sympathy, disgust and resignation.

Butcher cringes at the attention. He hasn’t been coming into the office, too busy throwing up and passing out in various places in his apartment, but Hughie’s text message had threatened all of the boys coming to his if he didn’t, and Butcher doesn’t need any of them to see how he’s been living.

“Who fuckin’ cares,” Butcher finally says, voice raspy. “What have I got to live for anyway?”

He means it to be a joke, but he can see immediately it doesn’t land, and that’s probably because at the core, it’s not a joke at all.

Becca is dead, Ryan is dead, his friends all hate him and Vought has proven time and time again that they will never be taken down. What is even the fucking point?

“Butcher,” MM says, voice soft and concerned and Butcher has had enough.

“No, no, fuck off! I ain’t got shit left, I fucked it all up, I deserve to die–“ His voice cracks and Butcher squeezes his eyes closed, uselessly tries to fight back tears, not just because they’re embarrassing as all fuck, but because they’re practically acid, temp V oozing out of his body at every turn.

He wipes at his face, opening his eyes to see traces of blood and dark cerebral fluid on the tips of his fingers before looking up to see the gut-wrenching expressions on the faces of the only people he loves. Hughie and Kimiko are actually fucking crying, and it’s enough to make him want to walk to the window and throw himself out.

It’s Frenchie who approaches, mild beta scent devoid of any emotion but he places a comforting hand on one shoulder, the other grasping the electric blue bottle of Compound V.

“I think this may be your only chance, mon ami,” his voice is soft, obviously in an attempt to not upset Butcher further.

Butcher huffs a weak laugh. “Chance at what? To be a supe cunt?”

It’s a testament to how terrible he must look that neither Annie nor Kimiko seem offended.

“Your last chance to avenge Becca and Ryan, no?”

Butcher looks at the vial, doesn’t even bother to ask where it came from, seems like you can buy this shit at a drug store these days with how freely it’s out in the world.

He thinks about Becca, who with her last gasping breath begged him to keep Ryan safe. Ryan, who lost his life because Butcher was stupid enough to bring in an even bigger bad than Homelander, thinking he could control him.

He thinks about Homelander, the stupid cunt, who was dumb enough to bring Ryan into a potential warzone, just so he could introduce his son to his father. Thinks about the way Homelander had tried to protect Ryan, had ultimately failed. The way he’d screamed and raged and sobbed over Ryan’s dead body.

Butcher thinks about the powers temp V had given him, how similar they were to Homelander’s, how he’d almost been a match again the supe cunt. He glances at the perma V and wonders if he’d get the same powers, or if they’d be stronger, if they’d make him capable of taking down America’s greatest threat.

That is, if he survives it.

Butcher looks past Frenchie to Hughie. Sweet, darling Hughie, who looks and smells so much like his little brother, omega soft and precious. His blue eyes are glittering with tears, and Butcher can almost hear Lenny’s voice, begging him not to go, not to leave him unprotected.

It’s not like Lenny. If Butcher dies, Hughie has an alpha to protect him, a supe one that that. But he can help feeling like to give up now would be to abandon the boy, after he’d dragged him into this mess.

“It might kill me,” he finally says, looking back to Frenchie.

“I ‘ate to be the one to tell you, Monsieur Charcuter, but one of your feet is already in the grave.”

Butcher smirks. “Well, fuckin’ shoot me up then, I guess.”

+

Homelander has made mistakes, he knows this. If he didn’t then his reflection is more than happy to point them out to him.

Most of his mistakes have been fairly minor. Accidentally killing hostages he was supposed to save, killing people who didn’t actually intend him real harm – sorry Black Noir, accidentally killing women he was trying to be intimate with.

There have been more painful mistakes. Believing people when they told him they cared about him, trusting, loving even, people who didn’t deserve it.

His need for love and affection, a failing of his secondary sex, has often been the crux of most of his mistakes. But there is only so much he can do to ignore that part of him.

He can control his scent. He can suppress his heat. Through sheer fucking force of will! Because it’s not like the run of the mill OTC suppressants will work on him, not even the Vought brand supe suppressants have an effect on him. But he does it, because he has no fucking choice. What, is he going to show up to a rescue mission stinking of pheromones? Let Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest discover his deepest, darkest secret in the middle of an interview?

Outwardly, he can suppress every little bit of his true omega nature, but inwardly?

Inwardly, he will always crave the love and support, and the God-fucking-damn submission his designation requires.

He feels it, watching couples on the street, soft little omegas with bonding bites proudly displayed. A slight weakness in his knees at the bark of alpha command, tossed carelessly by others in meetings and on missions.

In discovering that despite his inability to become a mother, he has somehow managed to become a father, with a little boy who looks just like him, has powers just like him!

He feels it again, finding out that not only does he have a father, but he’s alive!

And it’s a purely omega desire that drives him to bring his son to meet his father. To stand before Soldier Boy and show Ryan off – look at this! Look at what I made!

It’s a mistake. Maybe his worst one yet.

+

Homelander has yet to move from his crumpled heap on the floor.

He might be in shock, but never having been in shock before, he’s not sure.

It’s been either minutes or hours since he was lying in his bed, wrapped around his pillow sobbing silently. He probably would have heard William on his balcony if he hadn’t been crying, but it wouldn’t have mattered much either way.

William Butcher on true Compound V was a sight to behold.

Homelander had suspected, after that first time he’d crossed the man hopped up on temp V, but to have to be so clearly spelled out for him is another story entirely.

It’s exciting, almost. Or it would have been, months ago, before Homelander’s world went to shit and he actually gave a fuck about things like a worthy opponent.

Now, huddled on the floor with his fingers pressed into his still bloody neck, body beginning to wrack with the shivers of an oncoming heat, Homelander doesn’t know how to feel.

William bit him. Bonded him.

And Homelander is sure of that, even with no frame of reference. The liquid hot feeling of euphoria and arousal coursing through his veins is obvious, even with the crush of abandonment tempering it.

As if just waiting to be acknowledge, that crush becomes a heavy weight of despair, sweeping over him until he’s doubled over, sobbing and gasping in a pain he’s never felt before. It’s like fire and ice, burning up his lungs and seizing his muscles, and Homelander knows there’s no way they can’t hear him on the level below, wailing and whining in grief.

Luckily, he’s been doing a lot of wailing and whining lately, so no one will try to bother him.

+

On the other side of the city, Butcher watches himself in the bathroom mirror, presses hard on his chest, trying to will down the overwhelming sense of dread.

He’s showered off every trace of the fight, but he can still smell the supe cunt’s soft omega scent on his skin. It’s winding into his own scent, twining their pheromones together irrevocably. The despair he feels is only partly his own, and Butcher wonders how much of it is Homelander’s misery over Ryan – he hadn’t needed supe hearing to pick up on the cunt’s crying when he’d arrived – and how much of it is the sense of rejection from being bonded and abandoned.

Bonded. Fucking bonded!

What the absolute shit had come over him!

He knows, he knows, that for a brief moment the thought of a way to control the cunt had shined bright like the gift they’d all been waiting for, but Butcher had given absolutely zero thought to what it would do to him.

There was a reason Butcher never fucked around with omegas. Sure, they were great for a spectacular roll in the hay, but never, absolutely never, were they worth the reciprocity involved in a bonding bite.

Losing Becca had almost killed him, and they hadn’t even been bonded. An omega partner became a literal part of you, wormed their way into your fucking DNA, made you a slave to your instincts. And oh, did Butcher have instincts. He was an alpha through and through, not one doubt about that.

The bathroom mirror is in pieces before Butcher realizes what he’s done, and he snarls at the fact that he doesn’t feel even a trace of pain.

His hands are shaking as he pulls out his phone, navigating to the text thread with Hughie on pure instinct.

you awake?

It’s three in the morning, but the answer comes in quickly anyway.

Sort of. Everything okay?

no. come over.

If Hughie replies, Butcher doesn’t see it, just tosses his phone across the room and ignores the way it shatters against his wall. His security deposit is long gone anyway.

It seems like no time at all, Butcher literally hasn’t moved from his spot standing in the middle of the open floor, before Hughie is using the spare key Butcher gave him to open the door.

“Dude, are you okay?” Hughie’s walking toward him slowly, and Butcher finally whips around to face him.

“What?” Butcher can only imagine what his apartment must smell like. Rancid with guilt and abject terror.

Hughie’s blue eyes are wide. “You’re shaking. Is it the V? Are you feeling sick again?”

Butcher shakes his head, finally coming back to himself. In a fit of anxiety that would make his mother proud, he heads directly to the kitchen and puts a kettle on to boil.

Hughie follows slowly, as if he’s approaching a wounded animal. Butcher laughs at the thought, it’s not far from the truth.

“Butcher, seriously, are you–“

“I did something fucked up,” Butcher interrupts, not turning away from the stove. He’d figured out a couple weeks ago, while testing out his new powers, that he can use the golden sight to heat the kettle immediately, but right now the last thing he wants to think about are his powers.

“Okay,” Hughie says softly, taking a seat at the single stool next to the breakfast bar. “How fucked up?”

Butcher laughs, the sound devoid of any humor. “Really fucked up.”

“Do you want me to guess?” Hughie says, and there’s zero sarcasm in there. Butcher doesn’t know how he does that, how he’s so God-damned genuine all the time.

“I went to Vought tower,” Butcher offers. “I wasn’t gonna do nothin’. Just wanted to see, I don’t know, I just wanted to know what the fuck that piece of shit has been up to since the Soldier Boy shit. Ain’t been in the news once, no interviews, no hero bullshit. Just…fuck, I dunno.”

“Okay, and what did you see?”

“He was in fuckin’ bed, blubberin’ like a baby. Like it ain’t his fuckin’ fault Ryan is dead!”

Butcher very strongly doesn’t think about the fact that Soldier Boy was his idea in the first place. It’s not like he brought a kid into a supe fight!

“So what did you do when you saw that?”

“I just…I lost it. I smashed the fancy fuckin’ French doors on his balcony and tore his ass out of bed. Tossed him around like a doll. It was amazing.” At this, Butcher whips around with a massive grin, finally looking Hughie in the eyes.

“It fuckin’ worked, mate. I’m stronger than that cunt! And he was fuckin’ terrified.”

Hughie smiles, only a little tiredly. “Then how did you fuck up? Did you let him go?”

Butcher’s face drops immediately. “Fuck. I…fuckin’. He’s a fuckin’ omega! Can you believe that shit? Homelander, the number one model for Alpha Quarterly, is a fuckin’ omega!”

“Whoa,” Hughie’s eyes reflect his shock. “Are you sure?”

With a huge sigh, Butcher leans back against the counter. “I’m sure. I bit him.”

“Wait, what!” Hughie jumps up and at the same time, the kettle starts to blare. Butcher turns to take it off the burner, all the while Hughie starts pacing around. “What do you mean, you bit him? Like on the hand? Please tell me you bit him on the hand!”

“You think I’d call you over here at three in the bleedin’ morning cause I gave the cunt a bruise?”

“Butcher! What the fuck were you thinking?” Hughie’s scent is angry, but also fearful.

“That we had him! That finally, after years of lookin’ for a way to control that cunt, I found one!”

“Butcher, are you insane? Since when did we want to control him? I thought you wanted him dead!”

“I do!”

“Well this was the absolute worst way to do it! You bonded him? To yourself? Do you understand what that means?” Hughie’s hands are twisted up in his hair, face bright with anxiety.

“I already said I fucked up! You think I don’t realize how colossally idiotic this was!”

Hughie seems to lose some of his steam at that. “When did this happen?”

“Like an hour ago, maybe. Maybe less.”

“Okay, okay,” Hughie retakes his seat. “And how do you feel?”

“Like I’m being crushed to death from despair,” Butcher replies honestly.

Hughie nods. “A bonding bite triggers insane levels of hormones. You’re not meant to separate for a least a few days afterward.”

Butcher scoffs, even though the thought of returning to Vought tower and being near his nemesis fills his heart with joy to a sickening degree.

“It will only get worse,” Hughie tells him, face a rictus of sympathy, scent a mirror of that.

Butcher nods. He figured as much.

“If I ignore it, what’ll happen to the cunt?”

Hughie shrugs. “I mean, just cause I’m an omega doesn’t make me an expert. It’s not like I’m bonded. But he’ll be feeling it stronger than you for sure. I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes looking for you.”

Butcher grimaces, knowing Hughie is right. There aren’t a lot of options here.

“Look, I didn’t ask you over here cause I needed advice from an omega. I just… I know what I done is wrong. Biting’ someone like that, even someone I fuckin’ hate… It ain’t no better than what he done to Becca.”

Hughie cringes.

“I fucked up Hughie,” Butcher feels tears swim in his eyes. “I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

“Hey,” Hughie stands up and before Butcher knows what’s happening, he’s wrapped in a hug. “I understand why you did it, even if it was fucking stupid.”

Butcher wraps his arms around Hughie, pulls him in tighter, and hates that the calming omega scent enveloping him isn’t the one his body is craving so desperately.

With a sniff, Butcher stands straighter, pushes Hughie away gently and tries to ignore the relief he feels at no longer breathing in an omega he’s not bonded to.

“I’m not gonna be able to ignore this, am I?”

Hughie shakes his head. “Breaking a bond is almost impossible. Even my parents are still technically bonded, and my mom has been gone for years. Plus, this being so new, you’re going to feels the effects a hundred times over, and who knows how the Compound V might amplify that.”

The shaking is back, Butcher realizes, looking down at his own hands. Shock or separation from his bonded, it doesn’t actually matter either way.

“I think I’m gonna need to lie low for a few days. You’ll tell the boys for me?”

“How much do you want me to tell them?” Hughie asks, and Butcher loves him for that. Loves him for the fact that if he asked, Hughie would keep all of this a secret.

Unfortunately, this isn’t be something he can keep under wraps for long.

“Tell ‘em the truth, I guess. They’ll find out sooner or later.”

Hughie nods and stands up. He’s halfway to the door when he turns back to speak.

“Butcher… I wouldn’t judge you if you went back to him. I won’t judge you for any of this.”

Butcher nods, his heart speeding up at the thought, hands shaking even harder. Hughie is telling the truth, he can tell by his scent. That hardly reassures Butcher.

“I know, son.”

+

Homelander can count on one gloved hand the number of heats he’s allowed himself to go through in his adult life. Once or twice out of sheer curiosity, and one time when he was triggered by an alpha supe and too exhausted from constant publicity-slash-heroics scheduled too closely together to properly suppress it.

That last time had been the worst, easily, as he’d spent the entire time thinking of the alpha – not necessarily desiring, but curious all the same about what it would have been like if instead of flying back to his apartment to hide alone, he’d snatched the alpha from right where he’d stood and brought him back with him.

After that ordeal of crying and fucking himself raw, he’d ensured the situation never reoccurred. And as the master of his own body, if not necessarily his mind, he’d managed full decades without ever experiencing a heat again.

Now though, it’s entirely out of his control.

The bite has already healed, scabbed over until he’d scratched off the dried blood, revealing the scar tissue underneath. He stares at it in the mirror, cataloguing the individual indentations that are an exact match to William Butcher’s teeth.

It’s the only scar he’s ever received.

It’s the only scar he’s ever wanted.

For once, he’s reflection has nothing to say. Instead, he looks only at himself as another wave of heat wracks his body.

Single-minded, he tears through his closet, the small one in the main room that would be used for coats and jackets if he ever had guests. It’s empty in a matter minutes, the contents strewn about his already trashed marble floors.

He takes the blankets from his bed, they’re the only material in his entire apartment that hold any scent. It’s not enough, he wants William's scent, needs it like he’s never needed food or water or oxygen, but he doesn’t have much to work with. The soft sleep shirt he’s wearing holds a tiny bit of it, especially heavy on the edge of the sleeve where a spattering of William’s blood spilled earlier, and he whips it over his head to hold against his mouth and nose, breathing deep, shuddering breaths into the fabric.

Barricaded in the closet with pillows, duvets and a grimy tee-shirt, Homelander finally lets himself give in.

Hours pass. His swollen, abused hole is so loose he can sink in four fingers without any resistance, slick dripping down his thighs, coating his skin and bedding. His cock hasn’t lost hardness once, no matter how many times he’s brought himself off.

He’s sobbing, he knows it, even though he can barely hear it over the rushing of his blood. He can’t form words, but if he could he would be crying William’s name, begging for respite.

Instead, he’s whimpering, face shoved into the pillows, teeth clenched around the tee-shirt that at this point only smells like his own cum and tears.

This is torture. This is what the enemies of the world wish they could do to him. If only they knew how low he could be brought down by one single man. By one single bite.

He floats in and out on consciousness, only rousing long enough to shove shaking fingers up his hole, attempting to push hard enough to simulate the knot he needs. Orgasm brings him no relief, just a bright burst of clarity long enough for his mind to scream out for the alpha that can make this stop. Can make him feel better.

Minutes, hours, days, Homelander loses all concept of time, trapped desolate and desperate in his entryway closet.

+

Butcher makes it less than forty-eight hours.

Despite never experiencing a bond before, he knows with absolute certainty that Homelander is in heat.

In heat and suffering.

It should bring him satisfaction to know that the supe cunt is miserable, but the burning in his chest is beyond suppression. So far, he’s paced miles around his apartment, smashed doors and windows in frustration, and thrown every article of clothing he owns across the room trying to search out the omega scent his body is screaming for.

This is unacceptable.

He’s already spent the last few weeks relearning his body and the expectations of being a fully enhanced human being, and now he’s being torn apart by a mating bond he didn’t even mean to create.

He’s thankful that his phone is wrecked because he can only imagine the railing he’d be getting from MM or God forbid, Annie. The only other alphas in their little hodgepodge pack, he knows they’ll both want a piece of him once they find out what he’s done.

It’s true, what he told Hughie. Homelander or not, biting an omega like that, he’s no better than the pieces of shit he works to put away.

It’s that thought that makes him pause in his pacing.

From the moment Butcher had shot up the temp V and realized his powers were a mirror to his greatest enemy, he’d ignored exactly why that might be.

It’s not like lasers were particularly rare, the baby he’d used as a weapon was proof enough of that. And strength and durability seemed to be par for the course with most of these cunts.

But the perma V had heightened everything, and given him the ability to fly – which yeah, wasn’t especially common and most notable in America’s bleach blonde poster boy. But surely that didn’t mean anything.

And okay, the enhanced senses and x-ray vision were also textbook Homelander shit but that didn’t necessarily mean anything either.

Butcher grips his hair and heaves a sigh.

He’s like the cunt’s twin.

It was sickening before but now, knowing what he’s done, what he’s apparently capable of when given the slightest bit of power over someone…

Fuck.

Fucking God-damned fucking hell!

Butcher didn’t sign up for this. He’d shot that V up believing, truly believing that it would kill him. And instead, he’d snapped back to life as the villain in his own story.

A burst of anxiety heats up his face and torso and despite the existential crisis he’s currently facing, Butcher knows that it didn’t originate from him.

His omega is in agony.

It’s a matter of seconds to have his shoes shoved on, still wrestling with the sleeves of his jacket as he hurtles through the air at mach 3 easily.

Homelander’s apartment is even worse than when he left it. It was nighttime the last time he entered, which hardly means anything with his newly enhanced vision, but it had been easier to ignore the devastation they’d wrought in their fight under the cover of darkness.

He knows for a fact that they didn’t trash the bedroom and or strip the bed down to a bare mattress.

The air purifiers are probably working triple time but it’s still not enough to cover the overwhelming scent of Homelander’s heat – not to mention the reek of fear that blankets everything – which is emanating from what Butcher can only guess is a coat closet. A small, easily protected space like that makes sense for a heat, and he can’t help wondering how much of a slave Homelander is to his secondary sex instincts.

A week ago, Butcher would never have suspected Homelander to be an omega. Now, it’s like a bright, red sign is flashing in an arrow towards the closet, a fucking Looney Tunes cartoon of a situation.

Despite the speed at which he traveled to get here, now that he’s arrived, Butcher walks slowly towards the closet door, taking a deep breath before pulling on the knob. The well-oiled hinges swing open, releasing a cloud of pheromones that weaken his knees. Terror, distress, desire, arousal.

Butcher feels a growl building in his chest at the scent alone.

Homelander is there, stripped bare and panting, back pressed against the wall as he straddles an absolutely filthy pillow. He tilts his head up slowly, and Butcher can tell from the haze of his bloodshot eyes, dark eyelashes clumped together with tears, that Homelander isn’t really seeing him.

Butcher has never seen an omega in the throes of heat sickness outside of movies and shitty hospital procedurals, but the sluggishness of Homelander’s movements coupled with the lack of reaction can only mean one thing.

Shame courses through Butcher at the realization that this is entirely his fault and the growl cuts out immediately.

“Hey, hey,” Butcher coos, dropping to his knees, hands coming up to grip Homelander’s chin. His skin is on fire. “You’re okay, it’s okay.”

Homelander chirps, a perplexed noise, but he tilts his face into Butcher’s hand, chasing any small shred of affection. His scent shifts, almost hopeful.

Butcher’s not blind. He’s seen the way Homelander craves intimacy and adoration at every turn, and he can only imagine how it must be compounded now – freshly mated and heat sick.

“I’m here now,” Butcher tells him, running his hand down Homelander’s throat until his thumb finds the center of the mating bite. A purr bursts into the air, cut off quickly by a whine, and once again tears spill down his cheeks.

Butcher is quick to set his teeth to the scars, not biting hard enough to break skin this time, just enough pressure to stop the whining and bring back that gorgeous, rhythmic purr. He knows it’s a biological imperative, the way that purr spurns him on, urges him to submit to his own impulses and let instinct take over, but he can’t help thinking that there is something especially appealing about this purr in particular.

Tilting his head back to give Butcher more room to suck and lick over his mating gland, Homelander spreads his knees further. Butcher uses the movement to pull the pillow out from between his legs, pressing a hand to Homelander’s chest to hold him up against the wall as he moves even closer, forces his knees even further apart.

“Please,” Homelander whispers, fingers weakly grasping at Butcher’s jacket, and it takes no time at all for Butcher to slip it off, shirt, shoes and pants quickly following. He ignores Homelander’s keen of protest at being momentarily neglected only long enough to grip his waist and shoulders, sliding him away from the wall and onto his back.

The decadent, feather duvet they’re on is filthy, but Butcher pays it no mind, too busy gripping Homelander by the knees, pushing them up and back to reveal his painfully hard cock. He’s large for an omega, but still smaller than an alpha. He can’t help wondering how no one else has ever seen this and not realized exactly what they were looking at. His hole, swollen and dripping sweetly scented omega slick would be obvious to any alpha with half a brain.

It's only then that Butcher realizes Homelander has probably never been with an alpha, for exactly this reason. Has probably never been held open and exposed, never had anyone lick the natural lubricant straight from the source, has never been knotted.

A possessive shudder runs through Butcher.

This untouched omega is his and his alone. He will be the first and last to fully own the biggest, baddest supe cunt in the entire world.

The thought is heady beyond reason.

Homelander is whimpering, eyes squeezed tight as he’s examined. Butcher wonders what he would be saying if he wasn’t half feral with heat. He’s surprised to find he misses the sharp back and forth they usually engage in.

Butcher runs his hands down quivering thighs, kneading at the taut muscle and soft skin like a cat. The trembling increases ten-fold, until Butcher can’t help but attempt to soothe.

“Relax,” he murmurs, sliding back until he’s on his stomach, face level with Homelander’s gaping hole. “I’ll make you feel better.”

Without preamble, he licks a long stripe along Homelander’s crack, dipping briefly inside before continuing on over tight balls and hard cock. He has to readjust his grip on Homelander’s thighs, sliding his hands up to his knees to prevent his head being crushed, but it’s hardly a deterrent to dive back in, licking up every drop of slick that gushes out.

It’s easily the best thing he’s ever tasted, and Butcher isn’t sure if that’s from the combination of their pheromones, the way they’ve intertwined their DNA and bound themselves together, or if this is just how Homelander always tastes. He knows he could spend hours, days, a lifetime right here, just like this, with his face buried in Homelander’s thighs, tongue pushing deeper and deeper with each pass.

Even though he’s practically licked his thighs clean, Homelander’s hole is still dripping, scent ratcheting up, shifting from distress to pure longing. Butcher releases his hold on Homelander’s legs, sliding up to blanket him with his body. Stroking himself once, Butcher positions his cock, sliding the tip through sticky wetness before pushing inside in one smooth motion. Once he’s encased in tight, wet heat, Homelander howls, his legs wrapping around Butcher’s waist on instinct.

He thrusts only a few times, enjoying the slick, slide of Homelander’s core before bright blue eyes snap open to stare directly at Butcher as his body shakes apart in orgasm, his channel throbbing, clenching desperately to try and keep him inside.

Butcher fucks him through it, reveling in the hitching moans, the soft ah, ah! forced out of Homelander’s open, drooling mouth. Butcher dives to kiss him, slotting their mouths together in a move that feels completely natural, licking deeper, tongue sliding over the roof of Homelander’s mouth, his sharp canine teeth.

Homelander’s scent shift to one of unadulterated euphoria as he clutches urgently at Butcher’s head, fingers twisting painfully in dark strands of hair, sucking desperately at Butcher’s tongue. He starts to come again almost immediately, thighs trembling around Butcher’s hips.

Butcher can feel the swelling at the base of his cock, his knot stiffening up, and he knows this is a terrible position for this, that they’ll be tied for the better part of a half hour, but he can’t tear his mouth away, doesn’t want to lose sight of those glacial eyes, doesn’t want Homelander to miss his touch for even a second.

His thrusting starts to lose rhythm, pushing harder and harder until his knot pops through the tight ring of muscle. Homelander comes again, and this time his cock spills between them, thin, almost-clear omega jizz coating both of their stomachs and finally Butcher hits his peak, balls drawing tight, knot swelling even more, locking them together as Butcher comes, wave after wave of cum pouring forth. He grinds deeper, his entire body weight resting on Homelander, but he knows it’s okay, his omega can take it.

He finally releases Homelander’s mouth, both of their lips swollen and over sensitive, and he ignores the brief whine to run his face down Homelander’s neck until he finds his mating gland. It’s swollen from heat and Butcher’s own mouth, and he’s running on pure alpha instinct when he rubs his face across it, cheek to cheek, spreading oil and sweat and saliva all through his beard until he’s growling in satisfaction.

Clutching Homelander tightly to himself, Butcher rolls them both, ignoring the painful tug at his knot where they’re tied. He sees the panic in Homelander’s eyes, the way he instinctually tries to squirm away, unused to the sensation and Butcher growls again, deeper this time, in warning. At the noise, Homelander immediately stills, body going loose and heavy against his chest.

Butcher settles them back, runs his hands up and down Homelander’s sweaty, filthy body, petting his skin soothingly, rubbing fingertips around the tight sphincter of muscle clutching at his knot. At this, Homelander shudders and Butcher can’t help grinding up, hips rolling smoothly until Homelander is coming again, shivering and mewling, throbbing around Butcher’s still hard cock.

“You like that, huh, Johnny boy.” Butcher’s voice is rough, and Homelander seems to perk up at the sound, the first signs of true awareness.

“William…” He sighs it into Butcher’s neck.

Laid out like this, Butcher marvels once more at the size of him, how much littler Homelander is than he ever realized. His body is muscled, but less like the body builder his costume implies and more like a swimmer or a gymnast.

The closet they’re in is large enough that Butcher can lay out flat, but that’s about it, and the floor is hard against his back, even with the makeshift nest Homelander has built. It’s likely they’ll spend the entire heat here though, as omegas almost never abandon a nest once the heat starts.

He lies there, listening to his omega’s purr taper in and out with sleep, until his knot goes down enough that he can slip out, cum and slick gushing over their thighs and groin. The movement wakes Homelander up and his eyes blink open.

“You came back.”

He sounds surprised, and well he should. Butcher hadn’t intended to, isn’t entirely sure what he’s doing here, what this means for him – for them.

Still, he hates the way Homelander’s scent betrays disbelief, and underneath that, a baseline melancholy.

“Yeah well, didn’t have much choice, did I?” Butcher huffs, hoping his own scent isn’t giving him away him as much as his counterparts.

Homelander sits up, not enough to disentangle their limbs, just enough to look at Butcher’s face, to really study it.

“You can feel it too?”

Butcher tenses at the question. He’s feeling a lot right now and almost none of it is anything he wants to discuss. To distract him, he reaches up, gripping Homelander’s chin tightly in his hand, running his thumb over chapped, red lips.

Homelander opens his mouth automatically, tiling his head down to let Butcher’s slip his thumb inside, press against his tongue, let drool pool until it spills over his lips and chin.

“You ever been knotted before me?” He wonders aloud, thrilling at the sweep of dark eyelashes, the way Homelander doesn’t try to pull away to answer, just shakes his head, still held in Butcher’s tight grip. “You want it again?”

Homelander moans around his thumb, nodding, and Butcher sits up with a growl, grasping and shoving until he has Homelander on his stomach. He’s practically deadweight – figures the cunt would be a pillow princess – but Butcher gets his knees kicked apart, his ass up in the air just enough to shove his cock back inside the warmest, wettest hole he’s ever fucked.

Before, half delirious with heat sickness, Homelander had been soft and pliant, but now he’s fully involved in the proceedings, shoving back into Butcher’s thrusts until he has no choice but to put a hand to the back of his neck and hold him down. This is apparently the right move, as Homelander practically melts, cheek smashed into the duvet, knees spreading even further to allow Butcher deeper.

“F-fuck, please,” Homelander mewls, drooling mouth open, unshed tears sitting on the rim of his eyelids.

“Please what?” Butcher grunts, hips pistoning, reveling in the squelching noises created by Homelander’s abused hole grasping desperately at his cock.

“Knot me, please, fuck, knot me, I need it.”

The base of his cock already swelling, Butcher has no intention of denying his omega’s request, and grinds against Homelander’s ass, pushing further and further each time.

“You need this?” Butcher is growling, he might be enjoying this just a little too much. How many times has he wanted to hear Homelander begging?

“Yes!” Homelander tries to shove back again and Butcher tightens the grip around his neck, digging his thumb into the mating bite, wallowing in the burst of fucked out, feverish omega pheromones released. “Please, Billy.”

With a growl so feral it almost startles them both, Butcher shoves past the ring of muscle, his knot clutched desperately in a warm, wet vice grip that milks the cum from him pulses.

Homelander sobs, actually bursts into tears, gasping and bawling as his orgasm hits and Butcher feels that same pressure in his chest from before. He drops his weight, sliding them both down and to the side, before wrapping his arms around Homelander, pressing open mouthed kisses to the back of his neck and shoulders as he pets his chest soothingly.

“Shh, shh,” Butcher whispers, overwhelmed with scents and sensation. Homelander is weeping, tears pouring down his cheeks even as he shoves back as far as he can, until every inch of his back is touching Butcher. “Hush, love, you’re okay.”

Homelander grabs his hand, pulling it up, and with very little urging, Butcher slips two fingers into his mouth, relieved when the sobbing relents, little hiccups as the tears slow and Homelander’s eyes flutter closed.

Butcher clutches him tighter, grinding his cock into Homelander’s hole, and lets the soothing sound of his purr lull him to sleep.

+

When Ryan died, Homelander wondered at his own ability to die.

Suicidal ideation was an old friend, though not one he’d engaged with since his childhood in the lab. It was ironic, because the biggest take away from all that time in the lab was that it was impossible for him to die.

Experiment after experiment, trial after trial, there was nothing capable of killing him.

But from what he could see, Ryan had inherited all of his powers, even if he didn’t have full control of them yet. And despite that, he had been killed, all too easily.

It was a thought that spun around and around in his head.

Ryan is dead, Ryan is dead, Ryan is dead, you should be dead too.

For weeks, he thought about every possible way to do it.

Find a construction site, encase himself in concrete. But then he’d just be trapped alive with his thoughts. Hardly better than his current situation.

Fly straight up, past the atmospheric barrier, until the air grew too thin to breathe and so cold he froze solid, floating forever in open space. But eventually his metabolism would kick in and he’d warm up, probably falling back to Earth harmlessly.

Volcanoes sounded appealing, but he vaguely remembered an experiment with molten iron as a kid, and while it had been irritating to his skin, it hadn’t been life threatening in the slightest.

In the end, as always, he knew it was useless.

Ryan may have had similar powers, but he wasn’t Homelander, he wasn’t genetically engineered in a lab. And Homelander knows absolutely nothing about whatever maternal genetics were used to create him, but he doubts they came from a soft, unenhanced beta woman.

Ryan was dead, and Homelander could not join him, no matter how much he may have wanted to.

So instead, he made himself a promise. One he’d made before and never had enough incentive to keep.

Homelander would not give into his omega instincts. He would not search out connection, love, affection or anything like it.

He would not put himself in a position to hurt this badly, ever again.

Lying in a closet, wrapped up in a tight embrace, Homelander feels his resolve slip.

William is sleeping, soft, gravely snores, wrapped around Homelander like he never intends to let him go. Homelander has lost track of how many times they’ve fucked, how long they’ve been sequestered in this make-shift nest.

Homelander has never given thought to the type of alpha William Butcher would be, but the attention, comfort, dare he think it – love – he’s experienced throughout this heat has been beyond his wildest dreams.

It makes sense, William has been single-minded in his search for revenge for his wife, and she was only a beta. He’d even devoted himself to her son, to his son, and while protecting one’s family wasn’t exclusively an alpha trait, it certainly had to play a part in William’s determination.

William is an alpha through and through.

Which is why Homelander is so scared right now.

His heat is breaking.

He is not so ignorant as to believe William’s attentiveness has anything to do with him, so much as it is an alpha’s response to an omega in need. When William wakes up, he will realize that Homelander’s heat is over and the gentle, caring alpha he’s already grown so attached to will disappear as well and he’ll go back to being miserable and alone, just like before. It makes him want to scream just thinking about it. He just promised himself to never let this happen again and in practically no time at all, he’s once again found himself a slave to his pathetic, needy omega urges.

Homelander knows he’s crying, when fucking isn’t he these days, but he doesn’t realize how much he’s tensing up until William’s snores taper off and strong hands slide across his chest, grasp his chin until Homelander has no choice but to roll over, face to face.

“What the fuck is all this cryin’ then?” William’s voice is rough with sleep, his breath hot and smelling like Homelander’s slick. His scent is curious, not a hint of anger or disgust.

It makes Homelander cry harder, burying his face in William’s throat.

“Jesus, what the fuck now–“

“Please don’t leave,” Homelander bites out, arms winding around William’s back, pulling him in tight. “Please don’t leave me. I’ll be good, I swear, I’ll–“

“Shit,” William grunts, readjusting their positions until Homelander is sprawled against him securely. “I’m not fuckin’ leavin’, calm down.”

“You’re not?” Homelander hates how pathetic he sounds.

“No, I’m not. I’m not sure if you’ve forgotten, but I fuckin’ bit you. For better or worse, we’re stuck together. But I wouldn’t mind touchin’ on that promise to be good–“

“Stuck together? What does that mean?”

William looks at him seriously. “You can’t possibly tell me you don’t know?”

Homelander shrugs. “I never thought I’d be mated, so I don’t really know much about it. Only what the doctors told me growing up.”

“And what was that?”

“That alphas can control omegas, once they’ve bitten them. That they have all the power.”

William sighs, turns to look at the ceiling. “That’s only sort of true, and you’d have to be a real fuckin’ cunt to use it that way.”

Homelander huffs a laugh devoid of humor. “Isn’t that why you bit me?”

William stiffens, but he doesn’t deny it. “It weren’t right, what I done. I won’t say sorry, cause you don’t deserve it.” Homelander tenses at that but William carries on. “I won’t pretend like controlling you wasn’t my first thought when I scented you that night... A mating bond though, it goes both ways. I may be able to physically control you, but your emotions, they hold a lot of sway.”

“My emotions?”

“Why the fuck do you think I came back? I could feel you, alone and miserable, it was killin’ me. I can still feel you, panickin’ up a storm.”

He is. Especially now. His emotions? William can feel his emotions? That’s horrific. That’s the one aspect of his life he has no control over, the one part of himself he’d rip right out if he could.

“Jesus, you’re a mess,” William rolls over until they’re facing each other. “Are you always like this?”

“Yes!” Homelander snaps, frustrated at the way his hands come up to clutch at William instinctively. Even angry as he is, he can’t stop touching him. “Yes, I am always like this! Congrats on cracking the code!”

“Hush,” William soothes, running his hand over Homelander’s cheek, his thumb caressing Homelander’s mouth until he opens his lips enough for it to slide inside. William growls approvingly. “You got a real serious oral fixation, huh.”

Homelander thinks of the days past, his mouth wrapped around William’s cock, the way he’d cradled it against his tongue until his mind blanked out entirely, the usual constant clamoring fading away. He blushes.

“It’s cute,” William says, and he sounds like he means it. Homelander whimpers, sucking harder.

A little bit of time passes, Homelander drifting as he suckles at William’s thumb, purring gently.

“You purr a lot,” William comments after a while. Homelander’s eyelids flutter open, and he pulls his mouth away. He doesn’t think he imagines the flicker of disappointment on William’s face.

“I’ve never been able to before,” he confesses. It’s true. He’d tried, years and years ago, before he’d strangled all outward omega characteristics into submission. “When you bit me, and it…it started up, I didn’t know what was happening at first. It scared me.”

William sighs again, before drawing Homelander into a kiss. It’s lazy and meandering, unlike the previous ones, which were all in the midst of sex. It should be gross, Homelander thinks, they’ve been in this closet for days, haven’t showered or brushed their teeth, but despite all that, this kiss is his favorite so far.

When he pulls away, William’s expression is serious. “Meant what I said, ‘bout you sayin’ you’ll be good. This changes things, us bein’ mated. It changes you.”

Homelander shudders at the tone, at the meaning of those words.

It wasn’t so very long ago that he was lying in bed, desolate over the loss of his son and wishing for death. William isn’t wrong about everything. Homelander is a mess. Something does need to change.

+

They shower separately, William insists on it.

“My dick is so raw, I’ll fuckin’ disintegrate if you so much as look at it,” he tells him, pushing Homelander towards the shower stall. He must feel something in the bond though, because when he tries to leave the room and Homelander experiences a burst of dread, he turns back around, taking a seat on the floor with his back against the glass door.

The water on Homelander’s skin is heavenly, and he watches in wonder as it turns murky from sweat and cum before swirling down the drain. Running soap over his body, he actually startles at the sting when he touches his hole. Despite his healing factor, it’s still swollen and raw.

“You can’t stay with Vought,” William says, apropos of nothing.

Homelander tenses, though he knew this was coming.

“You won’t let me stay with Vought, you mean.”

“Same difference, ain’t it?”

Homelander grits his teeth, pours shampoo into his hand. “And how do you think they’ll take that?”

William laughs. “Like I give a fuck. And don’t go pretendin’ like they can stop you. You managed to take over the company. You ain’t been active since Ry–since the Soldier Boy thing. They survived without you this long.”

“And what would you have me do? Be your little stay-at-home wife?” Homelander rinses the conditioner from his hair and starts to feel a little bit more like himself. He turns off the water and abruptly opens the shower door, smirking a little when William falls back with it.

William looks at him, face upside down, and his expression reminds Homelander that his emotions are no longer his own. He doesn’t stand up immediately, just blocks the door.

“I’m not gonna chain you to the fuckin’ bed, but there’s no way in hell you’re doing this hero bullshit. Maybe if I thought you enjoyed it, sure, but you an’ I both know you only do it for the hero worship.”

Homelander sighs, and William stands up, handing him a towel from the warming rack on the wall. Instead of letting him exit, William steps inside, crowding Homelander up against the wall, the warm towel held between them.

“You don’t even like anyone at Vought,” he tells him like it’s a secret. Homelander wonders if he’s always known that, or if something in the bond has given him away. William rubs the towel over his chest, down his arms and legs before wrapping it around his middle in a hug. Homelander’s purr echoes in the small glass shower. “You could always work with me.”

The purr cuts out and Homelander’s eyes snap open.

“No. Never. I will never help you hunt down my own kind. Our own kind.”

William huffs, rolling his eyes. “Alright, fine, don’t get your knickers in a twist.”

He pushes Homelander out of the shower, but it’s surprisingly gentle. He turns on the water, and Homelander tries to ignore the way William’s groan of pleasure piques his interest.

“What made you take the Compound V anyway?” Homelander tries to keep his voice light, to not betray how insatiably curious he is about the answer.

William laughs, shakes the water out of his eyes. “Was hopin’ it would kill me.”

A sharp pain pierces Homelander’s chest at those words, and William spins toward him.

“Hey, fuckin’ relax, I’m not dyin’.”

Homelander shakes his head, not willing to give voice to why that affected him so deeply. The thought of William dying is unacceptable, it always has been, even before the bond, but to hear his suicidal wish spoken so casually, it’s too close to how Homelander has spent the last few months feeling. Once again, he’s left wondering what it is about him and William Butcher that keeps bringing them back together again. How they can be so different and yet so similar.

“I might be okay with it,” Homelander says softly, grabbing his toothbrush with trembling hands.

“With me dyin’?”

“With being your stay-at-home wife,” he mumbles, shoving the toothbrush into his mouth to avoid anything else embarrassing coming out.

The shower shuts off, and William steps out before Homelander has even had time to spit. He fumbles to rinse the paste from his mouth as William crowds him against the sink, dripping wet, soaking the plush white bath mat and Homelander’s own dry body.

“You wanna be my little wife?” He asks, hazel eyes bright, hands coming up to grasp Homelander’s hips.

Homelander nods, tilting his head to bare his throat submissively.

William’s growl is smooth and steady as he dips his head, aligning his teeth with the scar surrounding Homelander’s mating gland. He thinks about his costume, about the high collar and the way it would cover the scar and feels a viscerally negative reaction at the thought.

William makes a curious noise, and Homelander tries to recenter his thoughts, focusing only on how good he feels, how happy that scar makes him, how he’s never been so content in his life.

“Better, love” William whispers against his throat.

Homelander chirps, another embarrassing omega noise he’d never have been caught dead making before all of this. “I like it when you call me that.”

Full lips press up and down his throat. “Well I sure as shit ain’t gonna call you Homelander.”

Homelander can’t help it, he laughs. Hard and deep, shaking his entire body, a genuine laugh like he hasn’t experienced in years. He squirms when he feels William’s lips curve in a smile.

+

Butcher has a plan.

It’s fast and loose, and it depends a lot on his friends being cool with a lot of uncool stuff, but it’s forming in his mind rapidly as he looks around Homelander’s destroyed apartment.

“We can’t stay here.”

Homelander looks at him with big, pleading blue eyes.

Luckily, Butcher has a lot of experience with Hughie, so that move has little effect.

“Besides the fact that the place is trashed, once they catch on to the fact that you’re leavin’, they’re gonna cut you off hard.”

“I’ve done more for this company than anyone–“

“Nah, nah, don’t even try that line. I know this is the only job you’ve ever had, but as someone that has worked for and quit multiple agencies, I can tell you right now, the second you cut ties, they’ll fuck ya.”

Homelander pouts, and Butcher tries not to find it cute.

Fuck, this bonding shit is for the birds. One week and he’s already skirting whipped territory.

“You got anything in this place you want, you better get it now. Any bank accounts, records, files, anything online they can firewall or cancel, now’s the time.”

“Jesus, put a lot of thought into this, haven’t you?” Homelander says, but he’s already sorting through stuff. Opening drawers and closets. Making little piles of whatever it is he deems important. Mostly it looks like clothes and books, a few honest to God CD’s.

It’s the work of a few flights back and forth to get all of his stuff to Butcher’s apartment, which in itself is a little bit of a wreck from the agonizing first few days of Homelander’s heat.

Once they’ve got everything, Homelander opens up a laptop and together they go through every account he has that Vought knows about. Really, that’s everything, Homelander has lived under their thumb since his literal birth.

William does a double take when he sees the bank accounts.

“What are you saving up for, ending world hunger?”

Homelander shrugs as he initiates the transfer to William’s own bank account – a temporary measure until they can set up an off shore account. “My annual salary really isn’t that large, but everything I own is purchased for me by Vought anyway. It’s not like I pay rent.”

“Jesus, that’s mental.”

“Well, I can tell you the first thing I’m buying is a fucking bedframe.”

The second everything is completed, Homelander’s phone starts ringing, the words Idiot Ashley flashing on the screen. Butcher snatches it up before Homelander can move, snapping it as easily as cardboard, crumbling the SIM card just to be extra cautious.

“Wow, thank you for that,” Homelander’s voice is mild, if a little sarcastic. Butcher doesn’t care, he turns to Homelander instead, pulling him closer to inspect through his skin.

“Are you chipped?” He asks, turning Homelander’s head this way and that.

“What? No! I mean, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?”

Homelander shakes his head. “They couldn’t implant anything that my body wouldn’t force out. And trust me, I’ve looked.”

Butcher believes him, but he still uses his x-ray vision to examine every inch of his body. It seems to be free of any foreign bodies.

“Alright, by your estimation, what are the chances someone at Vought will come looking for you here?”

Homelander turns to look outside. “It’s highly unlikely they’ll come here immediately, but I wouldn’t put it outside of the realm of possibility. There are people in the company who are aware of my…interest in you.”

Butcher raises a brow at the word interest but otherwise doesn’t comment. He walks into the kitchen, reaching under the sink to find an unopened burner phone, popping the SIM card in and typing a number he knows by heart.

“Butcher, oh my God, I’ve been trying to find you for days!” Hughie knows it’s him even from a random number, even without saying a word.

“I was dealing with…a situation.” He looks at Homelander, who he knows is listening in to both sides of the conversation.

“Ah, right. And uh…how is that going?”

“It’s still shakin’ out,” Butcher ignores the way Homelander grins.

“How can I help?”

“I was thinkin’ of comin’ by. Wondering how much you told the boys, and uh…what the reactions were.”

Hughie sighs. “I pretty much told them everything, and it went…about how you’d expect. But it’s settled down a little bit. They understand, or I mean, they’re trying to at least.”

“Well that’s better than wantin’ me dead, so I’ll take it.”

There’s a pause and then Hughie says. “If you come by, does that mean…?”

Butcher looks at Homelander then. He’s sitting on the mattress, looking for all the world like he belongs there. In civilian clothes, hair tousled from Butcher’s fingers, he’s almost unrecognizable as the world’s greatest supe cunt.

It’s idiotically risky, but the bond is still so new and even the thought of leaving him brings up acid in Butcher’s throat.

“Yeah, both of us.”

Hughie hums, and Butcher can picture him nodding nervously. “Well, whatever you think is best.”

Butcher barks a laugh. “Right, cause I’m clearly the one who should be making decisions around here.”

“I think it would be good for the boys to see you. To make sure that you’re, ya know, alright.”

Homelander rolls his eyes and Butcher fights a grin.

“Alright, yeah, we’ll head that way.”

Butcher hangs up and Homelander immediately huffs.

“Please explain to me why I would possibly want to go see the boys.” Homelander raises his fingers in air quotations.

“Because believe it or not, we need their help.”

“You need their help! I don’t want to do any of this!”

Butcher raises an eyebrow. “Oh no? You wanna go back to Vought tower? Explain to them how you’re an omega who got overpowered by an alpha? Live in that ivory fuckin’ tower all by your fuckin’ self? Cause you can believe me when I say this. Our relationship? Our bond? Fuckin’ over. I’ll spend the rest of my life ignorin’ every miserable fuckin’ emotion you bleed over into me.”

Homelander’s chest is rising and falling rapidly, tears are gathering on his eyelashes and it hurts, it does, to feel the effect Butcher’s words are having on him, but he has to get this out.

“I wanna make this work, God help me, but I fuckin’ do. But I have limit and you staying with Vought is it. I can spend the rest of our lives making you the happiest you ever been. And trust me when I say it wouldn’t even be that hard because deep down you are so miserable, I know you been that way for a long time. So I can make you better or I can leave you to rot in your unhappiness. The choice is yours.”

He's not at all surprised when Homelander stands up without a word, not bothering to wipe the tears on his cheeks before he marches straight to the bathroom, slamming the door behind himself.

Butcher exhales slowly, lets the adrenaline dissipate as he pours himself a glass of whiskey. It’s only three in the afternoon, but it hardly matters because alcohol has almost no effect on him anymore since the V. Still, the act itself is soothing, the taste comforting.

It gives him something else to focus on besides the burning ache in his chest, Homelander’s emotions roiling.

It takes about forty minutes and a second glass of whiskey for the door to open. When Homelander returns, his face is dry, but his eyes are still red rimmed, the blue especially stunning in contrast.

He stands close enough to touch, and Butcher fights the urge.

“I want you to call me John,” he says, voice soft but never breaking eye contact.

Relief spreads liquid hot through Butcher and for once the emotion is his own.

“Thought you liked it when I called you love?”

Homelander shrugs, but there’s a soft pleased scent emanating from him. “I like that more, yes, but I meant for when you introduce me to your friends. They probably shouldn’t call me Homelander.”

Butcher nods. “Alright love, I can do that.”

+

When John is eighteen, he’s introduced to the world.

It’s not all at once. In the beginning he continues living in the labs, working for Vought during the day, meeting dignitaries from around the world, talk show hosts and celebrities. Everyone wants a piece of the Homelander.

They’re calling him the world’s greatest hero before he even does anything heroic.

But despite the overwhelming fame and never-ending meetings, every night when he’s finished up his daily list of responsibilities, John goes back to the lab.

He doesn’t even have a key card like the scientists and doctors. He needs someone to escort him, to bio-scan their fingerprints and give him access to his room – still as small and white-walled as when he was a kid. The door locks behind him, until he’s let out in the morning.

They call him Homelander upstairs, but here in the lab, he’s still just John.

It’s comforting, almost, in his new world of discovery, to see people that he’s known for years – although really, he knows almost nothing about them – to be spoken to like a normal person, instead of a celebrity – but of course, they don’t think he’s normal at all.

Slowly though, he starts to realize they don’t speak to him in a manner that is normal for friends or family, or even casual acquaintances. It takes about a year of working as the Homelander for him to realize that the people in the lab don’t treat him like a human being, that when they say John they might as well be saying specimen.

Eventually it comes to a head, John realizing that the power these people hold over him is power he grants them. That the delicate balance of his life has shifted, and now he is the one in control.

He demands his own rooms, which he decorates exactly how he wants. He demands his own salary, dropping a number he has no context for, trying not to look surprised when they agree without hesitation. He demands they call him Homelander. John was naïve, John was a child unable to stand up for himself, but Homelander…

Homelander is in control.

It’s fitting, that now he’s no longer in control, that now he’s bitten and bonded and at the mercy of an alpha, he retakes the name John.

Standing in an office in the Flatiron, trying desperately to exert some minute level of dominance over his omega pheromones, to not leak his panic and fear at being surrounded by a group – a pack – of people he knows with absolute certainty would kill him where he stood if given the chance, John remembers what it’s like to be a specimen.

He looks nervously at William, who is standing slightly in front of him in an obvious display of protectiveness and relaxes just a bit. It’s mirrored by William, whose shoulders loosen fractionally.

“Yeah, alright, get it over with,” William says.

The room bursts into noise, multiple people talking over each other, one of them waving her hands in what appears to be broken sign language, another never taking a breath through rapid fire French.

The biggest one is the loudest, and the only one William seems to be listening to.

John looks past all of it to Starlight, who is watching him with an unflinching gaze. She lifts her head, and John hates himself for tilting his own down and slightly to the right, displaying the scar on his neck submissively.

Decades he’s managed to control his physical omega behavior and with one bite, William has destroyed all of that.

He doesn’t lift his eyes from the floor until she’s almost in front of him, only partially blocked by William’s broad shoulders, his sure-footed stance.

“Are you okay?” She asks, and John’s eyes widen.

“Me?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yes, you.”

“Why do you care?” John can’t help but ask. Starlight hates him, it’s obvious to anyone who spends more than five minutes in their presence.

“Just because you’re our enemy, doesn’t mean I think what Butcher did is okay.”

William stiffens, but John just blurts out, “I’m not your enemy.”

Multiple people in the room scoff.

Starlight’s omega boyfriend, Hugh something, sidles up. John can smell Starlight all over him, even with his neck clear and unmarked, and if he leaned in even more, John thinks he might be able to pick up a hint of William on him as well.

Jealousy burns hot in his throat, but before he can even try to hide the reaction, William is turning around, circling John’s wrist in his own large hand.

“Relax, love,” William murmurs, low enough that only the four of them hear it. “Nothing to be stressin’ out over.”

Starlight’s omega is wide-eyed, looking at William in shock, but to John’s surprise, Starlight nods approvingly.

William takes his hand and pulls him deeper into the room, into the middle of this motley pack that all vaguely smell like each other. John has never had a pack, but he’s seen them on tv and they don’t usually look like this. He can’t help wondering how three alphas manage to share space and not self-destruct.

“Look, you lot can spend all day railin’ at me, or you can make peace with the fact that what’s happened, happened, and bitchin’ about it ain’t gonna change shit. I hated Homelander more than any of you, and I’m figurin’ this shit out one day at a time.”

John tries not to make a face at that statement. It’s not like he’s unaware of William’s past feelings towards him. It would probably hurt less if he had some idea of William’s current feelings towards him, besides the obvious one of responsibility.

“So, what is your grand plan, genius? You moving in to Vought tower? Gonna take up supe work, next?” The big alpha John doesn’t really know says.

“Oh, don’t act like I had some fuckin’ scheme, you all made me take the V in the first fuckin’ place.”

John looks at William in surprise.

“Yeah, so you wouldn’t die! Not so you could run off and pheromone roofie the bane of our fucking existence!”

William starts snarling, and the other alpha steps closer, his own heavy growl pouring forth.

One of the beta’s rushes between them, shoving his hands into their chests. “Eh! Stop it! We are not sitting around and watching you two tear each other apart!”

Starlight steps in, her own alpha scent heavy enough to cover them both. John tries not to look impressed.

“MM, you have to calm down. Butcher is right, what’s done is done.”

The other alpha, MM, throws his hands up. “Everyone in this room has lost the fucking plot.”

“We have to focus on the now,” Starlight continues, looks directly at John. “You came here, so you must be willing to help us somehow.”

John looks to William for support but receives nothing, only a guarded expression. He’s as curious to what John will say as everyone else in the room is, which is completely unfair because John didn’t agree to help them. He only came here because William made him, because he had no other choice.

But this is William’s pack, and John wants nothing more than to stay in his good graces. He can’t deal with William yelling at him again like he did earlier. Threatening him with abandonment.

Sighing, John looks back to Starlight. “I’ve broken ties with Vought. I don’t know how much of a help I can be, but I won’t actively be working against you.”

“Oh, well isn’t that sweet,” MM chimes in. “Your omega won’t actively be hurting us, Butcher!”

“Don’t be such a cunt, MM,” William returns. “If Vought no longer has Homelander, than we’ve taken a huge step in destabilizing them.”

“And what should we call you now, Not Homelander?” MM says this directly to John who flushes with anger at the condescending tone. The hand gripping his tightens and John exhales heavily, turns his own slightly condescending smile towards MM.

“Call me John.”

MM rolls his eyes but William’s mouth quirks up, eyes crinkling.

“So what is your plan, Monsieur Charcuter?”

William looks at the French beta.

“I need help,” he starts. “We took the preliminary steps to get him out, but I need to make sure it sticks. Make sure they can’t come lookin’ for him, that they have no legal recourse to get him back.”

“Well,” Hugh something finally speaks. “As his alpha, you’ll have power of attorney for all of that.”

Starlight shakes her head. “That’s only if they register, and I wouldn’t recommend that right away. Right now, Vought will believe Homeland-uh, I mean John, left on his own. They’ll be too scared to pursue immediately. If they think there’s an alpha pulling the strings, they’ll go after him first.”

“Well that hardly matters,” John chimes in, tensing only a little when every eye in the room turns to him.

“Why’s that?” MM mutters darkly. “Already lookin’ for a way out?”

John scoffs, doesn’t try to suppress his offended scent. “No. Because William is stronger than me. If they’re scared of what I’ll do, they should be equally if not more scared of him.”

Shock ripples through the room, and William looks especially surprised to hear John admit that out loud.

Starlight shakes her head. “Honestly, that’s even worse. If they find out how this all went down…that you were bonded against your will, they’ll go after him with every domestic violence lawyer available. They might not be able to kill him, but they can bury him in prison easily enough.”

“It wasn’t against my will.”

William stiffens dramatically, lets his hand drop as he turns to face him. “What?”

John flushes, tries to ignore the astonished faces around them. “I mean, yes, technically I guess it was but I wanted it…I think. It’s not like I’ve never been bitten before.”

“What the fuck, when? By who?”

It’s humiliating, admitting it, especially like this. “When I was a kid, after, uh–my first heat. And then again and again for years. Don’t act so shocked William, you’re aware of my history. You think Vogelbaum realized I’m an omega and didn’t immediately want a way to control me?”

“Jesus,” Hugh whispers, and John hates the pity he hears in his voice.

“So what, it never took? Why was I able to bite you then?”

John shrugs, tries to look smaller. “I think…deep down…I wanted it. Before, when I was…young…I hated those alphas, everything about them. But you…”

William seems to catch on to how much he’s struggling, he steps forward, wrapping John up in a quick hug before pulling away. “Alright, we don’t gotta talk about this now.”

Suddenly, no one in the room wants to look at John. He’s fine with that. He drifts back to lean against a desk, arms crossed protectively, listening with detachment as William reorganizes their entire life. When he looks up, the beta female who never speaks is watching him. She smiles when he notices her and John finds himself smiling back softly.

These people are loud and abrasive, but they really seem to care about William, and now, by extension, him.

Usually when people are discussing his life, it’s for their own benefit, but John can hear them arguing about how best to keep him safe, to protect him from the fallout.

It feels wrong, how willing they are to help him, when he’s done nothing but hurt them at every turn. Shame and sorrow well up within him, and within seconds, William is there, herding him towards the door.

“Come on, we’ve done enough for now. We’ll still be safe at my place for a couple days at least.”

John feels like he should probably thank everyone, but instead he lets William usher them out of the building and into a cab. He’s been told point blank they can’t fly, it attracts too much attention and right now that’s the last thing they need.

The cab driver pays him almost no notice when he climbs inside, no idea who he is. It’s disconcerting, but it’s also kind of nice. He doesn’t feel any sort of need to hide his omega characteristics, like how he immediately starts purring when William runs his hand up the back of his neck and rubs his fingers through his hair.

The cab driver looks at him in the rearview mirror and smiles, not even a hint of recognition.

+

That night they lay naked, tangled up in bed, pressed as close as possible without climbing inside of each other’s skin.

Butcher can’t stop thinking about what Homelander said earlier. About how he’d been bitten, repeatedly, Vought desperate for a way to control him.

“You wanted me to bite you?

Homelander’s eyes open, his head tilts up from where it’s tucked in Butcher’s throat. At his waist, Homelander’s hands tighten nervously.

“I don’t know, no? I didn’t expect you to, never would have guessed that you would. But when it happened…for one split second, I thought about Ryan–“

Butcher inhales.

“About how my son was dead and I how without a mating bite, I would never be able to be able to be a mother, and for years, maybe longer, that’s all I’ve really wanted.”

Butcher exhales.

“But no, I don’t think it took because you caught me at a moment of weakness, or because I secretly wanted it. I think it took because, with the Compound V…you’re stronger than me. Maybe the only person in the world who is.”

Butcher focuses on the part of that spiel that doesn’t make him feel like a rapist.

“You wanna be a mum?”

Homelander sits up, and Butcher really should stop thinking of him by that name, should let it die with the past. This man is his omega now. This man, John, is the potential mother of his children, apparently.

“I do, yeah,” John says, voice soft. Butcher can sense nothing but honesty, through the bond and his scent. “I want to be the mom I never had.”

Butcher reaches up, runs his fingers over John’s lips, smiles to himself when he pulls away and John follows them with a huff.

“I ain’t ever planned to have kids,” he says, and he can feel the oncoming explosion of emotion through the bond, but he continues. “Probably a good thing you want them though, since I doubt you’re on any kind of birth control and I came in you aboutta hundred times.”

John grins, and Butcher’s stomach twists up at how attractive he finds that sharp-toothed smile. He pulls John down, turning them until he’s on top, pressing kisses down John’s throat. He sinks lower, stopping to bite and suck at John’s tits, his flat belly, until he’s low enough to run his tongue over John’s cock, base to tip.
His omega keens, knees spreading automatically, hands dropping to clutch at Butcher’s hair.

“Billy,” he whimpers, and Butcher doesn’t even try to deny the reaction that gets out of him, swallowing John down in one go, fingers sliding through the crease of his ass, gathering up the wetness there to push inside.

John’s fingers in his hair pull tight and Butcher growls, sucking at the head of John’s cock as he thrusts his fingers in and out, uses his thumb to press down on his perineum. John’s legs tremble and he comes immediately, spilling thin, sweet cum into Butcher’s mouth at the same time as slick gushes from his hole.

He’s still shaking when Butcher shifts to his knees, pulls John’s hips into his lap, slides his arms under John’s thighs and thrusts his cock inside in one smooth move.

“Fuck!” John’s head is thrown backward, and there’s just enough moonlight coming through the window for Butcher to see the silvery scar on his throat. Butcher never would have thought himself the type, but it’s obsessive how much he wants to look at that mark, touch it, bite it.

He’s thrusting hard, hips a relentless surge back and forth until John’s mouth hangs open in a continuous moan, lips shiny with spit. He’s getting hard again and Butcher watches closely, takes pride in the way John’s cock fattens up, the tip flushed dark.

“You gonna come for me again, Johnny boy?” Butcher pants, wrapping his arms tighter around John’s thighs, spreading him even wider. “Tighten’ up around my cock, fuckin’ soakin’ me, you gonna come, baby?”

Oh, Butcher knew he’d like that, and the way he sobs and grinds down further is like a reward. John’s hand flies to his own mouth, sucking on his fingers like he wishes they were Butcher’s cock and that thought just makes him fuck into John even harder.

“Come on, baby,” Butcher pants, never ceasing his movement. “Come for me. Come all over yourself, be my sweet, little wife.”

The result is instantaneous, John’s cock shooting off like a fountain, cum arching up high enough to splash his face and throat. His ass clenches almost painfully, hole throbbing around Butcher’s cock until he has no choice but to let go, filling his omega up to the brim.

Butcher keeps thrusting until the aftershocks are too much, his cock sore from overstimulation, and pulls out. He lets John’s legs free slowly, sliding down to press him into the mattress. When he finds himself face to face with John’s cum splattered throat, he licks it up with broad strokes of his tongue, all the way up his face.

John sighs, legs wrapped gently around Butcher’s back.

“I miss your knot,” John says, and Butcher huffs a laugh.

“Can’t knot you when you’re not in heat,” he tells him lazily, rubbing his beard against John’s bite mark.

“I know that,” John tells him petulantly. “I still miss it.”

“You’re a needy thing,” Butcher tells him, and he doesn’t think he imagines the way John freezes at the words, only relaxing when Butcher scraps his teeth over the mark.

“Some people might say you’re overbearing,” John mutters.

Butcher only grins. “More than some, mate.”

+

Chapter Text

They move apartments a few days later.

John is surprised to learn they’re staying in New York, only going one borough over to a waterfront apartment in Brooklyn.

“I ain’t keen to leave New York, I got a job here and people who need me,” is what William tells him. “Besides, if the boys take care of everything and you can manage to stay undercover, we should be fine.”

That shouldn’t be too hard for now. John’s been watching the news, and so far, Vought has yet to report anything is amiss. The online message boards are a little more volatile, fans wondering where he has been for the past few months, but luckily no one has guessed that he’s secretly an omega who is now bonded to an alpha that hates supes.

Someone did suggest that maybe Homelander retired and doesn’t want to be bothered anymore, and that’s close enough to the truth to worry him.

It’ll have to come out eventually. He was the biggest face of the biggest company for decades, he can’t just disappear into thin air, no matter how many strings William might pull.

The new place they’re in is bigger than William’s other one, nothing close to the size of his own at Vought tower, but it’s newer and cleaner, on the top floor of a nice building.

“I’m decorating,” John tells him, already snagging William’s battered laptop to pull up furniture websites.

“Knock yerself out,” William tells him, tapping away at his latest burner phone. “No American flag shit!”

John pouts, but it’s performative. He isn’t particularly patriotic, that aspect of his persona crafted entirely by Vought and its focus-groups.

Most of his money is inaccessible for now, William’s friends moving them into secret accounts that Vought can’t trace, but he left enough in William’s account to make a serious investment in their home.

Once the essentials have been purchased, John looks up nervously, ensuring that William isn’t able to see his screen, before he navigates to Modern Nursery dot com. He scrolls through pages and pages of bassinets, rocking chairs, changing stations, things he didn’t even know babies needed like their own tiny bathtubs and special chairs to eat in.

He counts backwards in his head to the first time William and he had sex, wonders how long one is supposed to wait before taking a pregnancy test.

It’s ridiculous, he’s being ridiculous, but he finds himself drifting through daydreams of cradling a baby, so tiny in his arms, with dark hair and hazel eyes, or bright blue, just like his.

“Somethins’ got you in a good mood,” William says, moving towards where John is sitting on the floor. He closes the laptop with a snap.

“Just excited to have a real bedframe,” John says, pretends that his heart isn’t racing.

He can tell William doesn’t buy it, but he doesn’t press the issue, simply sits down next to him on the floor. “Thought you might like to see this,” he says, handing his phone over.

It’s a text message from someone called Annie. It takes John a minute to remember that this is Starlight’s real name.

The good news is that he’s only ever signed contracts with his hero name. As long as he doesn’t use Homelander publicly or professionally, Vought can’t go after him. It hardly changes the situation with the CIA but Mallory is handling that.

she’s fine with our terms?

I wouldn’t say fine, but I think she’s more excited to have Homelander out of commission than she is angry about the way it occurred.

tell her she can call me at this number if she wants to rip me a new one

I’ll be sure to pass that along :)

John looks at William. “Who is Mallory?”

“The only cunt who hates supes more than I do,” William grins.

“Does she know you are one, now?”

At this, William looks chagrinned. “We ain’t exactly been on speaking terms lately, but she’ll come around.”

“So what now?” John wonders aloud, looking over their empty apartment.

“Now, we lay low. I take a lil’ hiatus from work, you drain our bank account and fill this place up with bullshit like you are so clearly desperate to do, and we try not to kill each other.”

“I don’t want to kill you,” John confesses like it’s a secret.

“I know, love,” William replies.

John closes his eyes, thinks about the baby website he’s desperate to get back to, about filling this apartment up and turning it into a home, about nesting, like a real omega.

His eyes snap open.

“Do you know how to cook?”

+

William does not know how to cook, and it only takes a couple weeks of constant take out before John is ordering the entirety of the Williams-Sonoma website.

He is an omega, William’s little wife, and he is determined to act the part.

Grocery shopping is an otherworldly experience, and John finds himself wide-eyed walking down the aisles, William’s pushing a squeaky, metal cart behind him.

“You gotta stick to the list,” William tells John, who is tossing a box of crackers into the basket. “Otherwise this is gonna be a nightmare to carry back.”

“We could always fl–“ John starts, but William slaps a hand over his mouth.

“Don’t even say the word.”

John huffs. He has yet to be recognized, dressed down in dark jeans and a sleek, black sweater. He’s wearing his hair looser too, probably won’t bleach it out again, the golden blonde is a little too iconic Homelander.

People do look at him though, some of them even double-taking as he walks past, but they never call out to him, never even suggest that they think he might be Vought’s missing hero.

“They’re just lookin’ at you cause you’re pretty,” William says, as if it’s obvious.

John is flattered by that, but then he starts to notice the people who look at William, too.

Like the ditzy little omega across the aisle currently staring up at him, perfuming the air with her availability. John glares long enough to get her attention, tipping his chin up to show off his scar. The other omega blushes, throws the chips she’s holding back on the shelf and turns tail. John preens just a bit.

“Stop that,” William says, rolling his eyes.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” John demurs, turning back to the shopping list.

William huffs, sliding an arm around his waist.

“Don’t need a cat fight in the middle of the snack aisle, got it?” He runs the tip of his nose up the back of John’s neck, and John shivers, pushing him away.

“I don’t need an erection in the middle of the snack aisle either, so just–stay over there.”

William grins, eyes bright.

He spends all night in the kitchen, attempting chocolate-chip cookies. It takes twelve rounds, the first three batches burned to little briquettes, before he’s satisfied with his work.

The sun is coming up when his final batch is pulled from the oven. The burnt scent has finally dissipated, covered up by brown sugar and vanilla, warm chocolate. William wanders into the room, as if lured by the smell.

“Stayed up all night, huh?” William says, sliding a hot cookie off the cooling rack. He’s dressed only in loose pajama pants, slung low on his hips, the dark hair that trails up to his bellybutton on full display.

John tells himself it’s the smell of cookies that’s making his mouth fill with saliva.

“Not bad,” William says around a mouthful, sliding into John’s space, heedless of the flour and batter streaked all over his formerly clean apron. His arm is a tight band around John’s waist, and John runs his hands up William’s chest, scratching through the dark hair there.

William growls and John tilts his head submissively to the side. It’s almost shocking, how easy it is for him to yield to his omega instincts after a lifetime of suppressing them. William presses in closer and he’s hard, cock a heavy weight against John’s lower stomach.

Like this, in the kitchen, John in an apron surrounded by sugar and flour, the housewife fantasy is potent. John can’t help himself when he slides to his knees, hooking his fingers in the elastic waistband of William’s pants.

He looks up, flutters his lashes softly. “Billy…”

William’s hazel eyes flash gold for a moment, and John squirms, pressing his thighs together.

“Yes, love?”

“Do you like my cookies?” John closes his eyes, rubbing his face against William’s thigh, not yet touching him where the alpha really wants.

“They’re good,” William’s growl is filtering through and John moans. “You’re a proper little wife. Did you want one?”

John looks up and nods, watches as William breaks off a little piece of cookie. John opens his mouth dutifully, lips caressing William’s fingers as he chews and swallows. This time when he opens his mouth, William slides his thumb inside, pressing down to hold his jaw open.

John is drooling, and he would be embarrassed by it if he wasn’t so positive that William gets off on this as much as he does.

“You want somethin’ else?” William asks, voice like gravel.

John nods and never taking his eyes off William, tugs at the elastic.

“Whatever my little wife wants.”

John wastes no time, sliding the pants down to pool around William’s feet before burying his face in his groin. He breathes deep and shudders. William’s scent is strongest here, heady alpha pheromones that John wants to bathe in. He rubs his face into the dark pubic hair, spreading the scent across his cheeks and throat, tongue flicking out to kitten-lick at William’s cock.

William groans and John feels a surge of satisfaction. He’s getting wet, slick beginning to drip from his hole in response to all of William’s feral noises.

John takes one heavy ball into his mouth, presses his nose to the base of William’s cock and breathes deep. It’s good, but it’s not enough, so he lets it go, giving attention to the other before tracing his tongue along the large vein on the underside of what is truly an impressive dick.

William slides his fingers into John’s hair and John chirps in response before pulling back just enough to take the tip in his mouth. He sucks once before swirling his tongue through the already leaking slit, then finally gives himself what he wants by sliding all the way down the shaft. The fingers in his hair pull tighter and John moans, eyelids fluttering shut.

John has no gag-reflex, so it’s easy to hold William’s cock in his mouth indefinitely, pressing his tongue against it as he suckles gently. Only when William starts shifting from foot to foot does he slide back, lips a tight ring.

He pulls away only long enough to tell William, “Fuck my mouth,” and hums in pleasure when he sees that burst of gold again.

William slams back in, his grip on John’s hair tight enough to pull out a few strands, and John feels a fog descend over him, eyelids falling closed again as he drifts in the euphoria of being used so well.

Lewd sounds echo in the kitchen, the slick slide of William’s cock in his mouth coupled with animalistic grunting and growling.

It’s over too fast for John’s liking, William’s thrusts stuttering until he slams as deep as he can go, shoving John’s nose against his groin as he pumps ropes of cum down his throat. He’s still coming when he starts to pull back, and John opens his mouth, catching the last of it on his tongue.

He looks up at William, mouth still opened to show off the creamy, white spend before swallowing lasciviously.

William is growling when he grabs John under the armpits, yanking him up and over, shoving cookie sheets and mixing bowls off of the counter to slam John down against it. His pants are down almost before he can blink, and William drops to his knees, grabs both cheeks of his ass, spreading him wide to bury his face.

A lot of the sex John has with William is new to him. He’d never been with an alpha before, never been fucked by anyone, but this is something he’d never even fantasized about. Before William, he would have believed most alphas to find this disgusting, or even demeaning, and maybe that is true for most alphas but it’s certainly not true for William Butcher.

John howls, hands scrabbling at the counter for support as William sucks and licks him to an earth-shattering orgasm, his cock shooting off without even being touched. He slides down slowly, until his knees hit the floor and he can fall back against William, who slides back too until they’re both sprawled out on the cold tile.

William is panting under him, running his hands up and down John’s stomach and chest, squeezing at his tits.

“Fuck,” William finally says.

John can’t help it, he giggles, his body bouncing against William’s larger one. He can feel the smile William presses to his neck and sighs.

With as little movement as possible, John reaches over and grabs a cookie from the floor. It’s from an earlier batch, he thinks the one where he used too much vanilla extract, but he shoves it into his mouth anyway.

Underneath him, William laughs.

+

On the day Homelander dies, John wakes up feeling like absolute shit.

He’s been sick before, usually in a controlled setting like when they scientists injected him with Ebola or made him swallow anthrax, so he recognizes the roiling sensation as nausea.

It’s still disorienting, he barely makes it to the toilet before he vomits up everything in his stomach.

William is there almost immediately, a glass of water pressed into his hand.

“I told you not to screw around with seafood. Even professional chef’s fuck that shit up all the time.”

John spits into the toilet, turning a glare on him.

“I don’t get food poisoning, William.”

He rolls his eyes and shrugs, taking a seat on the edge of the bathtub. “Well, excuse the fuck outta me.”

“Besides, my oysters were perfect.”

“They were slimy as all hell.”

“Oysters are always slimy, you fucking philistine.”

John would probably continue insulting him if another wave of vomiting didn’t hit him, said oysters making a reappearance.

William tsks sympathetically.

“So what’s got you sick then?”

John shakes his head. “I don’t know, I don’t–“

He pauses, counts backwards in his head. Time has been so weird lately, not having any real responsibilities to occupy himself with. Sometimes it feels like only days since he was living in Vought tower, other times it feels like years.

In actuality, it’s been about eight weeks.

William catches on quickly, his eyes sliding down to John’s stomach.

“I can go to the store for a test.”

John nods, not trusting himself to speak. William bounces up, suddenly frenetic with energy, moving into the bedroom to throw on clothes and shove his feet into shoes. In that time, John flushes, brushes his teeth and tries not to freak out.

The expression on William’s face as he’s moving to the door tells him he’s not completely successful.

“Relax love, I’ll be right back.”

Once he’s gone, John moves to the couch, a plush sectional in deep emerald.

The apartment is really coming together, the blank walls slowly being covered with art pieces and movie posters, a blend of both of their taste, even though William pretends like he doesn’t care. On the wall across from him hangs a massive television that John usually lets run in the background on mute while he cooks. It keeps him company now that William has gone back to work, and it helps him feel a little more normal to see what’s happening in the world, especially at Vought.

He turns it on now, in need of a little distraction, and is only mildly surprised to see his face splashed across Vought News Network. It’s not so unusual, and he’s still a little shaken from the vomiting and subsequent realization, so John thinks he can be forgiven for how long it takes him to notice the headline.

The Homelander, aged 42, dead after an overseas mission.

John sits up immediately, clicks the volume on and listens in horror as some no-name news anchor tells of his untimely death.

“Dead? They think I’m dead?”

On the screen, images and clips of his past exploits run in a montage. Random people are being interviewed on the streets, the news broken to them in real time and he watches them burst into tears, beg it not to be true.

When the interviews with fellow supes start up, John feels sick. He watches in horror as they describe imaginary friendships with him, trying to ingratiate themselves to the public and get clout off of his death.

The door of the apartment swings open and John jumps up, eyes glowing red.

“They think I’m dead!”

William pauses, startled only for a moment before he relaxes, dropping the brown grocery bag onto the sideboard by the door.

“Was wonderin’ when the news was gonna break,” is what he says.

John grips his hand tight, nails digging into the fleshy part of his palm hard enough to tear skin.

“You knew?”

William looks at him like he’s crazy. “What the fuck do you think I been workin’ on this whole time? I told you we had to make you disappear.”

John is panting, rage building in his chest and he sees William’s eyes flash gold in response.

“You said I would cut ties with Vought, not fucking die!”

“You’re not fuckin’ dead, ya stupid cunt!”

John flies at him, slamming William against the door. It’s hardly satisfying, because William isn’t fighting with him. He merely holds up his hands in surrender.

“John, baby,” he starts and John hates him for playing that card.

“No, fuck you, you never said I had to die! What about that shit with the CIA?”

“This is it! The got Vought to leave you the fuck alone. Did you think they’d what, throw you a retirement party? Wish you well? They have to make it look like you’re dead or else admit you’d found something better. It’s just corporate bullshit!”

John laughs hysterically, spinning away from him. He looks around the room and all he sees are the breakable things he’s bought. Mirrors, a hi-fi stereo system, all of the crockery in the kitchen cabinets.

“You need to calm the fuck down,” William growls, and he throws something, smacking John in the face with it.

John sees immediately that it’s a pregnancy test and all it does it ratchet up his anger. He might be pregnant and everyone thinks he’s dead and William knew! He did this!

He grabs a decorative vase from the half-filled bookshelf and hurls it against the wall, reveling in the noise as it shatters. He goes to grab another one when William’s hand wraps around his wrist, squeezing hard.

“I fucking said calm down.”

It’s pure, unadulterated alpha command, and John’s knees hit the floor before he even realizes what he’s doing. He’s heard alphas use this particular trick before, but now it’s coming from William, the alpha he’s mated to, and he is shaken by its intensity.

William stands above John, still holding his wrist, and pants heavily. John wants to look up, wants to know what his expression reveals, but his eyes stay fixed to the floor, every signal in his brain telling him to submit.

He’d wondered, when the scientists were trying desperately to have him mated, what it would feel like to have no control over his own body. He’s actually surprised it’s taken this long for him to find out.

“Fuck,” William breathes, letting go of his wrist to sink to the floor in front of him. He grasps John’s chin and tilts his head up, but John keeps his eyes turned down. “Fuck, look at me.”

The command in his voice is gone and John finds himself able to comply, lifting his eyes to see William’s stricken face.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” he says. “You were freakin’ me out, and I didn’t¬–I didn’t mean to use that against you.”

John doesn’t say anything.

“Come on, Johnny, talk to me.” His voice is growing desperate.

“You should have told me.”

“Yeah, I’m seein’ that now. I didn’t keep it a secret to hurt you. I just, I really didn’t think you would care this much.”

“I turned on the news and watched my obituary read out. Listened to assholes I hate talk about how close we were, and how much they’re going to miss me.”

William nods. “Yeah, I can see how that would be upsettin’.”

“What am I supposed to do now?” John says, and his voice shakes, tears building up in his eyes. “Everything I did, everything I am? It’s just gone.”

“No,” William says, and his voice is breathier than usual, eyes bright. It settles something in John. “No, that shit weren’t all you are. And as for what you’re gonna do? You’re gonna take this little stick into the bathroom, and you’re gonna piss on the end of it, and we’re gonna hold our breaths for three minutes while we wait for the results.”

John nods, tears slipping free, and asks the question that’s been haunting him since he first threw up. “What if it’s negative?”

“What if it ain’t?”

William turns off the news as John steps into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He sits to pee, holding the test under the stream with shaking hands. He pops the lid back on the end, washes his hands, and marches right back to William, handing him the stick.

Hazel eyes meet blue, and John fidgets until his internal clock tells him it’s been enough time.

“Okay, read it.”

William looks down and John sees confusion on his face.

“I actually don’t know what the fuck this means. What’s two lines?”

Excitement explode in his chest and William’s head whips up, the emotional feedback giving him away.

John laughs at the shock on William’s face, then just keeps laughing, joy spilling out like a fountain. He squeals in delight when William picks him up, pressing him against the bookcase in a kiss that is wet and messy around their laughter.

They stay like that for a few minutes, licking into each other’s mouths in between grins. Eventually, William pulls away enough for John’s feet to touch the ground again.

“Christ, this has been an eventful morning.”

John smiles. “And it’s only nine-thirty.”

“Think I’ll skip goin’ into the office today. What do you want to do with our time?” It’s spoken suggestively, with a meaningful press of hips.

“I want to watch the news,” John replies, a small thrill at William’s immediate irritation.

“Ain’t that the reason we started fightin’ in the first place?” He follows John to the couch anyway.

“No, William, we fought because you thought it was unnecessary to inform me of your plan and I had to find out through the news.”

William has enough grace to look chastened. He pulls John into his lap before clicking on the volume, keeping it low enough to talk over.

“Don’t you wanna pull up those baby websites you think I don’t know about and spend us into the poor house?”

John flushes, caught out. “Quit pretending like I don’t have enough money for six lifetimes and let me watch this. Besides….I’ve already bookmarked everything I want to buy.”

William huffs, settling in.

“Don’t know why you want to watch this shite anyway.”

“You’re telling me you wouldn’t want to see what everyone says about you after you die?”

“Hell no, I don’t give a fuck about what anyone says about me now, I certainly ain’t gonna give a fuck after I’m gone.”

John knows he’s telling the truth, and he’s actually sort of impressed by it. He could never relate to that sentiment, no matter how hard he tried.

It’s probably not the right time to tell William that it’s likely he’ll never die. That’s a conversation for another day.

+

I’m having a kid.

It’s the first thing Butcher thinks when his eyes open the next morning. It takes him a minute to register that John isn’t in bed next to him, and another minute to realize it’s the sound of vomiting that’s woken him up.

He rolls out of bed, has a glass of water and is crouched next to John before he’s even rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. His chest is tight with shared misery.

“Anything I can do to help?”

John shakes his head before heaving again.

It’s weird, how quickly things have changed. There was a time not so long ago that Butcher would have paid money to see this man so unwell, but now all he wants to do is make it stop, make him feel better, get him to laugh again like he did yesterday.

Reaching up to flush, John finally takes the glass of water, downing it in one go. He sits back on his heels and Butcher can see the exhaustion weighing on his body.

“You wanna go back to sleep?”

John nods, and Butcher stands up, sliding his arms around John in a princess carry. Blue eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t fight it, just leans his head against Butcher’s bare chest.

Butcher slides him back into bed, tucking the duvet up around him before he brushes his grown out bangs off his forehead.

“You want me to stay home today?”

John sighs, turning to settle more against the pillow. “I always want you to stay home.”

Butcher huffs. “Do you need me to stay home?”

John shakes his head. “I think I’m just gonna sleep. M’tired.”

He’s already nodding off, and Butcher watches him for a minute, counts his breaths until they even out completely. He wants to climb in bed right next to him, wrap him up tight and fall back asleep. He shakes himself, and presses a kiss to John’s head.

Christ, but he’s fucked. Two months and he’s already so obsessed with this cunt he wants to blow off his real life and hide away in the apartment forever.

It’s been a problem, if he’s being honest with himself, distracting him at work until it takes him hours to accomplish something that used to take him twenty minutes.

So far, the boys have yet to call him out on it, but Butcher thinks that’s just because they’re avoiding the subject of his life altogether. He doesn’t blame them; can’t imagine he’d be even a fraction as supportive as they’ve been if any of them were in his position. Still, he misses the camaraderie they used to have.

The only person who ever seems glad to see him now is Hughie, who chirps a friendly noise and turns bright, happy eyes on him when he walks in.

“Butcher!”

Annie is with him, perched on Hughie’s desk, eyeing Butcher like she’s looking for signs of abuse. Butcher almost wants to tell her that she doesn’t need to worry, he’d put John on his knees with only a few sharp words, but he hates to admit he used alpha command, especially to an alpha as calm and protective as Annie.

“Mornin’ all,” Butcher makes a detour to the fancy coffee machine Frenchie installed before taking a seat at the desk opposite Hughie’s.

“Take it you saw the news yesterday?” Annie asks, voice casually light.

“Oh, I saw it alright. John did too. ‘Bout destroyed our fancy new apartment over it.”

“You didn’t warn him about it?”

“Didn’t think Vought faking his death would be a catalyst for fuckin’ World War Three.”

“Jesus, Butcher,” Annie shakes her head.

“He’s calmed down a little bit,” Butcher tells her. “Made me watch all the coverage, makin’ catty comments the whole time about everything they said. Was actually kind of hilarious if I’m bein’ honest.”

Hughie smiles at him softly, and Butcher knows his tone is a little too fond when talking about the formerly caped cunt so he turns back to Annie.

“Speakin’ ah which, what’s the general atmosphere back over at Vought?”

Annie may have cut ties with them officially, but she still has a lot of contacts inside and has been their main liaison for information from the source.

“Most of them believe the news. It’s only the higher ups that really know he’s still alive. Mallory was able to negotiate their compliance by agreeing not to bring them up on charges for the human experimentation that created him. It helps that Edgar is back in charge, he seems happy to wash his hands of Homelander completely.”

“So him being dead on record, what’s that mean moving forward?”

Annie shrugs. “It’s not like there’s a precedent for this. The CIA created new paperwork for him, fake birth records, a social security number, a new name.”

“What’s the name they went with?” Hughie asks.

“Johnathan Butcher,” Annie says, and Butcher looks at her in shock. “What? You may not be married, but you are bonded, and he needed a last name.”

Butcher shakes it off, not ready to think about that too closely.

“So his medical records, they’re all gone?”

“Heavily redacted.”

“And if, say, he needed to see a doctor now, for whatever reason, I could just take him anywhere?”

Annie squints suspiciously. “He’d need one that’s familiar with supes, which runs the risk of him being recognized. Why? Is he hurt?”

Butcher shrugs. “Not hurt…”

Hughie gasps. “Oh my God, you knocked him up!”

“Not so fuckin’ loud, son,” Butcher says, turning to make sure the others are too far away to be listening in. Frenchie and Kimiko are on the other side of the office, speaking to each other in rapid fire sign language. MM is only a short distance away, but he’s fully engrossed in whatever is on his computer. “Not in a rush to be chewed out by the boys over this.”

“God, you didn’t waste any time, did you?” Annie says.

“Well I was half feral when his heat started up, so no, birth control weren’t exactly at the forefront of my mind.”

“I might have some leads on a doctor, I’ll get back to you with the info.”

“Cheers, love,” Butcher raises his coffee cup.

“I think we’re moving on a little too fast from the fact that Butcher is going to have a baby,” Hughie whispers this, still looking a little shell shocked.

Annie smiles. “I think it’s sweet.”

“I think it’s terrifyin’,” Butcher confesses. “I don’t know shit about babies.”

“Nobody knows anything about babies before they have them. You’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah, what’s the over-under on a toddler with laser vision that can fly?”

Annie and Hughie both wince.

“We’ll supe-baby-proof the shit out of your apartment,” Hughie tells him helpfully.

He spends the day going over files on low-profile supes that have broken laws they’ll be able to prosecute on. More than once, he wishes he could ask John to weigh in on them. It’s annoying as all fuck that he’ll spend an entire day gossiping about the assholes while watching the news but won’t even consider giving Butcher any information that’s useful in taking them down.

It's early days yet. Butcher is still hopeful that the longer John spends with him, the more willing he’ll be to turn on his own kind. Butcher is not above playing the we-gotta-get-these-assholes-off-the-streets-to-keep-our-kid-safe card.

His phone chimes eventually with a text message.

Can you stop by the store on the way home? We’re out of milk.

It’s a good enough excuse to pack it in, and Butcher stands up with a grunt. Hughie watches him slip his jacket back on.

“The missus calls,” Butcher tells him.

Hughie grins. “Does he know you call him that?”

Butcher smirks. “You should hear the shit I call him in bed.”

Hughie makes a face. “I’ll pass.”

“Might take a couple days off,” Butcher says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Got a situation needs handlin’.”

MM nods, not bothering to look up, and Kimiko waves happily.

Milk acquired, along with a bar of the overly sweet chocolate he knows John is obsessed with, Butcher steps into the apartment to find Vought News Now running further coverage of Homelander’s untimely passing.

“You gotta turn this shit off,” Butcher tells him. “It just pisses you off.”

“They’re going on about my childhood,” John’s voice is bitter. “Like any of it is even fractionally factual.”

The kitchen is spotless when he puts the milk away, which means John spent the entire day here on the couch, morbidly obsessing over his faked death.

“I spoke to Annie, she said she can find a discreet doctor that works with supes.”

“You told Starlight?”

“And Hughie. You’re already eight weeks along, we need to get you checked out.”

“Why would she want to help me?”

Butcher sighs. “Cause Annie January is a fuckin’ saint. Took me a long time to realize it, but she’s what all supes should be strivin’ to be. We couldn’t ‘ave pulled off half this shit without her.”

“Was it her idea to kill me off?”

Frustration builds in Butcher and he stomps over to the couch, grabbing John around the shoulders to face him.

“John,” he says, voice serious. “You are not fuckin’ dead. If lettin’ people think Homelander is gone is the only way to get Vought off your back, you should be thankin’ fuckin’ Christ that’s all it took. What do you think woulda happened if they found out you’re pregnant? You think they woulda just let you go about your life? Admit to the public you’re an omega and let you be a happy, lil’ mum publicly?”

John’s eyes are wide. “They couldn’t stop m–“

“No,” Butcher interrupts. “They could. They would have dragged you back down to those labs, snatched our baby right outta you and done the same thing to it they done to you. You were intellectual property to them. Your baby woulda been a product they’d exploit exactly how they done you. You know I’m right. You are not an idiot John, I fuckin’ know you know I’m right.”

John releases a shaky breath but he nods.

“I know… I could have stopped them though. We could have stopped them.”

“Is that what you want? To spend every second of your pregnancy terrified they’ll take our baby away? Every second of its life fighting to keep it safe? You told me you wanted to be a mum, that you’ve wanted it for years. Do you want it more than you want to be a superhero?”

Butcher hates how long it takes John to reply, like he’s really considering it, might actually choose Homelander over the future they’re building. Over the kid he’s beginning to realize he wants just as much.

Eventually though, John shakes his head.

“No, I don’t. I…like this life. I don’t know why ¬– if it’s because I’m an omega or if it’s just…a relief, to not have so much responsibility. But I want our baby more than anything. I love it already. I can’t explain it, but I do. I love this baby, and I love…you.”

Butcher inhales in surprise. It’s not like he didn’t know, he’s got a direct line to John’s emotions and he’s been able to feel it almost since the beginning. Still, he wasn’t sure John would ever say it out loud.

He wonders constantly how much of what he feels are his own emotions or just the reciprocal feedback from John, but it’s shockingly easy to reply.

“I love you, too.”

John’s eyes brighten with moisture, but Butcher doesn’t think he’s going to actually cry for once so he continues.

“And I love our baby. And I’m gonna do whatever the fuck it takes to keep you both safe, you got me?”

John nods, reaching out to take Butcher’s hand. With the other, Butcher reaches into his pocket and pulls out the chocolate bar. The burst of affection he feels through the bond at the gesture is comforting.

“Now change the fuckin’ channel. If I have to hear another second of Cameron Cole’s sycophantic fawning, I’m gonna barf more than you been lately.”

Grinning, John uses the remote to flip to an old black and white movie channel, opens the chocolate bar and takes a huge bite.

“Thank you,” Butcher sighs, before tossing his boots and coat on the floor and resettling them on the couch, John’s back to his front, Butcher’s hand pressed proprietarily over his stomach.

+

It takes three weeks to get an appointment, and isn’t that strange for John, who is used to people jumping at the chance to see him.

He’s almost in the second trimester at this point and while he doesn’t exactly look pregnant, he feels it. The nausea has finally started to pass, and he’s spending less time laying around in bed, but his tits have started to ache and even just the slightest amount of pressure on his nipples has him squirming unpleasantly.

For the first time maybe ever, he feels a twinge of sympathy for Madeline Stillwell.

He has to give Starlight – Annie, she’s fucking Annie now – credit, this omega center is surprisingly nice. The room he’s in is painted a calming, light blue, and the paper covering on the table he’s sitting on is thick enough that his sweaty palms aren’t ripping through it.

“Will your alpha be joining us?” The obstetrician asks. She’s a supe, John can smell it on her, even under her calming beta scent, but John doesn’t recognize her and has no idea what her power could possibly be.

“He’s in the waiting room,” John says. It had been an argument, but John was adamant. A lifetime of laying on a cold, metal table surrounded by multiple doctors and scientists has put him off the idea of being observed in this state.

“Gotcha,” she says, no hint of judgement in her tone or scent, and John likes her just a little bit more.

She takes his vitals before drawing blood with a needle specifically made to penetrate supe skin. If she even suspects for a moment who he is, she makes no indication of it. After she has everything cleared away, she turns to him.

“So far, everything looks normal for an enhanced pregnancy at this stage. If you’d like, we can do an ultrasound and take a look at what’s going on in there.”

John was hoping for this. Despite his x-ray vision, he can’t see through his own compound V enhanced body deeper than muscle level.

“I would like that,” he tells her, trying to mask his excitement. He wonders what William is feeling through the bond.

She instructs him to remove his top and unbutton his jeans, laying him back against the semi-reclined table before squirting cold gel across his stomach. A screen next to the bed lights up with white static.

“We use a specific medical imaging machine strong enough to see through enhanced patients, it’s perfectly safe though so don’t worry about that.”

John nods, never taking his eyes off the screen. She moves the wand over his stomach and he can see dark flashes, little blobs in the middle of the static he doesn’t quite understand.

“Oh well, this is exciting,” she says, sitting forward to flick on the volume. The room fills with what sounds like waves crashing on a beach. “Can you hear that?”

John listens intently, but he doesn’t know enough about what he’s hearing to decipher it. It almost sounds like…

“Two heart beats,” she says with a smile.

In his chest, John’s own heartbeat picks up wildly.

“Uhm, I think maybe you should grab William¬–“

But he doesn’t even need to ask because the door to the examination room is swinging open, William standing in the doorway with panic in his eyes.

“What? What’s going on? I can feel you freakin’ out.”

John can do nothing but stare at him before turning back to the screen. The doctor moves the wand again and knowing what he knows now, he can see it, two separate little circles of darkness with smaller circles inside.

“What the fuck am I lookin’ at?”

The doctor smiles and points to the screen. “Baby A is right here, and in the other sac is baby B.”

“B? Like…a second one?”

“Mhmm,” she nods. “If you’d like I can see if I can move them around enough to see their gender. That’ll give us a better idea of if they’re identical or fraternal.”

William is stock-still, eyes still fixed on the screen, so John answers for them.

“Yes, please.”

She presses down again with the wand and uses her other hand to roll gently across his stomach. On the screen, the babies seem to float this way and that.

“Alright, yes. It might not be obvious if you don’t know what you’re looking for, but it looks like we have one of each. A boy and a girl.”

One of each. Two babies.

John feels like he hit the lottery.

The joy he feels must be spreading through the bond because William snaps out of his trance, moving closer to the bed to take John’s hand.

“You don’t do anythin’ by halves, do ya?” He says, still watching the screen with a sort of reverence John finds charming.

“Don’t act like I did this all by myself,” John huffs, but he squeezes William’s hand.

The doctor wipes the gel off his stomach and prints out a long ribbon of images.

“Congratulations, you two.”

“Yeah, uh…” William’s shock may still be lingering a bit.

“Thank you,” John answers for them both with a smile. He listens intently as she explains the next steps, the appointments he’ll need to set, the changes to his diet and lifestyle, thankfully nothing too serious.

Once all of that is settled, he notices William taking a picture of the ultrasound image with his phone. He types away at the screen afterwards.

“Did you send that to someone?”

William shrugs. “Told Hughie and Annie you had an appointment today. Thought they might like to see the results.”

John hums. “You’re really close with them.”

“Don’t go gettin’ all jealous now, Hughie’s like a lil’ brother to me. Annie is just…a friend, I guess.”

John has never actually had any friends. Certainly no one close enough to be considered as a brother. It’s a facet of William’s life he has absolutely no context for.

“You should invite them over.”

William’s head whips up. “To our place?”

“What’s wrong with our place?”

“Nothin’,” he’s quick to assure. “I just thought you were, I dunno, enjoyin’ hiding out there.”

John shrugs. It’s true, he rarely ventures out except to grocery shop or grab coffee at the bodega on the corner, but it’s not like he can keep that up forever. If he’s going to live a normal, non-supe life, he needs to start integrating into society.

They’ll have children soon, and they’ll need outside stimulation. Doctor’s appointments and play dates, school eventually. They’ll have friends – of that, he is adamant – and John can’t make that happen if he hides away in their apartment forever.

“I want to be a part of your life. Those people are…important to you. So I want to know them.”

“Sometimes you say shit and I feel like I’m in an alternate dimension.”

John glares, even though he knows exactly what William means.

“Hey, I’m trying,” he tells him and doesn’t shove William away when he wraps a large hand around his head and pulls him in to press a loud kiss against his mating scar.

“I know, I know. And I love you for it, God fuckin’ help me.”
His tone is belied by his scent ¬– pure, pleased alpha, so John doesn’t push it.

+

Later that night, John dreams of Ryan.

They’re in the tower, he thinks, the night that everything changed. The night that John made his most irrevocable mistake, but Soldier Boy isn’t there, or any of the others he’d had to fight off, not even William.

It’s just him and Ryan, who’s staring up at him, incensed.

“You killed me.”

John drops to his knees, his costume stiff at the joints, American flag cape fluttering around his body.

“No, no, I didn’t mean–“

“I’m dead and it’s your fault.” Ryan’s eyes are glowing with the red sight and it brings tears to John’s eyes.

“Ryan, I’m sorry, I–“

“You’re going to kill these ones too,” Ryan spits and John rocks back in shock. “You were a terrible father and now you’re going to be a terrible mother.”

John is shaking, and he reaches out to grab Ryan, but the boy simply disappears, leaving John’s outstretched hands grasping at nothing.

“He’s right, ya know,” another voice says, and John looks up in dread to find William looking down at him, eyes filled with a hatred he hasn’t seen turned on him in months. “Now you got two more babes to line the streets with blood.”

His eyes are glowing gold and John feels frozen in place.

“It’ll be different this time,” John starts and William laughs, a cruel, ugly sound.

“Ain’t shit different, you’re still the same pathetic, spineless cunt you always been.”

John is openly weeping now, his hands twisting up in his cape, rending the fabric.

“Look at you,” William is walking closer, he seems to be getting bigger and bigger while John feels smaller and smaller. “You actually think I could I love you.”

“No, I–“ John turns and sees Ryan again, his face twisted up sadistically. “Ryan, please, I never meant to hurt you. I love you.”

“You don’t know the fuckin’ meanin’ of the word,” William spits, and the golden glow of his eyes narrows to bright hot points of light, pointed directly at his stomach.

John wakes with a gasp.

His hands fly up but they’re caught in a gentle grasp, William already leaning over him, pushing him back down against the bed.

“Jesus, hey, relax,” William’s voice is rough with sleep, and the sound of it recalls the dream back vividly.

“I didn’t mean to,” John chokes out, clutching desperately at William’s hands. His eyes are blurred with tears and his breath hitches. “I didn’t mean to, please, you have to know that.”

“Didn’t mean to what?”

“Kill Ryan,” he sobs. “I never meant to hurt him. I loved him.”

“I know, shh,” William lays down against him, wipes away the moisture on his face. “I know you didn’t mean to.”

“What if I do it again? What if I hurt our babies, get them killed just like Ryan?”

William inhales sharply, but he doesn’t stop petting John’s face and throat.

“It weren’t only your fault, what happened to Ryan.”

John turns to face him, needing to see William’s eyes for this.

“We both made mistakes. But we both learned from ‘em. And the fact that we ain’t tryna kill each no more should go a long way towards keepin’ the twins safe.”

The twins. Hearing William say it like that brings a twinge of comfort.

“You tried to kill me,” John says quietly. “In my dream. Said I was going to get the twins killed.”

“Jesus, John, don’t put fuckin’ stock in dreams. We got too much bloody history to wipe out overnight. Last week I dreamt you took over the White House and we beat each other to death on the lawn.”

“Seriously? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Cause it was a stupid fuckin’ dream that don’t mean shit!”

John squints disbelievingly and William rolls his eyes.

“So you’re not worried I’m going to be a terrible mother?”

“Of course I’m worried about that! I’m worried I’m gonna to be a terrible father! But you know one thing actual, real terrible parents don’t do? Worry about being terrible. They do not give a single fuck about trying to be good at it, I can tell you from experience. So stress all you want about it, but the way I figure it, we can’t possibly do any worse than was done to us.”

Immediately, John is curious about William’s upbringing, something he knows very little about, and it must bleed over because William stops him before he can even start.

“John, I’m not tryna downplay your grief, but if you don’t go the fuck back to sleep.”

John pouts for minute before relaxing back against the bed. It’s amazing he’s even considering sleeping again, normally after a dream like that he’d be up for days, but William is becoming a pro at calming him down.

He closes his eyes and breaths deep, enjoys the way William’s arms tighten around him protectively.

“For what it’s worth, attacking the White House is a little too nineties-disaster-movie, even for me.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

John smiles into the darkness.

+

John is looking at himself critically in the full-length mirror.

“I’m getting fat.”

Butcher, who is currently reading files he’s not supposed to take home but did anyway, rolls his eyes.

“You’re five months pregnant. With twins.”

John huffs, pulls at the hem of the navy knit sweater he’s wearing.

“I mean my face, my ass. My stomach is whatever, I knew that was a loss, but everything else?”

Butcher sets down his file, sensing this is about to become a thing.

“Your ass looks good to me,” he says, standing up to join John in the mirror. Bright blue eyes stare back at him in the reflection as he cups his hands around two, admittedly heavier ass cheeks.

John smirks, tipping his head back to show off the scar in the mirror. He’s caught on quickly to what it does to Butcher, who can’t help scraping his teeth against it.

“Aren’t your friends coming over?” John asks, as Butcher’s hands run up his hips, squeezing tight before pushing him forward, John’s hands coming up to smack against the mirror.

“Fuck my friends,” Butcher growls, grinding his growing erection against the plush heat of John’s ass, barely covered in stretchy yoga pants. It’s wild how quickly he can get hard for this man, especially seeing him like this, rounded out with Butcher’s children.

“I’d rather you didn’t,” John’s voice is breathy, he’s using the mirror to push his ass back into Butcher’s cock, and Butcher can already smell his slick.

The doorbell rings.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Butcher grits out, exhaling heavily. He can’t help one more hard press before he lets John go, stepping away to readjust himself, as if it won’t be completely obvious the state they’re in just from the scent alone.

The little shit is grinning at him in the mirror.

“Don’t you have a dinner in the oven to deal with?”

John runs off to the kitchen as Butcher heads for the door.

This night has the potential to be an incredible disaster.

He made the executive decision to only invite Hughie and Annie. He thinks Frenchie and Kimiko would be a safe bet, but he doesn’t see MM handling this whole situation calmly anytime soon, and it felt wrong to invite the entire pack except him.

Hughie and Annie have actually expressed an interest in getting to know John, which is bizarre as hell considering Annie’s past relationship with him, but he’s not going to look a gift-horse in the mouth. He knows John is going a little stir-crazy with only him for company. Butcher would be losing his marbles if he didn’t have a job to keep him occupied.

Annie takes in the state of him and immediately smirks, Hughie’s giant blue eyes looking anywhere but at Butcher.

“Are we interrupting?”

Butcher rolls his eyes. “No, get the fuck in here.”

John is nervous, he can feel it through the bond like electricity. The table is set like a fucking Norman Rockwell painting, and Hughie is clearly taken aback by the display. It’s not surprising, Hughie’s seen the way he used to live.

“Wow, this is really nice.”

In the kitchen, Jon preens.

“Thank you, Hughie.”

Hughie startles at the sound of John’s voice and Butcher grits his teeth, praying they can make it through this fucking dinner.

Thankfully, Annie was rarely intimidated by Homelander and she’s certainly not daunted by the mostly docile, massively pregnant omega in the kitchen.

“How are you doing, John?” She asks, and she actually sounds genuine.

John seems surprised by the tone, but he tries not to show it. “I’m well.”

“How’s the pregnancy? Congratulations, by the way.”

Talking about the pregnancy seems like the key to diffusing the tension, and John immediately perks up, telling Annie about his appointments, the stuff he’s ordered, whipping out the latest ultra-sound photos.

Annie takes it all in stride, like she and John have never even thought about killing each other, let alone tried it.

Hughie watches in amazement, taking a seat next to Butcher at the table.

“So this is a thing,” he says, taking a sip of the beer Butcher hands him.

“Mate, I am at the point where I have stopped questionin’ anythin’.”

“How are you doing?” Hughie asks, his scent soft and curious.

Butcher shrugs. “It’s a little bit insane, but for the first time in a long fuckin’ time, I think I’m doin’ good.”

Hughie smiles.

“Good. Certainly, you know, not what I pictured for your future,“ Butcher barks a laugh. “But it seems like you’re where you’re meant to be.”

John serves dinner, and it’s still impressive how good he got at cooking so quickly, and they all sit around the table, eating and joking like a fucking sitcom family. It’s bizarre, it’s inexplicable, but it’s legitimately making Butcher happier than he’s been in years, seeing these people get along.

“So have you given any thought to names?” Hughie asks, looking first to Butcher and then John, who shakes his head.

“Not really.”

“Well since you’ve got one of each, I think Hughie and Annie are great options.”

John freezes and Hughie grins.

“Oh, you’re joking! Oh, thank God.”

Butcher cheeks hurt and it takes him a minute to realize it’s from smiling so much.

+

“Harder,” John pants, pushing back on his hands and knees.

William hesitates, actually slows his thrusting a little bit, and John whines.

“I–Is it, safe? I feel like I’m hurting you.”

John rolls his eyes. “Since when have you ever cared about that?”

“You’re really fuckin’ pregnant!”

“You think I don’t know that?” John shoves back, sits up on his heels so that William’s cock sinks into him all the way to the hilt.

“Fuck,” William hisses, grabbing his stomach supportively. “Oh fuck, I can feel them movin’ around in there.”

“It’s fine, they’re fine,” he reaches back, grips William’s hair tightly. “If you don’t fuck me, I will scream until the neighbors call the cops.”

“Jesus, don’t throw a hissy,” he says, but he complies, shifting his hips enough to slam back inside. “That what you want, you little slut?”

John moans, nods his head.

William digs his teeth into the bond bite and John shudders. He doesn’t let go, sucking and biting as he pistons his hips like a machine. With one arm still wrapped around John’s stomach, his other hand reaches lower, pets at his cock, only enough to tease.

“I should leave you like this, pump you full and leave you drippin’, wishin’ for release.”

John gushes even more slick at the words, until the squelching noises of William’s cock relentlessly fucking into him almost drowns out the sound of his unceasing moans.

“You’re just so fuckin’ easy,” William tells him, abandoning his cock to slide two fingers into his mouth. “Can’t believe no one knew what a needy little cock slut you are, you were fuckin’ born for this.”

John sucks hard, scrapes his teeth over callused fingertips. He’s close, he’s so close.

“You gonna come just from this? Just from my cock in your greedy hole, my fingers in your droolin’ mouth?”

He wails, nods desperately.

“Course you are, you fuckin’ love this,” William growls, pushes him onto his hands and knees and fucks him ruthlessly.

John comes immediately, spilling all over his stomach and the sheets below them. William fucks him through it, until he slams inside, holding himself still as he unloads burst after burst of hot cum.

He pulls out and John collapses, rolling back until he’s no longer crushing his stomach. It takes him a minute to realize he’s purring.

William is on his back, arm tossed over his eyes, chest heaving from exertion.

“Hard enough for ya?”

John laughs, pulls William in for a kiss.

+

Sometimes when John goes to the doctors by himself, he likes to walk instead of take a cab.

Really, he’d like to fly, but even if he wasn’t still on strict orders not to do so, he’s not sure how well he’d fare with his stomach throwing off his center of gravity so much.

He likes the walk because it gives him the opportunity to people watch, something he’s always enjoyed, ever since they let him out of the labs at eighteen. He finds people fascinating, awed and disgusted by them in turn.

He’s still stared at occasionally, but instead of it being because he’s a superhero, now it’s because he’s an obviously mated, pregnant omega. The looks he gets are almost always positive, older omegas smiling happily at him, younger ones looking enviously – and he likes those most of all. Sometimes he catches an alpha watching him with appreciation, running their eyes up his body, stopping at his swollen tits and rounded ass.

Never does he see anyone look at him with recognition, until now.

He’d stopped in a coffee shop, lured in by the aroma of milky, hot chocolate. He’d smiled at the barista, even stuck an extra two dollars in the tip jar, before turning around and coming face to face with someone he never thought he’d see again.

“Homelander!” Idiot Ashley yelps.

John has a hand over her mouth, crowding up against her in a flash.

“Shut your stupid, fucking mouth.”

Ashley freezes, her eyes wide, and John looks up enough to see the eyes of everyone in the coffee shop on them. He doesn’t think anyone heard her, but it obviously looks suspicious.

John pulls her into a hug, arms tightening painfully around her shoulder.

“Oh my God, Ashley, it’s been too long!” He cries, pulling back to smile at her.

Thankfully they’re surrounded by New Yorkers, so with the threat of violence already dissipated, everyone loses interest quickly. He slides his grip on Ashley’s shoulders down to her arm, fingers digging into her flesh painfully. She stumbles as he drags her to a table in the corner, sitting her down roughly before he takes the second seat.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

She’s shaking when she replies, “G-getting a coffee.”

“In Brooklyn?”

“I-I live here now. After I lost my job…”

“You don’t work for Vought anymore?”

Ashley shakes her head frantically. “No, they fired me, after…I thought you were dead?”

“Obviously not,” John rolls his eyes. Ashley looks down at him, at his hugely pregnant stomach. She looks back up in shock.

“You’re…”

“You do so love stating the obvious, don’t you Ashley?”

“I just–I didn’t know you were–“

“Stop, it’s painful watching you stutter though a sentence.”

Her mouth snaps shut.

“Let me tell you how this is gonna go. You are going to leave. You’re not going to repeat this encounter to anyone. If I find out that you have, I will hunt down every single person you feel even the slightest amount of warmth towards and murder them, then I will murder you, slowly and painfully.”

Ashley nods slowly, big eyes wide in fear.

“Order for John!” He turns his head towards the counter at his name.

“That’s me,” he says with a smile, standing. It’s awkward, as pregnant as he is, and Ashley can’t seem to tear her eyes away from his stomach. He raises his brows expectantly.

“Oh!” She stands up quickly, scraping back her chair loud enough to attract more attention.

John rolls his eyes. “Give me a hug, so that nobody in this room realizes how rightfully terrified you are right now.

She nods again, leaning in to gently wrap her arms around him. He plays his part, squeezing her back, a little harder than is necessary. When she pulls away, he expects her to turn tail immediately, but she hesitates.

“I’m, uhm–I’mgladyou’renotdead.”

John snorts in disbelief.

“You hate me Ashley, let’s not bore ourselves by pretending otherwise.”

She inhales quickly and John hears her pulse skyrocket. He grins at the sound. It’s been a while since he’s invoked terror in anyone. It’s fun.

He turns to grab his hot chocolate, tossing over his shoulder.

“Have a nice life, Idiot Ashley!”

Once he’s outside of the coffee shop, his phone rings. There’s no name on the contact, just an assortment of heart emojis.

“You run off on me?”

“Decided to walk back,” John says, taking a sip of his drink. Inside of him, the babies roll, pushing against each other for space. John rubs his hand over his stomach.

“Well, it’s gettin’ late, so I’m just gonna order dinner. I rented that shitty rom-com you been wantin’ to watch but if you’re takin’ all night, I’m puttin’ somethin’ better on.”

“No, I’m almost home! Don’t change it, I’ve been waiting all month for it to release!”

“Hurry it up then, Johnny boy, we ain’t got all night.”

That’s not true, of course. They have all night. They have forever.

+

John’s read about nesting. Understands it’s what drives him to decorate his home to such an exacting degree. Why he stacks his bed with feather duvets and covers his walls with anything that brings him joy.

Nesting while pregnant is another thing entirely.

He fills the previously unused second bedroom with cribs, changing tables, the fanciest, most comfortable rocking chair he can find. Paints the walls ¬– or rather, stands around while William paints the walls ¬– a soft pastel green. Buys blankets and diapers, burping cloths, enough tiny outfits to clothe fifteen babies. And that’s just the nursery.

Their bedroom has two basinets, because he wants the babies as close as possible, probably won’t be able to relax unless they’re in constant eyeline, but he’s read that letting them sleep in the bed with them is dangerous.

William is at work, John sitting on their bed, unfolding and refolding swaddling blankets until they’re stacked to his exacting standards.

Inside of him, something shifts, and he reaches down to hold his stomach.

“What’s going on in there?” He asks.

As if in reply, he feels a hard movement against his palm, an elbow or a knee, before a sharp pain shoots up his spine.

John has a complicated relationship with pain, able to ignore almost all of it after being subjected to years of torture, but he barely suppresses a wince at this.

It comes again, quickly, before it feels like something pops between his legs. John stares in amazement at the gush of fluid that seeps across his sweatpants and the duvet. He almost doesn’t feel it, just the coolness of the air on his wet clothes.

“Oh.”

He reaches down into his sweatpants, sliding his fingers through the mess until he can feel his hole, which is swollen and gaping.

A cramp sweeps over him and John can feel the answering throb against his fingers, actually feels one of the babies shift lower inside of him.

Shit. This seems fast. The doctor told him it usually takes hours to get to this point. How long has he been having contractions he just hasn’t noticed?

John breathes out slowly, starts to stand up when he’s hit by another contraction, knees going weak.

Thinking fast, he grabs the pile of blankets, sweeping his phone up off the nightstand before shuffling awkwardly into the bathroom.

He throws the blankets across the tiled floor of the shower and barely has time to strip his pants off before there’s another contraction. This one is almost debilitating and John drops painfully to his knees, hands slapping against the shower walls for support. He reaches down again to feel with his fingers and gags when he feels the crown of the baby’s head.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” John reaches for the phone with bloody, trembling fingers, hits the speakerphone button and drops it to the floor.

+

“Butcher, your phone is ringing.”

“Cheers, mate,” Butcher tells Hughie, picking up the call. “Yes, love?”

He rolls his eyes at Hughie’s cheesy grin, but at the sound of panting on the other end, he tenses.

“John?”

“I’m having…the fucking babies.” His voice is echoing from wherever he is, Butcher almost can’t understand him.

“Wait, what? Now?”

“Yes, now!” John growls, before his voice breaks on a pained moan. “Fuck, Billy!“

“Where are you?”

“In the shower.”

“What the fuck are you doin’ in the shower, go to the hospital!”

Every head in the room whips up.

“Don’t you think I’d be there if I could? I–fuuuck, oh fuck, it’s happening, Billy, it’s fucking happening, I can’t keep them in!”

“Okay, okay, don’t panic,” William tells John, before looking around the room. “Frenchie, get a kit,” Frenchie nods dutifully, and Kimiko hops up to help gather things. “Stay on the phone, love, don’t hang up.”

“You think I have the hands free to hang up! I’m fucking–jesus, fuck! Oh, oh, oh shiiiit.”

Butcher listens in horror until he hears something else, something sort of amazing.

A baby is crying.

“Oh, oh my God,” John is panting. “Oh my God, it’s a fucking baby.”

Butcher laughs and it’s wet. “Yeah, what the fuck did you think it was gonna be? A kitten? Which one is it?”

“The boy, oh, he’s so small,” John’s voice is trembling. “Billy, I need you here.”

“On my way, love, hold tight.” He drops the phone only long enough to look around the room. The boys are watching him in awe, but he doesn’t have time to try to explain anything they couldn’t figure out through context. Frenchie is holding the medical kit with a look of determination.

“Sorry ‘bout this Frenchie,” is all the warning he gives him, before he’s shoving him out the window, wrapping his arm tight around his waist, and flying them to Brooklyn.

+

John is sitting in a puddle of his own filth, blood and amniotic fluid. He thinks he remembers the doctor telling him something about needing to pass the placenta before the second one will come, but he’s dizzy from the adrenaline and whatever hormone cocktail his body is producing.

His son is crying, high pitched wails that make his chest ache, his nipples twinge. He’s sticky with a white, creamy fluid, and John tries to wipe it off without getting twisted up in the umbilical cord.

“Shh, hey,” John coos, pressing the baby against his chest. “It’s okay, mama’s here.”

He giggles at that. Mama. He’s a mama. He laughs harder when he realizes his delirious giggling seems to be calming the baby down.

“Yeah? You like that?”

His son blinks, eyes the oceanic blue of all babies, hair a dark little tuft on his head.

“Probably shoulda came up with a name for you, huh?”

John feels another pulse up his spine and hisses. Fuck, where is William? What could be taking so–

Feet land on the roof, and John looks up. Fucking finally.

William bursts through the doors, and inexplicably is followed by the little French beta.

John doesn’t even have time to ask what the fuck is happening before another contraction is tearing through him.

“Did you pass the afterbirth?” The Frenchman asks, shoving open the shower door and dropping to his knees between John’s legs like he belongs there.

“What?” John cradles the baby to his chest, looks to William in alarm.

“The placenta, did you,” he looks down between John’s legs just as another contraction expels a mess of fluid. “Oh, pas grave.”

William is hovering outside of the shower and John reaches up to grab his hand, pulling him in. It’s a tight fit, but he’s able to squeeze behind John, knees on either side of his body.

“John, this is Frenchie. Frenchie, John.”

“Bonjour, petit Jean,” Frenchie says, before gripping John’s calves and forcing his legs up and apart.

“Are you a medical professional?” John asks with dread.

“Close enough, non?” He says with a smile, reaching down to shove his fingers in John’s birthing canal.

“Ow, fuck!”

“Gentle, Frenchie!”

“Oui, oui, I am trying, these are not exactly the ideal circumstances¬–“

“I just delivered my own baby in a fucking shower, I had to pull him out of me, don’t talk to me about ideal circumstances!”

Frenchie looks contrite, but his fingers still press painfully deeper.

“The bright side is baby two is in the right position, and you’ve already done it once, so this one should be easier.”

As one, they all look to the first baby, who, after his initial crying, has been calm and relaxed against John’s chest.

“He supposed to be this small?” William asks, reaching out to run his fingers down the babies back.

“Twins are smaller than single babies,” John tells him tiredly, leaning his head back to rest on William’s chest. His eyes just start to drift closed when another contraction rolls through him.

John gasps, his grip tightening reflexively. The baby squirms and William reaches over him.

“I’ll just take this,” he says, lifting the baby off his chest. John cries out, reaching out to stop him, he doesn’t want to let the baby go, he didn’t mean to squeeze him–

“It’s okay, I’ve got him,” William tells him and then John is crying out again, louder this time as a stronger contraction hits.

“Hello?” A voice calls from their living room, and John turns to look up at William in shock.

“Who the fuck–“

“In ‘ere,” Frenchie calls out. “Les toilettes!”

“You didn’t lock the door?” John asks, hysterical.

“Hughie has a key, they probably came in the van¬–“

“Why the fuck does Hughie have–oh! Fuck! Fuckfuckfuck.

“Yes, petit Jean, keep cursing. You are doing so well!”

The bathroom door swings open and John doesn’t even have it in him to care, his body his squeezing and pushing against his will. William passes their son to someone else and his arms wrap immediately around John, grabbing his hands.

“Christ,” William hisses, but he doesn’t pull his hands out of John’s, just lets himself be squeezed almost to breaking.

“Once more, I can see her ‘ead now,” Frenchie’s hands are poised to slide her out of his body and John throws his head back, screams loud enough to rattle the glass shower and pushes.

She slides free much easier than the first, and Frenchie catches her competently. A cry rends the air and a cheer goes up in the room.

John blinks in shock, finally taking in the gathered crowd. His son is being gently cradled by the big alpha MM, and the beta woman is looking at Frenchie, still holding John’s daughter, with tears in her eyes. Annie and Hughie round out the group, both smiling widely.

Huffing, John drops his head back against William’s chest, speaks to the room at large.

“Please get the fuck out.”

The next few hours are a blur. The bathroom is cleaned up, John showered off, the babies wiped down and wrapped in tiny receiving blankets. Paramedics – real ones – are called to check the twins, ensure they’re okay. One of them shows John how to nurse and after they’re gone, he watches in amazement as his daughter latches immediately. William sits beside him on the bed, holding their son.

“We really gotta come up with some names,” William says, running his fingers through fuzzy dark hair.

“Did you have anything in mind?”

William shrugs. “The only thing I really care about is…I don’t wanna name ‘em after anyone. I want them to be their own people, not weighed down by anyone else’s bullshit.”

John nods, understanding. There isn’t really anyone in his life he wants to remember that way, anyway.

“James,” John suggests, “and Amelia.”

“James and Amelia…I like that.”

“What do you think,” John says to his daughter, voice soft. She’s stopped nursing and is looking up at him, eyes open and trusting. John runs his fingers through her dark hair. “You feel like an Amelia?”

She blinks slowly, and John melts.

“Here, switch out,” William tells him, and they pass the babies between their hands, cooing at the distressed noises they make.

John gets James latched as easily as his sister.

“You’re a fuckin’ natural,” William comments, and John jabs him in the ribs.

“Watch the language.”

William snorts. “Sorry love, but if you didn’t want your baby’s first words to be cunt, you shouldn’t’ve had ‘em with me.”

+

The apartment is chaos.

Annie and Kimiko spent the morning decorating, hanging streamers and a giant banner that proclaims the twins first birthday in glitter.

John is regretting inviting the people from his Mommy and Me class. He likes them, mostly, but he wasn’t really thinking about the boys – who are incapable of looking like anything but a motley group of criminals.

Not to mention half of them have multiple children, and now his apartment is over run with screaming toddlers hopped up on sugar.

He probably shouldn’t have made so many cupcakes.

“Take a breath,” William tells him, sliding a hand around his waist. “Everyone’s having a good time.”

“Do you think I should change the music? I tried to make a playlist that was appropriate for all the kids but wouldn’t make the adults go crazy, and I’m not sure–“

“Relax,” William growls a little, runs his nose over John’s neck.

Across the room, Sarah, easily his favorite of the moms, throws John a wink. He rolls his eyes, and looks at MM, who is clearly flirting with her like his life depends on it. She smiles back, before engaging in some flirting of her own.

“Tell me, William, if I’m here, and you’re here, who has the twins?”

William laughs. “Somebody’s got ‘em. They’re being passed around like party favors. Might even sleep through the night.”

“Oh? Did you have some reason for wanting them to sleep through the night?” He rolls his hips back suggestively and William growls.

“Don’t start somethin’ you can’t finish. I’ll kick all these fuckin’ people out.”

John grins before a familiar cry rends the air and he’s gently pushing William back, striding over to take his son out of Hughie’s arms.

“I swear I didn’t do anything.”

“I know,” John says, cuddling his baby. “Jamie’s just tired.”

Amelia starts squirming in Annie’s arms, reaching out for her brother, and John takes her as well.

John stands in a room, surrounded by people he loves, people who love him back. This was unfathomable two years ago.

With just one bite, William altered the trajectory of his life forever. Ripped him from away everything he’d ever known, tore him from the path he’d never thought to question. Gave him a new reason to live, one filled with happiness instead of sorrow.

It’s hard to believe, but here he is.

“Are we blowin’ out some fuckin’ candles, or what?”

John grins. “Coming.”

+