Homelander sat up straight in bed, panting. The crimson hues of the pre-dawn sky streaked into his room as he wiped the sweat off his forehead. For the third night in a row, he had a nightmare about Stormfront. He kept replaying the scene of Ryan lasering her, even though he did not witness it himself. Somehow, that made it worse, because every night he had slightly different versions of the incident, each one more gruesome than its predecessor. Sometimes he was standing over her body, lasering her over and over until her skin broke under the power of the laser. At other times, he would be attacking her out of a sheer need to try out his powers. Homelander knew that some of these made no sense, but that did not stop them from corrupting his previously peaceful nights of sleep.

Homelander got out of bed and went to the balcony. He flew up into the crimson sky, tasting the fresh air as it blew around him. This sensation made him feel a lot calmer, and he was able to get firmer control over his mind.

Grace Mallory got out of her black SUV and breathed in deeply. As a former deputy director of the CIA, she had made and done a lot of difficult things in her life. But perhaps, what she was about to do just now was going to be the hardest of them all.

She adjusted her black coat and stepped onto the gravel covered path. Her bodyguards behind her took a step to follow, but Mallory raised her hand and instructed them to stay with the car. Her destination was within feet of her, a park bench where a familiar figure sat with his back to her. She walked up to him.

"Y'know, I heard you coming a mile and a half out," said William Butcher, without turning around to face her.

"How are you, Billy?" Mallory asked. There was a softness in her voice that Butcher had not yet gotten familiar with. He'd only heard it once when she took Ryan away with her, and it was going to take some getting used to.

"Oh y'know, just pissing m' days away here. Done fuck-all apart from feeding a few swans on this lake. I'm getting old in this retirement," Butcher's thick drawl made Mallory smile, despite herself.

"Well you know there's always room for you back in the game, don't you?" Mallory said.

"No thank you, I'm done with that. I'm quite done with all that Supe business," Butcher replied, as he stood up. There was a finality in his last words, indicative of his true desire to stay as far away from Mallory's work as possible.

"But they are not done with you, I'm afraid," Mallory said, her eyes towards the ground.

Butcher turned around slowly to face her. She looked up at him for a moment, and then averted his gaze. She could not bear to look at him.

"Ryan—" Butcher started, with a slight tremble in his voice.

"Ryan's fine. But—"

"But, what? Go on then, spit it out," Butcher interrupted Mallory, raising his voice.

Mallory looked back at her car and beckoned at her guards. One of them opened the back seat of the SUV, and out burst Terror. The bulldog galloped towards Butcher, as he bent down to rub the backs of her ears. No more words were needed, on either side. Mallory knew that Butcher had a full understanding of Judy's death, and needed no explanation.

"That motherfucker," was all he said.

Marvin struggled to fish out the keys to his front door from his jeans pocket without dropping the paper bag of groceries on his other arm. Frustrated after a few moments, he gave up and set the groceries down by the door. He found the keys with a lot more ease and unlocked the door, picking the bag up as he did so.

"Daddy's home! Yay, daddy's home!" a voice screamed inside. Marvin's mouth widened into a large smile as the bounding sound of a baby girl's footsteps on the wooden floor came closer and closer to him.

"Daddy daddy, look who's here!" said his daughter Janine, with a smile revealing her fallen front tooth, and a swell of excitement.

"Who is it, baby girl?" Marvin said, as he walked in past the doorway.

"Hi," a man's voice greeted him inside his living room. The smile on Marvin's face vanished as he saw the face of the man in his living room.

"Janine, can you take these inside and then go up to your room please," Marvin said, without taking his eyes off the visitor's face. "Daddy has some grown-up things to talk about here."

"But Daddy, I—"

"Janine," Marvin sternly interrupted his daughter's protests. Janine did not say anything more, as she picked up the bag of groceries and left the room.

"Why are you here?" said Marvin, addressing his visitor.

The corners of Homelander's mouth slowly twitched and then arched up into a smile. He held Marvin's gaze for a few seconds and then turned around to face the coffee table in front of the sofa, as he picked up a small sheet of paper from there.

"Your daughter draws very well," Homelander said, pointing to the sheet of Janine's childish artwork. It was a simple drawing, depicting herself with her mother and father. "You must love her so much," he continued.

"You stay the hell away from my daughter, you hear me? If you do anything, and I mean anything to hurt her, I promise you that I will break you in half throw you off the top of Vought tower. I don't care how one breakable you are, you do not touch my family." There was a viciousness in Marvin's eyes that was unmistakably born out Austin mixture Aww love for his daughter and of simultaneous fear for her life.

"Ooh, easy there tiger," Homelander said, indicating with both his hands that Marvin calm down. "What makes you think I'm here for her? Am I that obvious?"

"She's just a little girl. She's got nothing to do with any of this business. Your problems are with me and Butcher and the rest of us, so take me. Leave my baby girl out of this," Marvin's viciousness had started to ebb, as a hint of pleading came over him.

"You love her so much, don't you? You understand. To love a woman so much, to love a child so much. You're perhaps the only one who understands exactly how I felt a few weeks ago," Homelander said. Marvin could not tell, but was that pain in Homelander's voice?

"I had everything. I loved a woman and she loved me back. I loved my son, and he was beginning to form a real connection with me." Homelander looked up to the ceiling, as Marvin caught the mighty Superhero blink back a few tears. He understood just how raw the incident of Stormfront's death was for Homelander, and just how much more dangerous that made him.

"But all of that," Homelander continued, bringing his eyes back down to Marvin, "was taken away from me by William Butcher and the rest of you." The tears in his eyes gave way to a steely look of pure rage. "You took everything I loved from me, and now I will take everything you love from you."

Marvin clenched his fist, angry at how helpless he felt in the moment. He knew that nothing he could do would prevent Homelander from doing whatever he so desired, with him and his family.

"Please…," was all that the former Marine could say. "Please don't do anything to my daughter."

"Oh don't worry, I'm not going to do anything now," Homelander made a face as if Marvin had said the most absurd thing in the world. "I know what part of town I'm in, and the people here aren't exactly my biggest fans so I'm pretty sure when they saw me come here, they're expecting trouble. So no, not now."

Homelander took a step forward to Marvin, bringing their faces within centimeters of each other. He looked dead into Marvin's eyes.

"I want you to run, or try to defend your family. I want you to spend the rest of your life knowing that I can come for them any time I want to. I want you to be so occupied in trying to save their lives that you have no time to love them or be loved by them. Then, one day, I will suddenly come and take them from you, just how suddenly my world was broken. And there will be nothing you will be able to do about it, just like I could not do anything when my loved ones were taken from me." Homelander's eyes were red with anger, and Marvin could tell that the heat emanating from them had nothing to do with any laser abilities. These were the eyes of a man hell-bent on avenging his loved ones. It is a look he was very familiar with and had seen both in the mirror and around him several times over the past few years.

Homelander held Marvin's gaze for a few moments, letting his last words linger in the air. There was pure silence in the room, save for the ticking of the second's hand on Marvin's wall clock. After what felt like an eternity, Homelander took a step back and turned around. He picked up Janine's drawing and silently walked out through the front door, shutting it behind his back. A few seconds later, a loud boom indicated to Marvin that the Superhero had left.

Marvin's feet finally crumbled under him as he slouched down on his couch. For the first time in years, a wall of tears burst out of the former Marine's eyes. His loud weeping shattered the silence of the room, as Janine came running out from the next room. She tried hugging her father and asking what happened, but Marvin simply buried his face in his palms and sobbed, like a man whose life had been irreparably shattered in one single moment.