Four years ago, the Bering Sea, a world far away...

"Mayday, mayday, mayday!" The captain shouted into the radio. "This is Captain Davidson on the cargo ship White Portuguese, we are taking on water and sinking fast! Last known coordinates fifty-six degrees north, one-hundred and seventy-nine east! We are carrying hazardous cargo, repeat, hazardous cargo!"

The waves rocked the ship to port and starboard and back. Captain Davidson held onto the helm for dear life as the deck bucked beneath his feet. The emergency lights on the bridge flickered as a bolt of lightning struck the ship. The crack of the bolt striking the ship was deafening even inside the bridge.

"The crew is evacuating, but the ship is going down fast!" Davidson shouted over the creaking of the deck and lashing of the rain against the bridge's windows and walls. "The life-boats are probably going down with us. If anyone's out there..." A pair of thunderclaps sounded out louder than the others as the deck sloped to starboard. The ship was about to capsize. "Save who you can of the crew, and tell Lex Luthor he can kiss my ass!"

Davidson felt two hard thumps on the starboard side of the ship.

"Just great." He muttered. "All we needed was more holes in the hull!"

But, as he finished his complaint, he felt the ship begin to right itself, and rise above the water.

"Captain," the voice of his executive officer said over the radio. "Get out here, you ain't gonna believe me if I try to tell you!"

Davidson zipped his bright yellow ran jacket tight about his body and drew the hood strings taught. He exited the bridge into the lashing rain, and joined the XO, a man named Christianson, by the railing at the starboard edge of the deck.

Down beside the ship, the two of them made out a pair of glowing red capes twisting in the wind. The owner of one of the capes steadied the ship, while the other twisted and bent the gash in the side of the ship until the metal met, then welded it shut with a pair of red lasers emitted from his eyes.

"Holy shit..." Davidson muttered. "You're right, I wouldn't have! Who are they, anyway? Supergirl and some new kid?"

Christianson shook his head. "Can't be, I got a good look when they dove down, they're too small!"

The two finished welding the hull back together, then took off around the ship, scanning for more damage.

"Hot damn, look at 'em go." The captain muttered. "Just as fast as he was."

Like a bolt of lightning, the two of them snapped in front of the captain and XO. Davidson could hardly believe his eyes at the sight of them up close, as the lightning illuminated them in their entirety, if only briefly. They looked like pre-teens, barely even in middle-school, but that aside, they also bore a striking resemblance to who the world once thought was the last son of Krypton.

"Does the ship have engine power?" One of them asked.

"No!" Davidson replied. "We're running on emergency power only."

The one who asked nodded. "We'll chain the life-boats you've launched together and connect them with the ship!" He turned to the other. "When that's done, head to the bow of the ship. You steer, I'll push us to shore!"

Four years later, New York City, on a world far away.

Homelander touched down atop Vought Tower with a spring in his step. The golden early morning light lit up his blonde hair like it was on fire, and he couldn't help but feel giddy. He was about to start raising his son, and with both Stillwell and Superman gone, there was nobody left who could realistically hold him back, who he could think of.

"Oh, what beautiful morning!" Homelander sang with a stupid grin on his face. "Oh what a beautiful day! I've got a beautiful feeling! Everything's going my way!"

"Sorry to interrupt," Stan Edgar interjected. "But you're disturbing an active crime-scene."

Homelander feigned surprise while internally cursing himself for forgetting about Edgar. His contract said he had to work under Vought for a while longer... Which meant Edgar was still top dog. And without Madelyn...

"Crime scene?" John echoed, looking around the roof, where he caught a glimpse of the yellow tape on a pair of collapsible barricades that blocked off the door.

"Tentatively, yes." Edgar said, gesturing for Homelander to follow him into the building. "It seems that Madelyn Stillwell walked herself up here, and took a swan-dive onto the sidewalk."

Homelander shot his eyebrows up as he followed Edgar down the stairs into the building. "Oh God." He said, injecting fake concern into his voice. "Did she leave a note, a message, or something?"

"Not that we've found." Edgar replied as they stepped out of the stairwell, and took the elevator down to his office. "The police are suggesting postpartum depression."

Homelander shook his head. "No, no. She wouldn't have, I'm sure of it." This is fucking great. "She loved Teddy, she'd never leave him on his own."

"Be that as it may, I have some good news for you as well as the bad." Edgar said, opening the door to his office and entered. "After that terrorist attack you and Superman thwarted, Washington insisted on fast-tracking that deal we've been working on. We're set to sign the final contract by the end of the week."

A genuine smile crossed Homelander's face as he followed Edgar into the office. "That's great news!"

"Speaking of big blue," Edgar said as he withdrew his chair from his desk and took a seat. "How did your little operation go?" He made a show of looking at the now-fading bruise on the side of John's face. "Not too poorly, I hope."

Homelander shrugged, and waved off Edgar's concerns with one hand as he swept his cape out of the way to sit with the other. "It went fine. The squid's dead, Superman went back to his universe. He showed me around, we shook hands, and parted friends."

A satisfied smile grew across Edgar's face. "Good! We'll have to schedule a sit-down with Terrio, so you can tell him all about it. I think this little adventure will be perfect for your next solo movie!"

Homelander let out an involuntary groan. "Oh God, don't tell me you're getting Singer to do it again."

Edgar shook his head. "No, he's off making a movie about some band from England. Right now, I'm trying to talk Nolan into it, but he's playing hard to get."

"Can't we just get Bourke to do it again?" Homelander whined. "He was great on the last one!"

Edgar shook his head. "He's making the team-up movie, remember?"

"What about the guy who did those zombie movies and that one about the Spartans a couple years ago?" Homelander asked. "Zack... Something."

"Snyder?" Edgar asked with the raise of an eyebrow.

Homelander snapped his fingers. "That's the guy!"

"If you're sure you want him, I'll see what we can do."

"That's great!" Homelander said, flashing his Cheshire grin as he rose to leave.

"One more thing..." Edgar said. "With two movies on the production schedule, and the military contract, we'll have to adhere to a strict itinerary."

Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Homelander groaned, and turned back around to face Edgar. "Yeah, about that..." He said, his expression growing cold. "I have..." He made a circular gesture with his hands. "Other priorities to take care of right now..."

Edgar raised a suspicious eyebrow. "More important than starring in what I'm sure will be two of the biggest movies of the year." He replied, flatly.

Homelander crossed his arms behind his back. "If you really want to sell that 'supes in the military' thing, yeah."

"It won't take much to sell your presence overseas while still adhering to the production timeline, assuming no other issues arise."

Homelander scoffed. "Sure, if you want to throw away everything I got and will get out of teaming up with Superman."

Edgar's eyebrow shot higher.

"He seemed like he was everywhere all at once. If there's a mission, I need to be there the whole time, or people are going to talk. They'll say 'Oh, Superman would've done so much better because he'd have been there faster!' And they'll be right. So, naturally, I'll wind up out in the field more often, handling the kinds of things he did. Unless you want to shoot the movie around my mission schedule, and really, I'll have to deal with post-mission cleanup, and disasters, search and rescue, saving cats from trees, and whatnot..."

"You, handling cleanup?" Edgar asked with a disbelieving scoff. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Homelander rolled his eyes and continued. "Now you're either paying people to stand by until I have time to shoot, or you're using my body-double and special effects for what I could do on my own, and now you have to redo the shot list, and now the movie goes from a hundred and fifty million to three to four-hundred million, there's gonna be SAG disputes, and now the movie won't come out on time, there's a big thing in the press, and now it's a disaster."

"You sound like you've put a surprising amount of thought into this." Edgar retorted.

"Superman ruined a lot of things for us." Homelander replied. "He was running nearly twenty-four, seven, and that made him the most popular hero on the planet without a PR team. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle this time. He was hardcore, and I need to live up to that standard if I want to compete with what he's left behind here. I don't want to play second-fiddle to a guy who's not even on this planet any more, and you shouldn't want me to."

"I appreciate your honesty, even if it does appear rehearsed." Edgar replied with a smirk. "If you really want the double to handle it, we can make the arrangements. It'll still disappoint your fans, though."

Homelander blew a dismissive raspberry and waved off Edgar's concerns. "Please, I've had him signing autographs and taking photos for me for years and people still can't tell Tony Stark from me."

"Antony Starr."

Homelander shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever." He said with a dismissive laugh. "By the way, who are you looking at for Superman?"

"We have a few options at this point in development." Edgar replied. "We're going to run some screen-tests with them and Antony, and see who works best. At this point, we've reached out to a few actors, including one of the boys from the Cheaper By The Dozen remake, one of the guys from Teen Wolf, the vegan from Scott Pilgrim, and the actor who played Theseus in some Greek mythology movie from a few years ago."

"Keep me posted." Homelander said. "If I'm giving up the lead, I at least want a casting credit for myself and Superman."

1938 Sullivan Lane, Penthouse, New Troy, Metropolis. Kent Residence.

Superman touched down on the rooftop patio of his home for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Before he even opened the patio door, he could smell sweet cinnamon candles wafting through the cracks between the doors, walls, and windows.

"Do come in, mister Kent." Lois said as she pulled the door open. She was dressed in a transparent purple silk negligee that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, even without Clark's X-ray vision. "I'm not remotely decent."

"I bet you say that to all the aliens." He said with a chuckle. She was just as beautiful as the day he'd married her... Maybe moreso, even through the signs of stress. She was always a resilient one.

"Just the ones I've made two beautiful babies with." She said slyly as she grabbed his arms and tugged him into the penthouse. She leaned over to one side, and eased the door shut. Once it fell closed, the candle-light was all that remained, illuminating her curvaceous figure through the sheer silk, and allowing her copper hair to glisten in the softness of the glowing candles.

Through all the perfumes in the apartment and other smells of the city that had leaked in, Clark could smell a strong scent of hormones from his wife. Slowly he activated his X-ray vision and panned lazily down Lois's body, resting on her uterus.

"You're staring quite intently somewhere I didn't intend for you to stare..." Lois mused, placing a pair of fingers on Clark's chin. "Is there something I should know about?"

Clark look up to meet Lois's gaze. "That depends, is it something you already know?"

Lois smiled coyly. "It might be."

"Then if you know, and I know, everyone else can know in nine months."

"Just one condition, Smallville." Lois said planting a finger on Superman's chest.

Clark raised an eyebrow.

"The suit stays on. And when we're done, you get to tell me all about where you've been the last two weeks."

Clark smiled, and kissed Lois on the lips.

"Deal." He replied.

Later, at an undisclosed location...

Billy Butcher groaned as he picked himself up off the floor. He'd collided with concrete enough to know that he wasn't feeling the way he usually did after impact... Which was usually a very bad thing, but he clambered back to his feet unsteadily, and checked himself all over... He seemed like he was fine.

Billy heard a feminine yelp from behind him, and whirled to see Starlight and Hughie standing behind him, stark naked, attempting to cover themselves.

Starlight yelped again as Billy's eyes darted toward her, and threw dignity to the wind as she dove away from his gaze.

"DON'T LOOK AT ME!" She exclaimed as she scrambled away from the direction of his eyes, ducking behind a table.

"Jesus, calm down!" Butcher said, fixing his eyes on the concrete. "I ain't tryin' to look! Why the fuck are you two naked, anyways?"

Hughie waddled over to his clothes and pulled his underwear back on. "Shit, I don't know!" He replied as he pulled the rest of his clothes back on. "I just saw your lasers heading for Annie and I... Was there."

Billy scanned the ground where he'd landed. "Bloody hell." He muttered as he ran his hands along the outline he'd left. It wasn't much, but he'd busted part of the concrete when he landed.

Hughie tossed his overshirt to Annie, who pulled it on and emerged from behind her table.

"Did you guys inject some of the V we had?" Marvin demanded.

Hughie shook his head vehemently. "No, no way. You saw what that shit did to Popclaw, I'm not touching that stuff."

Marvin turned to Butcher, who kept his gaze low.

"What about you?" He asked.

"Jesus, MM." Butcher said, shielding his eyes. "If I had, I'd have fuckin' said something!"

"Bullshit."

"Hey!" Hughie interjected. "We're not gonna get anywhere killing each other over whatever the hell this is! You guys remember what Superman said about the dark matter shit, right? When it hit me, I tingled all over, did you guys feel that, too?"

The others all nodded.

"That could've been it. He said it could rearrange our genes. What if it... Mutated us somehow?"

"So all of us could wind up with some kind of power?" Frenchie asked.

Butcher walked over to the steel table Starlight had hidden behind, flexed his hand, then punched right through it.

He turned around to face the others with a broad toothy grin.

"Think you might be right, Frenchie. We're about to change the name of the game!"