The twin beams of heat vision pierced straight through Madelyn's eyes.
They exited the back of her skull in a spray of molten bone and vaporized blood, cutting almost cruelly through the air behind her before fading.
For a fraction of a second, her body remained upright, as if the world had not yet caught up with what had just happened. Then her head slumped forward.
The explosives strapped to her chest remained intact.
Butcher had imagined this moment countless times.
He had pictured Madelyn screaming. Begging. He had imagined Homelander roaring in grief as the detonator left his thumb and the explosion swallowed her whole. In some versions, Homelander wept openly. In others, he stood calm and composed while something inside him shattered.
But this—
This was not part of any scenario.
Homelander had killed her himself.
Without hesitation.
Without bargaining.
Without fear.
Butcher stood frozen, detonator in hand, as if he had drawn a gun and forgotten how to fire it.
The hostage he meant to threaten was already dead.
And the man he meant to wound was smiling faintly.
Homelander tilted his head, studying Butcher's expression with open curiosity.
"You wanted to hurt me," he said softly. "But you didn't understand something."
He adjusted the crying infant in his arms.
"She lied to me."
There was no visible grief. No tremor of regret.
Just a thin layer of irritation fading into indifference.
"You see," Homelander continued, "when someone lies to me… I don't really need them anymore."
Butcher's breathing grew shallow.
His entire crusade had been built on a single narrative—rape, murder, revenge. Every risk, every corpse left behind, every broken alliance had traced back to that certainty.
And now that certainty was unraveling.
"Becca's alive," Homelander said lightly, watching the words land. "With my son."
The detonator in Butcher's hand felt heavier.
The walls of the house seemed to close in.
"You don't even have proof I killed her," Homelander went on. "And yet you destroyed half the board."
Translucent.
Noir.
Madelyn.
All casualties of a theory.
Butcher said nothing.
For the first time since this war began, he felt disoriented.
Homelander stepped closer.
"If you press that button now," he said conversationally, "you won't hurt me."
His eyes flicked to the explosives.
"You'll just make a mess."
The baby cried louder.
Homelander's expression shifted slightly—not tenderness, but irritation at the noise.
He glanced down at Madelyn's lifeless body.
Then back at Butcher.
"You thought you were clever," he said. "But you're not built for this level."
Butcher's knuckles whitened around the detonator.
He wanted to press it.
He wanted something—anything—to still be under his control.
But the center had collapsed.
The revenge fantasy that fueled him was cracking.
And Homelander could see it.
The laughter came next.
Loud. Open. Unrestrained.
It echoed through the blood-splattered living room, filling every corner.
Butcher stood there, stunned, detonator still in hand, as the sound washed over him.
—
Chapter 33 – I Need a Pair of Underwear
In a Manhattan apartment, Ethan Pierce watched the news replay Vought's latest crisis management spin. The timeline was moving quickly now.
He picked up his phone and called Harris.
"What's the update on Butcher?"
Harris answered immediately. "We lost him. His counter-surveillance is tight. Our guys couldn't keep up."
That wasn't surprising.
Butcher had military training and years operating in the shadows. Losing him wasn't incompetence—it was reality.
"And Hughie?"
"Our people saw him enter a hotel. Then a black SUV took him. Looks like an FBI site. They didn't follow."
"Good. Send me the location."
Ethan ended the call and headed out.
He wasn't sentimental about Hughie. But he remembered what happened next in the chain of events—Hughie would attempt a rescue. A-Train, having re-dosed on Compound V to repair his leg, would reappear.
And this time, his heart wouldn't hold.
Opportunity.
The FBI holding facility sat in a remote stretch of road, surrounded by fencing and armed guards.
When Ethan approached openly, two men at the gate immediately raised their pistols.
"Stop! Restricted access!"
He kept walking.
Gunshots cracked through the air.
Two bullets struck his chest cleanly, tearing through fabric and flattening against his reinforced body before dropping uselessly to the ground.
He glanced down at the holes in his shirt.
That was annoying.
"I really need a pair of indestructible underwear," he muttered.
Running naked after Sage Grove had been inconvenient enough.
The guards stared in horror.
"It's a supe! It's a supe!"
Alarms began blaring behind them as more agents poured out of the building—pistols, submachine guns, tactical gear.
Ethan's eyes glowed red.
Two beams of searing heat lanced forward.
They pierced the first guard's chest cleanly—and continued straight through the man behind him.
Like skewers through candied fruit.
Smoke rose from the holes as bodies collapsed in rapid succession.
Chaos erupted.
"Homelander?!" someone shouted.
"No! Fire! Fire!"
A storm of bullets filled the air.
Shell casings rained onto concrete.
Ethan walked forward steadily, rounds flattening against him and falling away.
Fear spread like wildfire through the line.
"Get the launcher!" a captain screamed into his radio.
Moments later, a guard emerged with a rocket launcher braced against his shoulder.
He fired.
The projectile streaked across the distance and struck Ethan squarely.
The explosion engulfed him in flame and debris.
For a second, cheering broke out among the surviving agents.
When the smoke cleared—
Ethan stood there.
Completely naked.
The blast had incinerated what remained of his clothing.
He looked down at himself and sighed.
"It's a little breezy."
Silence fell.
Even the captain hesitated.
If rockets couldn't stop him—
"Call Vought!" the captain barked. "Now!"
Inside the building, Frenchie and Hughie heard the explosion.
Frenchie's eyes widened. "Mon Dieu… did you call reinforcements?"
They had just managed to free Mother's Milk using a hidden wire from Hughie's braces. The escape had barely begun when alarms trapped them inside.
Now the walls shook from outside.
Hughie stared toward the entrance, unsure whether what was coming would save them—or make everything worse.
....
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