Jon doesn't even step forward or square up, he simply looks at Homelander.
No, he Looks at Homelander. Something larger than himself opens its eyes behind his, stares through Jon and into the so-called hero. From somewhere, there is a faint electronic whine, a hiss of tape.
“I don't have time,” he says again, “for your pretend heroics. Do you think you're impressing Ambrose? Now? After I walked right past you to go and interrogate him and you never blinked an eye? After you have failed over and over since you arrived here?”
Jon can see those failures, and so Homelander can too, vivid scenes playing in recent memory. But not only Homelander's memories. The altercation in the prison, that left Homelander with a bloody nose, the guards watching with snickers behind their schooled expressions. They'd gossiped about him later, laughing openly. His loss at the Festival, in a fight he'd expected to be an easy win. In front of so many people, both Thorneans and guests. The way they'd clapped for Snow.
“You think you were brought here to lead?” he asks, the question almost an accusation. “You were an accident, the same as any of the rest of us. Ambrose scarcely knows who you are. He would have been just as happy to get...” He takes a second, that gaze digging farther back, raking at Homelander's past. “Billy Butcher. Or the Deep. Or Madelyn.”
Jon's expression hardens.
“And she'd have been so glad to be brought here, taken out of your reach. Where she could stop letting you close to her. Stop walking that terrifying tight-rope of manipulating you to keep herself in power and manipulating you to keep herself safe. From. You.”
He makes Homelander feel it then, the way her pounding heart was terror, never love, the stiffness of her body whenever he touched her. The deep breaths she took to brace herself every single time he turned her way. Every time. From the first, to the last.
cw: Homelander
No, he Looks at Homelander. Something larger than himself opens its eyes behind his, stares through Jon and into the so-called hero. From somewhere, there is a faint electronic whine, a hiss of tape.
“I don't have time,” he says again, “for your pretend heroics. Do you think you're impressing Ambrose? Now? After I walked right past you to go and interrogate him and you never blinked an eye? After you have failed over and over since you arrived here?”
Jon can see those failures, and so Homelander can too, vivid scenes playing in recent memory. But not only Homelander's memories. The altercation in the prison, that left Homelander with a bloody nose, the guards watching with snickers behind their schooled expressions. They'd gossiped about him later, laughing openly. His loss at the Festival, in a fight he'd expected to be an easy win. In front of so many people, both Thorneans and guests. The way they'd clapped for Snow.
“You think you were brought here to lead?” he asks, the question almost an accusation. “You were an accident, the same as any of the rest of us. Ambrose scarcely knows who you are. He would have been just as happy to get...” He takes a second, that gaze digging farther back, raking at Homelander's past. “Billy Butcher. Or the Deep. Or Madelyn.”
Jon's expression hardens.
“And she'd have been so glad to be brought here, taken out of your reach. Where she could stop letting you close to her. Stop walking that terrifying tight-rope of manipulating you to keep herself in power and manipulating you to keep herself safe. From. You.”
He makes Homelander feel it then, the way her pounding heart was terror, never love, the stiffness of her body whenever he touched her. The deep breaths she took to brace herself every single time he turned her way. Every time. From the first, to the last.