KNOCK
KNOCK
KNOCK
Erasmus's protests were interrupted by the knocking on the door.
"Come in," Homelander called out.
The doors opened slowly, and a red-haired woman entered the room.
"Ashley," Homelander said, his face instantly shifting into a wide smile. "Glad you're here. Erasmus, this is Ashley. If you need anything from now on, any little thing at all, you just let her know and she will get it done. Ashley... this is Erasmus. My son."
"Your... your son?" she repeated.
"That's exactly what I said, Ashley," Homelander said, smiling as he placed his hands on Erasmus's shoulders, locking him in that heavy, proud grip he liked so much.
"Actually sir, I'm here because Mr. Edgar wants to have a meeting with you in his office," Ashley didn't dare ask where this son had come from, that was far above her pay grade. "Actually, sir, I'm here because Mr. Edgar requests a meeting with you in his office immediately."
"Oh, yes," Homelander said "Let's go, Erasmus. It's time you officially enter Vought and become a superhero. And your old mas is also going to show you around the Tower."
Homelander turned and started walking toward the private elevator Erasmus followed him silently, But as he passed by Ashley, he stopped.
"Actually, Ashley, I need something done today," Erasmus said, his blue eyes kind and calm, surprising her. "Can you do it for me?"
"I... I will try my best, sir."
"Of course she can," Homelander interrupted warmly. He paused by the elevator. "What do you need, buddy? Name it."
"I need you to visit the Vogelbaum estate and retrieve my dogs. And also... bring Oliver here."
"Oliver?" Ashley asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
"My butler," Erasmus said simply. "Also bring my sheets over, and my clothes."
"of course anything else?"
"That will be all. Thank you, Ashley." With that, he stepped into the private elevator. The gold-plated doors closed shut.
The gold-plated lift doors hissed open, and Homelander marched into the top-floor office, his hand resting heavily on his son shoulder with an immense, suffocating pride, to ensure the boy couldn't vanish into thin air.
Edgar didn't look up from his tablet immediately. He allowed the heavy silence of the room to stretch for a second before he finally set the screen down onto the mahogany desk.
"Stan," Homelander boomed, his chest puffed out. "Meet my firstborn son. Erasmus."
Edgar didn't blink. Not a single muscle in his face betrayed a fraction of a second of surprise. "I am fully aware of the boy's existence," Edgar said smoothly. "In fact, his emergence solves several inconsistencies. I had strong suspicions Jonah was running an un-ledgered genetic program in isolation, which is precisely why I authorized a tactical overview of his estate this morning."
Behind the deadpan mask, Edgar's internal world fractured. For the first time in his life, he experienced pure, unadulterated turmoil.
This boy was the missing puzzle piece. Edgar knew his own mind had been wiped by Rufus, that fact was an old certainty. But for days, a phantom instinct, an intrusive seed of doubt, had driven him to hound Vogelbaum. He had constantly suspected his old associate of hiding something, yet he never knew what.
Now, looking at Erasmus, the paradox struck Edgar with horrifying clarity. If Vogelbaum wanted to hide the boy, keeping a seed of doubt in Edgar's head made absolutely no sense. A successful wipe should have left Edgar entirely complacent. Why leave a trace of suspicion?
A standard mistake? No. Edgar dismissed it instantly. Too basic. Rufus was a fool who used mind-wiping abilities just to assault female students and cover his tracks, leaving clumsy psychic scars. Vogelbaum was a genius. He wouldn't leave a loose thread by accident.
The truth hit Edgar like a physical blow: the suspicion wasn't a flaw in the wipe. It was the trap itself.
What if Vogelbaum never betrayed him at all?
If Edgar's memory was compromised, the premise of his entire investigation was flawed. Vogelbaum wasn't the mastermind; Vogelbaum was a puppet. An unknown puppeteer had used Rufus to alter Edgar's mind, deliberately planting that specific seed of doubt. The paranoia wasn't a firewall to keep Edgar away, it was a beacon.
The puppeteer wanted him to grow suspicious. They wanted Edgar to hound Vogelbaum, to visit his old associate, and to dig until he uncovered whatever breadcrumbs had been left behind.
Edgar hadn't been tracking a rogue scientist. He had been following a string pulled by an invisible hand, perfectly engineered to lead him directly to this exact moment.
A cold, visceral horror seized him. Homelander stood there, grinning like a proud, simple-minded ape, utterly oblivious to the rope around his own neck. The dimwit had marched straight into the trap, preening his feathers, and had hand-delivered the ultimate predator directly to Edgar's doorstep.
Homelander thought he was showing off a son; in reality, he was a blind mule carrying a trojan horse. Edgar wasn't just dealing with another volatile supe. He was looking at a monster sophisticated enough to weaponize Edgar's own genius against him, and Edgar was completely defenseless.
From the outside, only three seconds passed. To Homelander, Edgar had simply paused to take a breath. But in reality, the mind war had already ended. Even with an amateurish control over his psychic powers, Aldrich had completely immobilized the man's consciousness, forcing the chaotic thoughts into submission and letting everything return to normal.
This was amazing, Aldrich thought.
Watching in real time, reading Stan Edgar's thoughts as the man reached that final, desperate conclusion, was the best experience Aldrich had ever enjoyed on this planet. It genuinely brought him joy to watch such a grand intellect at work.
Unfortunately for that grand intellect, it was utterly powerless.
He simply reached out with invisible, imaginary hand and with a swipe wiped away all those precious, newly formed thoughts. The entire realization vanished like smoke.
It was a shame, but Aldrich knew he would just have to work really, really hard on breaking this grand intellect down again later. For now, Edgar's mind reverted to its safe, manufactured lie: He knew all along. He was in control.
"Well, a bit too late for that, don't you think?" Homelander scoffed, breaking the three-second silence. "It's been fifteen long years, Stan, and I was the one who found him. Not Vought. Me."
"Fifteen years in which the boy was fed, housed, educated, and kept entirely off Vought's radar," Edgar replied, unbothered. "Which, given what Vought's radar tends to do to people, may have been a kindness." He finally rose from behind the desk, unhurried. He extended his hand across the table. "Erasmus."
Erasmus looked at the hand for a moment. Then he shook it. It was firm, but to Erasmus, it felt like he was holding air. This human was really not afraid of his father. He could hear the leather-gloved hands of his father tightening behind him.