Everyone in the boys tag talking about homelander and soldier boy like my boy a-train isn’t right there. Did we see that swerve?? That fucking swerve where he DIED just to avoid running through that woman like he did with Robin? Why is no one talking about this
this AU will also include Robin, Hughie and Annie as a polyamorous triad. perhaps Reggie and Charlotte will also join them too, or at least Reggie will be dating both Hughie and Charlotte, bc i really like HughTrain and want them to be happy with eachother and their gfs :3
As a young child, Hughie Campbell's father, Hugh Campbell, suddenly passed away from a stroke, leaving Daphne Campbell as a grieving, single mother. Despite dealing with severe depression and anxiety, she did her best to raise Hughie to the best of her abilities. Hughie had a fascination with technology and often tinkered with old computers and other electronics.
When Hughie was thirteen, his whole world got torn apart when his mother was killed by an immature newcomer Supe named A-Train. While walking home from a late night at work, Daphne was hit by A-Train when he was illegally racing against other super-fast Supes on a residential street.
With no other nearby relatives, a devastated Hughie was forced to move into an orphanage. The police had covered up the details of his mother's death so Hughie really had no clue what had actually happened. To cope with the loneliness, Hughie learned as much as he could about computers and coding.
After high school, Hughie attended a local college, intending to study computer science. While there, he met a girl named Robin Ward, who convinced him to look more into the death of his mother. Together, they uncovered the facts of the case, specifically that A-Train had murdered Hughie's mom.
In the following years, Robin and Hughie worked together to research the ins and outs of Supe weaknesses. They developed various weapons to use against Supes, such as a high-pitched sonic sound emitter.
Now finally feeling ready to begin their mission to reveal the truth and bring A-Train to justice, Hughie and Robin built a base of operations in New York City to locate A-Train and monitor his actions.
Other Thoughts:
When making Absolute Hughie, I wanted to lean more into what made Hughie unique, such as his knowledge of technology. Without Butcher and the others to be the 'muscle', Hughie would have to use his smarts and wits to have a chance against Supes.
I also decided to bring Robin in because Starlight wouldn't be working alongside Hughie, at least at first. I'd love to see more of the dynamics between Robin and Hughie, even if it was only in an alternate universe.
If this was an actual comic, it would follow Hughie and Robin as they tracked down A-Train to reveal his crimes to the public. It would rarely feature other Supes, except probably Popclaw.
What would be your ideas for an "Absolute" Hughie Campbell?
I am posting all my drafts out of spite. RIP Homelander, you deserved a better death. (I feel mildly bad about this fic, but I have a lot of fic in my drafts, and I'm sure I'll have an opportunity to atone for my sins.)
Summary: Homelander decides to go out as John. Things do not go as planned.
Warnings: Violence, death, tragedy, seeds of religious psychosis.
AO3
Homelander is kneeling on the floor by the couch the way he used to kneel by his bed at night because that was how he was taught. He hasn't prayed since leaving the Bad Room, but there is unexpected comfort in his childhood routine.
When he fills his head with prayers, he doesn’t have to think.
Of course he knows there is no point in praying; if there is a God, he does not listen to Homelander. But perhaps that is the whole point. He didn't listen to Jesus's prayers; he ignored his own son in his darkest hour.
Even a cruel, distant father is better than no father at all, and so he keeps praying until the words he memorized as a boy become his own.
He feels that familiar sting in his nose again and doesn’t fight it. It's the kind of day when the tears will just keep coming.
His friend in the mirror will never understand, just like Vogelbaum never understood, but Jesus cried before his death, and he must have cried in the Garden of Gethsemane. Tears of pity and pain and the endless disappointment of it all.
Tears run down his cheeks, but not all tears are weakness. Even gods want love and support.
There is nobody to keep watch with him. He is all alone, and the pain isn't one he will ever get used to. Whenever he thinks he has found the bottom of it, it opens further beneath him, and he falls.
He’s tired, but he’s hiding from the mirrors, and so the way to his bedroom remains blocked.
As the hours pass, his thoughts keep drifting back to John. Not John the child, but the young man Vought had built for him to inhabit in his free time and that Homelander, no matter how hard he tried, simply could not become. They'd scripted everything from is clothes and his tastes to the particular way he walked in his civilian clothes, even how he felt about secretly being Vought’s most powerful super. They'd given John a cover job at the company, a badge to scan in the morning and scan out at night.
Gods frequently disguise themselves as humans. He's read all the stories of the Greek gods, of course, over and over. Even God himself appeared to mankind in the flesh through his son (Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, words burned into his brain). Jesus lived in human form, but it made him no less God.
John still has a place. Vought bought it for his civilian identity, even after they realized he wasn’t going to use it. Homelander hasn't visited in years, but he never sold it. It's a small place, nothing fancy, no flags, no marble statues, nothing like the penthouse in Vought Tower. That didn’t fit the script, John needed to be humble. But Vought presented him with three options, and this was the place he picked. It does have a nice view. Maybe he'll go there tonight in his human form.
Having to dress up and live as John used to make him angry, but that was only because everyone expected him to be John, to treat his human persona as his real self and his super one as the costume. John the human guise does not frighten him.
He's going to be John tonight.
Homelander could ask Madelyn to send someone to buy him clothes, but something about Vought knowing he'll be John tonight bothers him, so he steals a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from the janitor’s closet on 99 where he used to hide, back when he had less control than he does now and couldn’t make it all the way to his room when something upset him before the tears would start pouring.
* * *
She's the first face that catches his attention when he enters. She’s sitting at the bar.
She has soft, curly hair and a smile that keeps slipping. She’s younger than him, not conventionally pretty, but something in the way she sits like she's already made her peace with the room makes him pull a chair to the bar.
His hands feel for the cape that isn't there as he sits down.
She studies him. "You look familiar," she says, and his heart sinks. But then she just holds out her hand and says, "Hi, I'm Robin."
“John,” says John.
The waiter comes and hands him a menu. He’s staring at it. None of the words mean anything to him. It's just a long list of things he's never tasted in his life.
"What can I get you, Sir?"
Nobody ever asks Homelander to pick an alcoholic drink. They know he doesn't drink, and they're terrified of the things he might do if he did. Madelyn lest him have a sip of her drink occasionally, and he takes it, always eager to be closer to her, but it always puts her on edge, and he doesn't like the taste.
He orders the first thing he spots on the menu.
"Fuck, that's a bold choice," Robin says. She's making fun of him, he can tell, but the look in her eyes is soft, so John doesn't mind.
"Anything else, Sir?"
John hands the menu back. "Thank you. That will be all."
"What, you aren't even going to offer to buy me a drink? I was going to turn you down because feminism and shit, but damn, this hurts."
Homelander probably would have come up with a retort, but John's head is empty. "I'm sorry," he says. "May I buy you a drink?"
Courtesy can be a safe place to retreat to. There's no wit involved, no spontaneity, just words he memorized a long time ago.
"I'll have what he's having," Robin tells the waiter.
The drink burns in John's throat, and he can't help but pull a face, but he likes the warmth that spreads through his body from the inside out.
Robin is watching him with curiosity. "You're the weirdest guy I've met in a while." The words sting, but she's smiling again and looks less sad than before. “I mean in, like, a good way,” she adds quickly. "You're weird in a really good way."
"You think?" he asks. He never particularly liked the John Vought created, but tonight, he’s not that John.
"It's my birthday today,” Robin says. "I'm turning 25. And I don't have a clue what the fuck I'm doing with my life." She smiles, then stops smiling when she sees him looking at her. "Bad breakup. I don't wanna talk about it. When's your birthday?"
February 22nd, same as George Washington, Homelander’s voice says in his head. "Honestly," John says, "I don't know," instantly wincing because now she's going to look at him with pity, and that'll ruin everything.
"You in some kind of cult, or what?" Robin asks.
"No. I— ," Vought, for all the care it put into John’s scripted persona, forgot to assign his secret identity a proper birthday. Perhaps, they assumed he’d use Homelander’s. Perhaps it just mattered less than his choice of sneakers.
Robin shrugs. "You know what, tell me some other time."
His heart skips a beat. She wants to see him again.
“You know, I have a place in the city," John says. He's oddly excited now, wants to talk about this space that is his.
"Yeah, I figured," Robin says. "Most of us do, you know.” Then she keeps on talking, about her two jobs, and the plant she killed last week, and her ex, who never let her finish a sentence.
It takes John fifteen more minutes to work up the courage to ask her if she wants to go to his place. “It has a really nice view.”
It sounded sufficiently casual, he thinks, but there’s a pause. His heart is racing so loudly that even she with her ordinary human ears must hear it.
"Fuck it," Robin says. "This day can’t get any worse. Why not."
* * *
It’s just a five minute walk from where they are. Robin is still talking, and John realizes that she is drunk and he's not.
He resists the urge to fly her upstairs and enter through the window he always kept unlocked. This night is all about John, and John was never allowed to fly.
Of course he didn’t bring the key. He can see it, safely locked away in his bedside cabinet. But he’s human tonight, he can’t fly off to get it, even if it wouldn’t take him more than two seconds, Robin would realize who he is.
He pushes until the lock gives in with a cracking sound. The damage is barely visible, but Robin's heart rate is going up, and John quietly curses himself.
He turns around and smiles at her, trying his best to ignore the signals he's getting now. "Come on in!"
The lights aren’t working, but he can see immediately that things aren't the way they're supposed to. Half the furniture is gone and the other half is covered in white sheets. There's dust everywhere. The painting above the fireplace is gone. The rug he'd chosen himself, dark blue, is rolled up in a corner.
Robin is staring at the covered furniture. The sheets are a bright white in the moonlight shining through the window. He can feel her heart racing, her blood pressure rising.
He'd been planning what to say to her. I picked this place because of the view. A small, ordinary thing to say, the kind of thing ordinary people say.
Robin’s heart is hammering in her chest like it’s about to jump out of her body. He imagines it lying on the floor, still beating rapidly.
And then she makes a run for the door.
Homelander grabs her with one hand and yanks her back. He does it without thinking; it's like a reflex, an ancient predator’s instinct hardwired in his brain.
She hits the wall like a rag doll, and for a moment they are both very still. He can hear her heartbeat everywhere in the room, fast and loud, filling up all the space there is.
"Hey," John says. His voice comes out wrong, too careful, too quiet, the way you'd talk to someone obviously cornered. "Hey, it's okay,” he tries again. “You don't have to be scared."
She looks up at him. She's calculating the distance to the door, or perhaps whether her legs are still functional enough to carry her there, whether screaming would help. She's looking at him like he's a monster, and he wants very badly for her to stop looking at him like that. Then she starts to cry, silently at first, then sobbing uncontrollably.
"I'm sorry," John says. "I'm not going to hurt you."
He means it. He means it completely, but she's not listening.
"Please." She's sobbing, snot and tears running down her face. "Please, please, please just let me go!" Her little heart is racing in her chest. “I- I- I’m pregnant."
Homelander doesn’t have to check to know it’s a lie. Why do people always lie to him?
I'm not going to hurt you. The words are still sitting in John's mouth.
“You were drinking before,” Homelander says. “You shouldn’t drink when you’re pregnant.”
He's moving toward her and she flinches back, and something in him goes very cold.
His fingers close around her throat, and her neck snaps like a twig.
* * *
John is curled up on the floor sobbing. This wasn't supposed to happen.
He was supposed to show her the view.
* * *
He can't tell how much time has passed. Vought has sent a team, like they always do.
He catches only bits and pieces of the conversation. Homelander is agitated, he won't come with us. I… I don't know, his… his old place triggered him? I guess he thought it would all still be here? I don't know why the hell he would think that. It's been, what, 15 years? No, no, I don't care. Yes, yes, goddammit, we will deal with it.
They don't look at him when they talk. They look at the walls, or their phones, or at each other, anywhere that isn't him, curled up on the floor in his civilian clothes. One of them is holding a clipboard and taking notes.
At some point a hand appears near his shoulder, never touching him, just hovering there in the air.
"Don’t worry. We'll take care of it. You have nothing to worry about. It will all be taken care of."
