Rock Bottom

By evolution-500

Genre: Drama/Tragedy

Disclaimer: "The Boys" is a property by Garth Ennis and Dynamite Comics. I own neither the characters nor this respective title.

WARNING: This story contains coarse language. Reader discretion is advised.

"When a man arrives at great prosperity God did it: when he falls into disaster he did it himself."

- Mark Twain

The fall had been painful.

Stirring from the ground, Homelander grimaced as he struggled to get up, his entire body sore from the impact.

'Fucking Soldier Boy,' he winced.

Every part of him ached and hurt - his back, his bones, everything.

He could barely recall ever feeling so much pain; ever since he was a child, he was considered to be one of the most powerful supes in the world, if not the most powerful supe.

Years of torturous experiments felt like nothing compared to this.

Rolling onto his side, he placed his right hand down onto something soft and squishy.

Puzzled, Homelander's brow furrowed as he brought up his glove, sniffing before scowling.

"What- ugh!" He groaned, wiping his glove against a brick wall. "For fuck's sakes."

He was in the middle of an alley somewhere in New York. Where, he had no fucking idea, but no more than just three seconds after waking up, he ended up pressing his gloved hand into fresh dogshit.

At least, he thought it was dogshit, if not hoped.

Great.

Fucking great!

Pushing himself off the ground, Homelander stumbled, collapsing against a wall.

"Motherf-" He winced, leaning against the latter.

Testing his left leg, he flinched, pain flaring up, his face twisting as he lifted his foot up, using the wall as support.

He must have crashed on his leg, but it's strange. Never in his life had Homelander ever experienced an injury such as this; it was so foreign to him that for a moment he had trouble registering.

Why did his leg...hurt...

Pausing in his thoughts, Homelander suddenly froze, his heart stopping as a stray thought occurred to him.

There's no way...it couldn't be.

He was the Homelander.

Looking over at a discarded bottle on the ground, Homelander scrunched up his brows and concentrated.

Nothing happened.

Blinking rapidly, he stared perplexed, then tried again, focusing on the bottle once more.

Nothing again.

Puzzled, he tried a third time, his heart rate slowly rising.

"Come on," he growled. "Come on!"

Swallowing, Homelander repeated the action, scrunching up his face, clenching his teeth with a snarl as he concentrated harder, heart racing with growing terror and adrenaline, his breathing becoming more frantic.

Why wasn't his heat vision working?!

Running a hand over his mouth, he looked around, then stopped noticing something odd.

Something was wrong.

Horribly wrong.

He tried listening, tried using his enhanced senses, but...nothing was registering.

At all.

Straining his hearing, he tried to hear his surroundings, tried to sense something, anything!

All he heard was noisy traffic along with some passing firetrucks, police sirens and ambulances.

Swallowing, Homelander looked frantically around in dread, panicking.

"No," he said softly in denial. "No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no."

Everything was wrong!

Overwhelmed, Homelander swept the one unstained glove through his hair, his eyes wet with unshed tears.

"No no no no no NO! FUCK!" He swore. "FUCK! FUUUUCK! FUCKING FUCKER FUCK!"

This couldn't be happening!

Not to him - he was the Homelander, for Christ's sakes, the most powerful superhero in the world! A god among men!

The world spun around him, his heart racing a mile a second, his ears ringing.

It-It couldn't true! There was no way he could possibly be one of those fucking mud people. There was no way-

Looking to the sky, Homelander suddenly leapt up into the air...only to find himself crashing hard into the pavement again, his injured leg giving out beneath him as he let out a strained child-like yell, sending him sprawling.

"This can't be happening," He whimpered. "This can't be happening."

Crawling pathetically along the ground, Homelander tried to push himself up, but as he attempted to stand up again, he cried out and collapsed onto his knees.

Looking down at his shaking gloved hands, the corrupt superhero's facial muscles strained, the vein in his forehead throbbing as he punched the ground as hard as he could.

Cringing, he clutched his right hand, wincing at his sore fist.

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" He swore, his eyes tearing up.

Not even a crater.

Taking off his gloves with trembling hands, Homelander stared at the bruises on his limb, shocked and horrified in equal measure.

Prior to his encounter with Soldier Boy, nothing ever bruised him, so to see them on his hand, to feel such pain.

Looking up from his hand, Homelander lifted his frantic gaze to the towering skyscrapers, feeling so much smaller than ever.

Ever since he were a child, his powers had always been with him, been a part of him.

They had defined who he was, were what made Homelander who he was destined to become.

But now, to find himself stripped of them all felt like a such a shock to the system, an affront and insult to him personally.

After all, what was Homelander without his powers but another useless fucking human?

Ripping off his gloves, he chucked them at a wall with a roar of impotent fury, his eyes brimming with tears.

Human. How revolting.

He used to soar the skies and cross oceans, used to look down upon humanity all the way from outer space, but like a fallen angel he had lost his wings, and now here he was, stripped of everything that he was, weak and shattered.

Human.

Looking to his hands, Homelander silently raised them, letting out a pitiful whine as he mourned all that he lost.

Tears trailed down his cheeks as he wept, his American flag-themed cape and blue uniform scorched.

Sweeping his hands through his hair, Homelander wiped his eyes and nose with the back of his sleeve, looking around in uncertainty.

"Get a grip, John," he said to himself. "You can fix this. You can fix this."

He just needed to get his hands on some Compound V, and then he would get his powers back, that's all.

Right now, he needed to lay low and keep his wits about him.

You can do this, John.

Then, once he got his powers back, there would be hell to pay.

Struggling painfully back up onto his feet, Homelander hobbled out toward a clothing donation bin nearby and searched, recklessly discarding clothes either too ratty or too small before finally pulling out a grey hoodie and some loose black sweatpants.

Once he finished swapping clothes, Homelander hobbled out from the alley, pulling the hood over his head, limping with each step.

'I'll get my powers back,' he swore to himself. 'Just you wait, Butcher.'

* * * * *

There was no going back.

Standing stiffly in front of a window display of an electronics store, Homelander listlessly stared at the TV screens in front of the display window, watching the news as it played, the headlines flashing.

"VOUGHT EXPOSED - COVERUPS, MURDER, EXTORTION, ILLEGAL EXPERIMENTATION AND MORE!"

"SOLDIER BOY RETURNS!"

"AMERICAN HERO AND ICON TAKES DOWN VOUGHT INTERNATIONAL!"

"VOUGHT STOCKS DROP FOLLOWING NEWEST CONTROVERSIES!"

"STAN EDGAR ARRESTED!"

"SOLDIER BOY, MAEVE AND STARLIGHT TAKE DOWN VOUGHT!"

However, what made Homelander numb and stare in growing horror were the next set of headlines.

"HOMELANDER - AMERICAN MONSTER!"

"FOOTAGE TAKEN FROM TRANSOCEANIC FLIGHT 37 LEAKED ONLINE!"

"HOMELANDER IMPLICATED IN MURDER OF BLINDSPOT!"

"NEW CHILLING FOOTAGE CONFIRMS INVOLVEMENT IN CREATION OF SUPE TERRORISTS!"

"NEW TELL-ALL FROM SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT OF HERO MANAGEMENT!"

"HOMELANDER - TERRORIST, MURDERER AND RAPIST!"

"POLICE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR HOMELANDER!"

"HOMELANDER - WANTED FELON!"

Staring at the screen in horror, Homelander swallowed, his face paling, his heart beating loudly in his ears, feeling overwhelmed.

Part of him wanted to throw up, while another part of him wanted to scream, if not cry.

As more and more headlines bombarded his senses, Homelander felt himself becoming dizzy, his stomach painfully clenching.

Everything was unraveling before him, his entire world crumbling around him.

Everything that he worked for...his fame...his glory...gone.

Even his own fans were turning against him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He was exposed to the world, and now the world despised him.

Turning from the window, Homelander limped away, keeping his hood-covered head low as tears fell, looking around in every direction in desperation.

He needed to flee, to hide, but where?!

Where could he go?!

For the first time in ages, Homelander felt fear.

* * * * *

The sun was setting as he found himself alone in an alley.

Hurt and exhausted, he slumped down a wall by a dumpster, staring weakly at a wall.

Nearby, a homeless man dressed in four layers of parkas, shirts and a red knit cap was muttering to himself, pushing a grocery buggy filled with an assortment of junk, while another dug through some trash, picking up a half-eaten hot dog.

As John watched a scrawny wino with dirty red hair stumble down the alleyway, the latter settled down against the opposite wall, taking a sip from a concealed bottle in a brown plastic bag.

Gulping it down, the man wiped his lips with the back of his dirty hand. "Uhh, rough day, huh? You look like a feller who has been put through the ringer."

The former superhero said nothing, ignoring him.

Taking another sip of his bottle, the wino offered it to him. "Would you like a drink, friend? You look like you could use it."

"Fuck off," John muttered.

The wino shrugged. "Suit yerself, pal. Your funeral."

Picking himself up, the wino departed, leaving the former celebrity alone in his own private hell.

No longer was he a god soaring across the sky and stars, no longer could he see the grandeur of the cosmos and the inner workings of the universe, the inner structures of molecules.

No longer could he see and hear things that nobody else could, his senses embarrassingly dull.

No longer would he be able to live amongst the various celebrities, live the lush, expensive and cushy lifestyles that he had used to have known, nor experience the love and comfort that he had long craved.

Sitting by himself in the alley, the man once known as Homelander regarded his new surroundings in disgust and sorrow as the sun's orange light started to dim, leaving him in darkness.

Abandoned and alone, a tear fell from the corner of the former superhero's eye, his heart anguished and bitter as he sat in the shadows, where the smell of decay permeated, where the mad cackled and hollered to themselves, and where the rats crawled freely amongst the trash.

* * * * *

Author's Note: Annnnd finished! So, the idea for this story kind of came to me following the last episode of Season Three. Part of me couldn't help wondering what would have happened had Soldier Boy been allowed to attack Homelander with his beam, and the idea of stripping Homelander of his powers seemed like a fascinating angle for his character. Homelander as he is is a ball of deep insecurity who has nothing but his powers and stardom, so to have him confronted with a scenario where he is stripped of the former and forced to live as a regular human is probably the most terrifying thing to him imo.

I'm admittedly kind of surprised that no such story exists on here that touches on that angle, so I kind of figured that I would give it a try.

I hope you guys like this. If not, I'm sorry to have wasted your time.

Stay safe and healthy everyone! :D