Homelander held the file that had overturned the past forty-four years of his life.
He returned to Pero's villa in a daze.
He did not excitedly report how many people he had saved as he usually did, nor did he eagerly prepare milk for Pero.
He simply stood quietly in the middle of the living room, his handsome face filled with confusion and a trace of fear that even he had not noticed.
Pero was sitting on the couch, fiddling with a game controller.
On the screen, a plumber in a red cap and overalls was constantly breaking completion records under his control, using methods that could only be called unorthodox.
Relying on the invincible reflexes and computational abilities he had gained after becoming Superman, he had already beaten every supposedly "high-difficulty" game in this world at least ten times.
Now, he felt a little bored.
"Something up?" Pero asked without turning his head.
Homelander took a deep breath and handed over the file.
"Father, Edgar gave me this."
Pero paused the game, casually took the file, and flipped through it, his face expressionless.
"So?"
"I want to go take a look." Homelander raised his head and looked at Pero pleadingly. "Could you come with me?"
Looking at Homelander's expression, both hopeful and afraid of rejection, Pero suddenly found it rather amusing.
He put down the controller, stood up, and stretched.
"All right." He shrugged. "I've been a little bored lately anyway. I'll treat it as a trip to unwind."
Meanwhile, on the other side of the city, at The Boys' secret base.
"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"
Butcher hurled an empty liquor bottle against the wall.
"That bitch Mallory. She's been lying to us from the start."
Not long before.
He had forced a truth hidden for years out of