#HBB!!!! I KNEW YOU WERE OUT TO KILL ME I KNEW IT I FUCKING KNEW IT

[sehtoast]

S W E E T P E A

As Long As We're Together (G/T Homelander x Reader)

2538 words. Hurt/comfort and fluff. Homelander is 8 feet tall. Reader is non-descriptive. Established relationship.

Your anniversary gift exchange doesn't go exactly as planned.

Made as part of the Cozy Corner Domaystic event put together by @cozycornerevents, using prompt #11 "unexpected gifts" and prompt #29 "peace offering".

It's officially been a month since you and Homelander started dating. Your relationship is still under wraps from the spying eyes at Vought, so the two of you can't celebrate your anniversary publicly. But that won't stop you both from having a special day.

As his personal assistant, you're trailing behind him on the set for 'Dawn of The Seven', making sure he has his lines ready. It's been a pretty busy shoot, and the two of you have not had much time to yourselves.

Eventually, there's a lull in between filming. You're following him as usual, flipping through the script to keep a strict tab on the upcoming scenes, but you are confused when he suddenly halts right in front of his trailer. Looking up at him, you can see a sly grin accompanying a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Come inside for a second," he smirks, bending down at the waist to whisper into your ear. "I have a surprise for you."

"I can't honey," you mention, pulling your phone out of your pocket and tapping the screen to bring up the current time. "I need to head back to the Tower in 15 minutes, I have a meeting with your marketing team."

Leaning back up to his full height, Homelander stares down at you in disbelief. You so nonchalantly took the ground right out from under him; he wasn't expecting any resistance, especially not on your anniversary. The day he confessed his love for you.

"N-no… no. No. Blow them off, come on," he stutters with a shaky smile, doing his best to regain his composure. "Come."

"I really can't stay," you divulge. "It'll take me at least 10 minutes to make it to the Tower and to the meeting room. Can this wait until I get back?"

Your words cut through him like a knife. All he wanted to do was to prove his devotion to you, and you're refusing him this chance. Your schedules have both been so chaotic today and he doesn't want to wait any longer for his surprise, definitely not until the evening when you're both off work.

"P-please," he mumbles quietly, his voice barely sounding audible. He can't let you leave, not yet.

Despite Homelander standing a menacing eight feet tall and you only reaching his abs, he could not seem any more small to you right now. All you see is a dejected puppy with big glassy eyes, so desperate for a scrap of your undivided attention. With a sigh, you walk up to him and reach for one of his large hands, squeezing your palm around the leather of his glove.

"This won't take longer than 5 minutes?" you ask.

"Of course not," he exclaims with a toothy grin. Your simple question is enough to wash away his fears and recapture his giddy childlike energy from moments ago. "Trust me, you'll love this."

Leading you to the trailer, he opens the door to let you in first so he can watch you spot his gift on the table. Your gasp fills him elation, ravishing in the way your body chemistry changes with delight. Carefully, you climb onto one of the oversized chairs in the dining area to get a closer look at what he got for you.

In the middle of the table is a perfectly designed bouquet, composed of a red rose heart nestled in a cloud of baby's breath. Tucked in between the flowers is a note card, wishing you a happy anniversary. Homelander even signed it himself, with a little heart doodle for you alongside his name.

"Oh hun," you exhale, bringing the flower vase closer to examine them. "These are so beautiful."

As he studies your reaction, he is perplexed as to why you appear to be blinking away tears. Are you upset at his gift? He thought this was a proper anniversary present; in every romantic movie he's ever seen the gentleman always brings his special someone a bouquet of flowers.

"Is something wrong?" he ponders, kneeling down so he can be at your eye-level. You can't help but smile at his face right next to yours, and the dread in his expression over making you cry.

"No, no…" you sniffle as you dry your eyes. "I'm just… I'm just happy. Nobody's ever gotten me flowers before."

"Thank you Homelander," you state, cupping his cheeks right before kissing him. Nearly instantly, he closes his eyes and exhales deeply through his nose as he melts into your affection. He leans more into your lips, softly keening as he chases after the genuine love that he's been searching for his entire life. Your palms petting his face have him entirely enraptured, and the noises of the movie set are long gone from his ears. Right now he feels like he's in heaven with the gentleness of your fingers running along his skin. His massive frame has practically encompassed yours with how close he's getting, but you don't mind. It's something you cherish, letting him forget his size around you.

When you pull away from your kiss, you can see how pleased he is just by the serene sparkles in his blue eyes. He has one hand placed on the back of your chair while the other is resting on your lap, taking up the length of your both your thighs.

"I have to get going now," you remark while you look up at the Vought-branded clock on the trailer wall. Sadly, your five minutes are up. "But I'll be back in an hour."

"Promise you'll come back as soon as you're done?" he asks, furrowing his brows slightly. He's so proud of himself for his gift, and he hates that he has to cut his time with you short now that he's received your gratitude.

"I promise," you respond, giving him one last quick kiss before stepping out of the trailer. You wave him goodbye as you head off, unaware that he is standing solemnly at the window as he continues to watch you with his X-Ray vision even after you've left the movie set.

~~~

You end up running a bit longer than you expected, and are confounded to find that when you finally return to the movie set, Homelander is not there. Ashley tells you that he flew off from the set an hour ago without a word. But you know there's only a few places he'd run off too, and take a taxi back to Vought Tower. As you thought, you find him in his penthouse living room, staring out the window with his arms crossed behind his back. You find it a bit odd when he doesn't acknowledge you, but you enter the room anyway.

"Hey sweetie, there you are! I couldn't find you on the set," you call out cheerily, carrying a small package in your arms. "Why'd you leave?"

"You lied to me," he answers in a blunt tone.

"…What?" you utter, confused to his change in mood.

"You. Lied," he retorts sharply, cutting you off before you can infuriate him any further. He slowly turns around to advance towards you, until you are forced to crane your head straight up to see his scowling face.

"I went by the Tower, to see how your meeting went," he clarifies as he looms his expansive stature over you. "No one had seen you. You were never there."

" Well, I-" you start to say.

"You promised," he snarls, baring his teeth. "You promised me you were different. You promised that you loved me. But you don't. You don't love me. You lied, just like everyone else."

His eyes are wild with fire, not from his lasers but from the torrent of antagonism swarming his mind. He sat alone in his trailer, expecting your return. He waited and waited, until the ticking of the clock and the ringing of his ears became too much for him to handle. He sought solace in his secret companion, his reflection, who was swift to manipulate his anxieties in order to turn him against you.

Throughout your relationship, you've come to understand that Homelander values honesty above anything else. He detests when people lie to him, even moreso when they lie to save themselves from his wrath. You have never lied to him before… until today.

On your anniversary.

Why should he have expected anything less from a human, his reflection goads him. You left him alone, with the present he so thoughtfully picked out for you, going who knows where and doing who knows what. Your kind can't be relied on, not after everything humans have done to him.

You broke his trust, and now he is out for your blood. He is a god that demands sacrifice.

Regardless of his rage, you know he really isn't going to hurt you. Gazing into his furious eyes, you can still discern the lonely little boy buried deep within his psyche. His face is twitching because he's overwhelmed with conflicting emotions. He's mad at you because you made him worry. He's upset because you disappeared; he's scared because he thought he was going to lose you. And you know you that the only way to quell his ire is with the truth.

"Homelander, just… just listen please," you breathe, cautiously planning out your next words as he stares daggers straight through your being. But he does not interrupt, and waits for you to continue.

"Today is our anniversary. This is a momentous event for the both of us," you explain, fiddling with the package tucked into your arm. "I was trying to think of the perfect gift for you, especially when you already have everything. I just… I wanted to get you something special. From the heart… Here."

You lift the box up for him, which he rips from your hands with a scoff. He can't see how a stupid present would somehow make up for what he perceives to be the ultimate betrayal of his trust. However, his irritation at your gesture evaporates the second he lifts the flaps up.

Inside is a small teddy bear, with scruffy and well loved brown fur that smells so intoxicating. It smells like you.

Totally and wholly you.

The box falls unceremoniously from his hands so he can hold onto the plush toy, running his fingers along its pelt. It's so miniscule in his grasp, practically engulfed by his fingers, and yet it feels so much larger. At this moment, it feels like the only thing in the world that matters.

"That was my bear when I was a kid," you detail to him. "I slept with it every night, it meant the world to me. I had to call in some favours to have it taken out of my hometown storage and shipped so fast."

"And now I want you to have it," you smile, walking up to him to place your hand on his thigh. "I know you didn't get to have much of a childhood, so I thought you could share mine."

Whatever anger Homelander was holding onto has completely drained from his body, filling the void with intense sadness. He can't believe he so easily let his reflection turn him against you, when you didn't even do anything. This resentment he felt was for nothing, you were never plotting some nefarious human scheme against him. Instead, you were just at the post office, retrieving your teddy bear for him.

Ever since he's known you, you have always put him first. Nobody has ever treated him with as much care and love as you have.

And now he's blown it.

The tears begin to flow freely down his cheeks as he grapples with his guilt. The constriction in his chest twists a spike deeper into his heart, fearful of what is coming next. You're going to break up with him, he just knows it. You're going to realize he isn't the big tough superhero he claims to be; you'll see him for the insecure child that he really is. Any minute now, the words are coming out of your mouth. It's over, I'm leaving, I hate you, I-

"Hey, hey. It's okay, baby boy, " you say, watching as he spirals deeper into panic. Luckily, your hands pressing into his padded suit are enough to refocus his attention. When his distressed eyes turn down to your face, you spread your arms wide to signal your intentions. "Can you pick me up please?"

With a tense swallow Homelander lifts you up with one arm, holding you close to his chest. Although he does his best to not address you, he can't fight nuzzling into your hands when you start caressing his cheeks. You touch him like he's made of bone china, so delicately, that he can't help pursuing after your affection no matter how upset he feels.

"I am so, so sorry that I lied to you," you console him, wiping away his tears with your thumbs. "I never meant to hurt you. I just wanted this to be a nice surprise, like the flowers you got me."

"S-sorry… s-s-sorry," he whispers timidly as he buries his face into your shoulder in an attempt to hide from his growing shame. However, you don't let him wallow in his irrational worries.

"Sweetpea, you don't have to apologize," you reassure him. "You're entitled to your feelings too, you shouldn't beat yourself up about that."

He doesn't know how to respond to that. During his youth he was never been given any level of autonomy over himself; he was created to serve Vought, so his emotions came second. They always came second, an trivial afterthought to the importance of what he represented to the company. And yet, here you are reminding him of his humanity, of what he had taken from him. You give him encouragement that he is more than just 'The Homelander, leader of The Seven'. Deep down, your words help the isolated little boy see the light shining through his abusive upbringing. He does matter.

"Happy anniversary Homelander," you declare, hugging his big head still snuggled heavily on your shoulder. You comb your fingers through his undercut as you feel him sink further into you. "I know this one might not have gone as well as we hoped, but I know our two month anniversary will be perfect."

"P-promise?" he mutters in a hushed tone, almost as if he's trying to hide his faith in you from his reflection, whom he is concerned might be listening.

"I promise," you assert, giving him a kiss on the top of his head. "From the bottom of my heart, you and I will get through anything as long as we're together."

"T-together…" you hear him mouth weakly to himself. It's a word he's never really thought about before, but hearing it out loud brings a whole new meaning to his life. He's not alone anymore, like he was growing up in the lab. He doesn't have to face his demons all on his own. Now he has you.

And no matter what the world brings, the two of you will always be facing it side by side… together.