Free Web NovelChapter 29: Chapter 29: Sweetheart, What Are You Doing Here?
Thirty-eight thousand feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
A passenger plane was flying smoothly above the clouds.
Inside the cabin, one hundred and twenty-three passengers and six crew members were living through the longest forty minutes of their lives.
Twenty minutes after takeoff, three hijackers had pulled out their weapons.
The plane had been hijacked.
Then the cabin door was violently torn open.
Air rushed in, oxygen masks dropped all at once, and before the passengers’ screams could fully leave their throats, a figure in a blue Supersuit and a red cape had landed steadily in the middle of the aisle.
His cape whipped back in the violent shift of cabin pressure, and his blue eyes shone in the dim cabin light like two ignited shell casings.
Behind him, Maeve landed as well, her combat boots striking the cabin floor as her knees bent slightly to absorb the impact.
The first criminal was sucked out through the cabin door before he could react.
The second turned to fire, but Maeve’s hand had already clamped onto the back of his neck. With a twist of her wrist and a crisp crack, his body went limp and collapsed into the aisle.
As for the third criminal, Homelander’s laser eyes had already burned straight through his chest.
The three criminals were dealt with.
Homelander flicked his wrist, walked to the cabin door, grabbed the door panel with both hands, and pulled it shut. The pressure difference vanished, and the screams gradually died down.
He turned to face the cabin full of shaken passengers, opened his arms, and put on a standard smile showing eight perfect teeth.
"The crisis is over. You’re safe."
The cabin erupted into deafening cheers. Some people covered their faces and cried. Some collapsed back into their seats, gasping for air. Others shouted, "Long live Homelander!" and "I love you, Homelander!"
Homelander stood in the middle of the aisle, accepting the applause and praise pouring in from every direction.
The curve of his smile was higher than usual.
Good.
When he got back tonight, Benjamin would definitely be even prouder of him.
He was always being called a "wimp," but today, he had pulled off something damn impressive over the Atlantic.
Three lives. No, three criminals, all eliminated. The hostages were safe and sound. What else could his father say? This was fucking growth.
"Go check the cockpit," he said to Maeve.
The two pushed open the cockpit door.
The captain was still being held hostage by a fourth hijacker.
Just like in the original plot, Homelander shot the hijacker and accidentally sliced through the plane’s control panel.
Every indicator light on the control panel flashed at once, then half of them went dark.
The altitude reading on the instrument panel jumped twice, then began to drop.
"What did you do?" Maeve’s voice tightened sharply.
"I don’t know. Shit."
Homelander stared at the panel that had been cut in half by his heat vision and jabbed a few buttons with his finger.
No response.
He jabbed a few more times.
Still no response.
The plane lurched hard.
Screams erupted through the cabin again.
Maeve grabbed the cockpit doorway to steady herself and looked at Homelander. "The controls are broken?"
Homelander did not answer.
He stood there, staring at the control panel, the confidence in his blue eyes deflating as quickly as a punctured balloon.
It was over.
Those three words exploded in his mind, hotter than the heat vision that had just burned through the hijacker’s chest.
He had screwed up. freewebnøvel.coɱ
Just moments ago, he had wanted to make his father proud. Now he had screwed up the entire plane.
The image of Benjamin shaking his head in disappointment surfaced again, and he could almost hear his father’s voice.
"Look at yourself. You really are a complete and utter wimp."
"Lift the plane."
Maeve’s voice pulled him back to reality.
"Lift the plane? How?"
Homelander turned around, frustration spilling into his voice.
"There’s no point of leverage. We’re in midair. Where am I supposed to put my hands? If I use force, I’ll just punch straight through it.
"Even if I try to lift the plane, my whole body will go through the entire thing."
Maeve was silent for a moment.
"Then get in front of it and push it level."
"Push it? At my speed, if I hit it, the plane either flips over or gets punched through."
After thinking about it, Maeve had to admit that would not work either.
She looked out the cabin window at the endless Atlantic below, her mind racing through every possible option.
The descent was becoming more and more obvious. The body of the plane was tilting downward at an irreversible angle.
"Then one at a time," Maeve said.
"Take the passengers down one by one. To shore. Or to one of the islands below."
"One hundred and twenty-three round trips?"
Homelander looked back at the cabin full of people, then out the window at the endless Atlantic. "We’re in the middle of the Atlantic."
"Then what do you suggest?" Maeve’s voice rose too.
"I don’t know! I said I don’t know!"
Homelander shouted, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists.
He was Homelander. The most powerful Supe in the world.
He had Super Speed, Super Strength, Heat Vision, Flight. He could do anything. But facing a falling plane and a cabin full of ordinary people, none of those abilities were worth a damn.
"Listen," Maeve lowered her voice and leaned closer, "if Soldier Boy finds out about this..."
Homelander’s expression turned incredibly ugly in that instant.
"He’ll know I screwed it up. No... I just built a model airplane with him yesterday..."
Homelander’s voice suddenly lowered, almost as if he were talking to himself.
"He’ll know. He knows everything."
The passengers in the cabin began screaming again.
Women and children were crying. Men were pounding on the armrests. An old woman began reciting the Bible.
Homelander walked down the aisle.
He had to calm the passengers. No matter what, he had to stabilize the situation first.
He reached the middle of the cabin and was just about to raise his hands to signal for everyone to be quiet when a familiar little girl’s voice came up from below.
"Mr. Homelander, you’re going to save us, right?"
Homelander’s feet froze in place.
Mia was sitting by the window.
Two golden braids, a gap-toothed smile, a pink dress.
The little girl who had smeared a double-scoop ice cream all over his pants on a New York street corner yesterday.
She had said, "Superhero, thank you, I love you."
Her mother had later bought her a triple-scoop ice cream, along with a Homelander and Soldier Boy father-son action figure set.
Right now, those eyes were looking up at him. Not with fear, but with trust.
When he first arrived, he had not even noticed her.
"Oh my God."
He crouched down. frёeωebɳovel.com
"Sweetheart, what are you doing here?"
Beside Mia, her mother held her tightly.
The mother’s eyes were red and swollen, clearly from crying earlier, but the moment she saw Homelander crouch down, her lips trembled, and she forced out a smile.
"We... we’re on a trip..."
Homelander reached out and lifted Mia into his arms.
The little girl wrapped her arms around his neck, her cheek pressed against his shoulder armor, her cold little hands clutching the fabric on the back of his Supersuit.
He looked back at Maeve.
Maeve was leaning against the cockpit doorway, watching them with her lips pressed tightly together.
