Maeve and Clark saw the damage to the instrument panel the instant it happened.
Clark didn't waste breath arguing with Homelander over it. He stepped into the cockpit and pressed a piece of candy into the mouth of the pilot whose throat had been cut. He pulled out a second one for the co-pilot whose scalp had just been burned away.
The wounds closed fast. Severed vessels sealed, torn skin knit back together, and where bare white bone had showed a moment ago, new scalp grew.
Maeve and Homelander stared. Neither had any idea what Superman had just used, since neither had ever seen him carry or need anything like it.
There was no time to dwell on it. The plane needed them.
The two pilots came back to themselves, saw the wrecked instrument panel, and went pale. A second later, the surviving pilot saw the dead hijacker on the floor. The shock hit him all over again.
"What now?" Maeve rounded on Homelander, her jaw tight. "Why didn't we just take him down together in the first place? You and Superman, both at once. That guy wouldn't have had a chance."
Homelander's expression cooled. "You giving me pointers now, Maeve?"
"I'm asking you what the plan is."
The plane bucked. A violent shudder ran through the fuselage. Homelander's heat vision had chewed through more wiring and components than anyone realized, and the aircraft was losing control fast.
"Get outside. Hold it up, do something."
"Hold it up how?" Homelander asked, his tone flat. "There's nothing out there to stand on."
"Then get it level, keep it steady, I don't care what. Do something."
"The plane's going down no matter what either of us does. That's a hundred and twenty-three people on board. Do the math." Homelander laughed. "Face it. Our job here's finished."
"There are still kids on this plane. We can carry two or three out ourselves, at the very least. We save who we can save." Maeve stepped closer to him. "It shouldn't be a problem to save at least a few people."
Homelander wasn't listening. He had already turned and started walking toward the blown-open rear door. Superman was nowhere to be found.
"Take a page from Superman's book, Maeve." Contempt laced Homelander's voice. "Man's smarter than you. Took him about two seconds to work out this whole op wasn't worth finishing."
"That's insane. Impossible. Superman wouldn't just..."
She trailed off. Clark had been the quiet force putting her back together lately. He was the reason she found the nerve to push back on Homelander, the reason she started looking at who she really was underneath.
If there was one word that fit Clark, it was hero.
But he's gone. Why would he just leave?
Homelander grabbed her arm and hauled her toward the door. Cold air whipped past her.
She looked down and found a pair of eyes looking back up.
A little girl clutched a small doll to her chest. She didn't understand what was happening, only that everyone around her was crying. She wasn't crying. She just stared at Maeve, because Maeve was the hero she saw on television. The one who saved people.
"Queen Maeve," she said. "Are you going to save us?"
Maeve opened her mouth. Nothing came out.
"What are you standing around for?" Homelander yanked her arm again. "F-16s are almost here. We cannot be seen out here."
"Why not?" The question slipped out before she decided to ask it.
"Because, genius, do you want the whole country finding out Vought's own hero left an entire plane full of people to die?"
The words landed heavy. Hero. A plane full of people. Left to die. Her eyes narrowed, and she stopped moving.
How did I even end up on this road. She looked at her right hand. Her fingers curled instinctively around the old break. The bones had never set right. The scar tissue remained, aching on certain days.
I wanted to be a hero once. That's the only reason any of this started.
"What? What are you even mumbling about?" Homelander pulled her toward the door through the howling wind. "Enough stalling. We're leaving."
The passengers behind them unbuckled their seatbelts and surged toward the back of the cabin. They screamed, stretching their hands toward the two supes.
"Please, God, save us."
"I don't want to die."
"Take us with you. Please, at least take them."
They crowded closer, praying and sobbing. Maeve looked out over the aisle. For a second, she was thirteen again, standing on a school bus tipping toward black water. The same desperate eyes stared back at her from every direction.
That day had left her with a hand that never fully healed.
Would I do it again?
"Save them." Her voice came out low.
"I said, save them."
She reached out and grabbed two people in one motion, hauling the little girl and her mother clear of the crowd.
Just like hauling that bus back onto the road, all those years ago.
She turned, her footing steady, and looked Homelander in the eye. "Save as many as you can."
"Are you out of your goddamn mind? I already told you, we can't save all of them, which means we don't save any of them."
Something flickered behind Homelander's eyes. "Have I been going easy on you lately? Given you the wrong idea that I'm someone you can argue with?"
Maeve did not flinch. She did not back down.
Clark might not be here anymore.
She answered him anyway, her voice calm. "Save as many as you can."
"I said, get out."
Red light flared in Homelander's eyes.
The cabin lights had gone dark, the plane's power failing. In the shadows, Homelander did not look like the warm icon people saw on screens.
He looked like something with teeth, deciding if it was hungry enough to bother.