Soldier boy

You had seen everything. Kingdoms rising and falling, monarchs and dictators, revolutions and executions. You had stood in the crowds when the Declaration of Independence was signed, you had heard the shot that ended Lincoln’s life, you had watched world leaders cut down before your very eyes, and you had kept walking through centuries without ever letting anyone close. You always looked twenty, youthful and untouched by the passing of time, but you carried ages of memory in your bones. Love never lasted. Everyone you had cared for withered and died, leaving you behind with grief that never dulled, and that was why you stopped trying. When you hit a hundred you told yourself you were done. It felt wrong to date when everyone around you would only crumble into dust. You lasted one thousand, then five hundred more, then more still, always convincing yourself that you could remain detached, that solitude was safer.

But then he came. Soldier Boy. Ben. Loud, brash, arrogant, careless, and yet somehow the only one who ever cracked you open. You had known men with crowns, men with guns, men with armies, but you had never met anyone who smiled like he did, who laughed in that deep crude way, who could hold you like nothing in the world mattered except his grip. Somehow he found his way into your heart, uninvited and unstoppable, like a bomb you never saw coming. You had resisted for months, even years, but Soldier Boy never took no for an answer. He wormed his way past your walls, teased you, pressed at you, came back every time you tried to push him away. Eventually you let him in and god did you love him.

His laugh was thunder and you adored it. His bluntness was often cruel but you still clung to it. His smile was carved into you like a scar, one you never wanted healed. And he loved you in his own way, maybe because you were older, maybe because you had more experience, maybe because you made him feel like he was still more than just a weapon. The way you caressed his cheek even when he was covered in blood boosted his ego more than he’d ever admit. The way you kissed him like only he mattered filled him with a pride he never told you about. He never said it but he loved that you had lived through ages, that you had seen the world burn and still saw something in him.

You knew what he was. You saw his violence, his temper, his cruelty, but you also saw the small cracks beneath it. And he saw you. Truly saw you. It terrified you more than any battlefield ever had.

But then it happened. Vought. The betrayal. You had been with Soldier Boy and Payback long enough to know that none of them could be trusted, but even you didn’t expect them to turn on him so quickly. You knew he was dangerous, you knew they feared him, and you knew they would try something, but you weren’t there when it happened. Vought made sure of that. They sent you on a mission states away, too far to get back in time. They had calculated everything perfectly. They knew you’d try to protect him, knew you’d fight to the death to keep him alive, and so they separated you. And you failed. By the time you came back, it was over. Soldier Boy was gone.

Forty years. You had lived through forty years without him. You kept moving, kept surviving, like you always did. You learned to use phones that weren’t landlines, saw the world twist into something uglier and colder, saw The Seven rise like grotesque gods. You did hero work on your own, never signing yourself to Vought, refusing to play their game. You settled in Colorado for a time, tried to stay away from the chaos, even though the hunger for blood never left you. Homelander had shown his face by then and you despised him immediately, his whining, his need for attention, his mask of perfection. You ignored him, ignored all of them, and kept working alone.

Sometimes you would think of Soldier Boy and hate yourself for it. Sometimes you would close your eyes and remember his hands, his voice, his crude jokes. Sometimes you would imagine the way he laughed in bed, the way he’d press you into the sheets, the way his chest felt against your back when you thought you’d finally found peace. Then you’d remind yourself he was gone. You told yourself not to be weak, not to mourn someone who had been taken. But you did anyway.

You were lost in thought that night when the doorbell rang. At first you ignored it, thinking it was just some delivery. You checked the camera app on your phone and saw a skinny kid standing on the porch, looking nervous. You had ordered something online, so you figured it was fine. You went down the stairs, ready to grab the package, when the sound of splintering wood and breaking walls rang out like thunder. You shouted without thinking, heart pounding as you rushed down the stairs, only to stop dead at the sight.

Your front wall was half gone, crumbling inward where your door had been, shards of wood and drywall raining onto the floor. The kid who had been standing there was gaping in shock, staring past the wreckage. And through it stepped a figure you thought you’d never see again. Soldier Boy.

He hadn’t aged a day. Same iconic suit, same heavy shield, same bulk of muscle and arrogance dripping from every line of his body. He stood there like forty years hadn’t passed, like you hadn’t lived every one of them in mourning.

Your breath caught in your throat, your eyes narrowing, your heart clawing at your ribs. “…Ben?” you whispered, unsure if you were hallucinating, unsure if your mind had finally broken after so many years.

And then he smiled. That wolfish grin, sharp and cocky, that never quite touched his eyes. He stepped toward you until he was right in your face, so close you could feel the heat radiating from him, and that grin widened.

“Miss me, sweetheart?” he asked softly, voice dripping with the same cruel humor you remembered. The smile was there but it was wrong, not reaching his eyes, waiting for your answer like he wanted to hear you beg.