Where The Heart Is: Issue # 0.75

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

February 30th, 1992

Vought-American Prospect Creek Facility

Yukon-Koyukuk, Alaska

Johnny wasn't sure why he was here.

Why they were here, honestly.

It was rare that the scientists let him out of his little room, rarer still that they even let him see sunlight.

Even rarer that he got to see his father.

He glanced up at the man, the hero of the century that everyone knew as Soldier Boy and he simply knew as "Father".

"Sir", if he was in trouble.

The man was busy, he knew that, and he had only gotten busier the older Johnny grew.

Supervillain fights on the East Coast had turned to supervillain fights across the country, and then supervillain fights in North America and eventually, it had become Soldier Boy's job to fight evil in all of the Americas.

Even still, Johnny could expect a visit from his father at least four or five times a year, even at his most hectic and he appreciated that.

Still, it was unexpected for Doctor V to wake him up early in the morning and put him on a four hour flight on a nearly-empty cargo plane all the way to some empty part of Alaska.

The ten-year old had resisted the urge to poke holes in the plane's hull, almost holding himself back physically despite the boredom of the flight numbing his mind. Staying on his best behavior when around his father was something he always tried to do no matter what but it felt even more important that he do so today. Something told him the situation was different compared to the usual meetups he had with his father, the location of their encounter standing out as the biggest oddity.

"You know," Benjamin Veder began softly, breaking the tense quiet between father and son. The harsh Alaskan wind blew loud, it's howl strong enough to effectively render a normal man's voice silent but Soldier Boy could have delivered an entire speech in a normal tone and still be heard by every person in attendance. "It's a man's job to dig in his heels and take whatever the world throws at him. It's a man's duty to be strong, tough, hard. It is a man's job to make other people understand that he won't take any shit."

Johnny nodded slowly, agreeing with his father's words but still unable to shake the odd feeling of nerves as the man's expression refused to soften even the slightest bit.

"It's also a man's duty to train his up the right way, so he doesn't become a fuckin' lunatic when he becomes a man," the hero tilted his head to the side, expression not lightening despite the motion. "My father told me that, said it was from the Bible or something. Anyway…"

Soldier Boy let out a long sigh before he finally spoke again.

But he did finally speak.

"Vogelbaum told me you killed another one."

The boy nodded quickly, head bobbing like a toy on the dashboard as he smiled at his father expectantly. "It's true, father. I-"

Jonathan Veder didn't see the sucker punch coming until the gloved fist was already in his face, snapping his head to the side and sending the child stumbling back.

"So, Vogelbaum wasn't lying to me. You killed your teacher," Soldier Boy stated with certainty, his words the furthest thing from a question. "You. Killed. Your. Teacher.:

Johnny looked up with surprise and fear on his face, eyes wide with uncertainty and brimming with unshed tears. "I-I-I… it was an accident. I didn't mean t-"

The boy went silent, the unfamiliar taste of blood filling his mouth in place of words as a heavy boot to his unguarded face shut him up. The world blurred and spun as he tumbled head over heels across the icy tundra. It took seconds that dragged on like minutes but the young super found himself on all fours, fingers digging through the ice like butter in an attempt to slow himself down as he slid back.

"You're not going to lie to me, you understand that?!" Soldier Boy rushed forward in a blur, friction somehow not a problem as he burst across the ice with speeds that would leave a race car in the dust without a doubt. "Don't you ever fucking lie to me."

Without a moment to prepare himself, the boy found himself on the received end of another furious strike, one even harder than the first.

This time to his chest.

Unlike before, Johnny was able to put up his guard. He planted his feet and flexed an invisible muscle the way his father taught him. He wasn't sure how it worked. His dad wasn't sure how it worked. Vought wasn't sure how it worked.

Regardless of their lack of knowledge, it somehow managed to do the job all the same, making his body becoming nearly unmovable to anything that didn't approach the level of strength he could exert.

It didn't matter at all.

The blow sent him hurtling back even farther, the air exploding from the force of impact even as his father held back just enough that he wouldn't shatter the eardrums of the people at the Vought base over a mile away.

Still, that didn't make Johnny feel much better as he found himself blasting apart a snowbank and sinking deep into it from the force of his landing.

"Get the fuck up, Johnny," the boy heard his father's voice from beneath several feet of snow, his eyes closed as he tried to feign unconsciousness. Footsteps neared his position as the man slowly stomped over to where his body was buried, the only part of him above ground a single foot.

"Did you hear me?" Johnny heard him come to a stop, the question leaving his lips in a growl. Even if he didn't have super-hearing, the voice had an unmistakable presence to it, almost a physical thing, audible from a distance even when the man was speaking in normal tones.

It was intimidating enough when he was calm.

A terrifying thing when he was angry.

"I said…"

Jonathan Veder felt a heavy hand slice through the snow and grab him hard by the neck. Oh no.

Soldier Boy yanked him upwards, one hand firm around his neck and let out a fearsome, powerful yell right in his face. "GET THE FUCK UP!"

The boy's blond locks blew back from the force of Soldier Boy's yell, his ears ringing harder than they had been from the punch to the face just moments ago. Vision still spinning, Johnny blinked as he found himself unceremoniously dropped on his butt, the boy's palms meeting the icy ground a half-instant later.

"You've taken harder hits than that," Soldier Boy continued, the man stomping around his son like an army drill sergeant. "And you're gonna take even harder ones if you don't tell me the fuckin' truth."

Anger welled up in his chest as John Veder growled back at his father, the boy rising back to his feet as he flew up a meter until he was staring the man in the face. "What fuckin' truth?"

"LANGUAGE!"

This blow was faster than the others.

It hit even harder too, the hard gut punch folding the blond boy in half around the older man's clenched fist. A split second later, John found himself half a mile down the tundra with a crack of thunder as he broke the sound barrier behind him. It took him a few seconds more before the boy managed to slow himself down with the reverse force of his own flight. Little Johnny caught himself upside down and twisted until he was a wobbly, vertical mess, barely managing to hold himself in the air as his arms clutched at his stomach.

"Bbbblaaaargghhh!" The remnants of a hurried meal from several hours ago spilled from his open mouth, the hot vomit steaming against the cold snow.

His head still spinning from the sudden strike, Johnny barely had time to react as his father came barreling right after him faster than any train could manage, his speed on the ground faster than anything land-based had a right to be.

Soldier Boy came to a stop a few meters away from the flying boy, simply watching silently for a moment as his son spat blood and vomit on the ground before turning furious blue eyes back at him.

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Then he spoke.

"You don't raise your fuckin' voice at me, young man," he pointed a finger at his hovering son, sounding for all the world like a regular father. "And you certainly watch your mouth wh-

Blue eyes flared with red heat as the flying boy launched himself forward.

Soldier Boy didn't give him a chance.

The air screamed as the man spun around so fast he was more like a streak of motion than a blur. With decades of experience guiding his body, Benjamin Veder struck out with skill and momentum. Superhuman limb an unyielding battering ram, it struck the boy hard in the chest with precision and unnatural force.

Johnny hit the ground hard enough to shatter the ice and whatever else was beneath it, a large indent formed beneath the boy as he took a few moments to catch his breath.

A rare situation.

Not one that lasted either.

Johnny rushed forward out of the crater and met his father with a blow the man easily defended against as he smirked mockingly at the growling face of his son.

Just like that, the brawl continued without a moment's hesitation.

Fist met fist as both superhumans, large and small, threw ground-shattering blows at each other, the tundra resounding with noises comparable to cracks of thunder with every passing second.

A blow from Soldier Boy caught the small blond off-guard and he stumbled back before catching himself in mid-air. Before his father could rush forward, Johnny roared, mouth open as raw heat lanced out from his eyes, lines of power burning hot and unrepentantly dangerous.

Dangerous to anyone that wasn't his father, at least.

Soldier Boy didn't flinch, the man standing his ground completely unmoved as his son unleashed the biggest and most powerful blast of heat he had ever attempted. The air screamed, the snow steamed and the nearest trees just meters away burst into flame from the sudden rise in temperature as the young Veder screamed his lungs out as his eyes burned from his display of power.

Three seconds later, the light show ended and the veteran scoffed, blinking away spots from his vision as he remained completely and utterly untouched by something that would have vaporized a human being at the very least. He cocked his head as he shot a sneer toward his son and let out a scoff. "Every single t-"

The air screamed again as Jonathan Veder broke the sound barrier from a standstill, fingers balled up as he held it out in front of him.

Fist met Shield with a sound that couldn't even be compared to thunder.

The shield held.

The fist stayed strong.

The ground did neither.

The surface beneath the two superhumans shattered apart from the force of their combined blow, snow and soil giving way entirely. "Son of a-!" Soldier Boy stumbled back slightly in pure shock as a large portion of the earth under his feet ceased to be, his eyes wide as the septuagenarian was suddenly forced to scramble to regain his footing.

"Bit-!"

The curse went unfinished as a tiny forehead slammed itself hard into Ben Veder's nose, the man grunting aloud as his son flew far back and out of reach of his wild returning swing, the air cracking as the sound barrier shattered in the opposite way his father's nose hadn't. A hand flew to his nose, cradling it as the old soldier took a moment to make sure the cartilage was still whole and untouched, which it was.

Regardless of the man's durability, though, it didn't change the simple fact that it hurt like a motherfucker.

Still in the air on a return path to meet his father head-on, Johnny tightened both hands into fists and poured on the speed as he held them out in front of him.

Soldier Boy's eyes widened as he heard the boy's approach before his eyes caught him and the man dodged, throwing himself out of the path of his son's charge an instant before impact.

The ground shattered apart once more, frozen ground cracking and splintering as the force of the ten-year old's impact shook the earth beneath with the force of an earthquake.

The dust didn't have time to clear before the boy rocketed back out of his impact crater, slamming into his father while screaming loud enough to vibrate the air with the force of his lungs.

A small fist hammered the side of Soldier Boy's face an instant before another strike boxed the side of his ear, rattling his skull and forcing a quet grunt from the stern man's lips.

Soldier Boy's eyes widened even further as a third blow barrelled into his chest with a sound like thunder. He barely caught himself from hurling backwards as he doubled over with a soft growl, the man maintaining his footing with that odd personal grounding that any of Vought's top-tier supes seemed capable of.

A look of odd pride could be seen on Soldier Boy's face as he stood up straight.

KRRAK!

Just in time for it to be replaced completely by a twisted grimace of pain as the man took a powerful uppercut to the underside of his jaw.

The unexpected blow was too much this time and the hero went flying as if launched from a rocket, an actual audible grunt of pain noticeable from his mouth the instant before he departed towards the horizon.

Jonathan Veder stood stock still as the cold air blew against him. Arctic winds rushed hard, the conditions that any normal person dressed in clothes even four times as thick as what he had on would be at risk of dying from exposure.

Even still, the ten-year old might as well have been in a temperature-controlled room for all that he seemed to notice as he remained perfectly unmoving, completely and utterly motionless in the way that supes like him could be.

Yet, despite his superhuman body seeming more like a statue than anything else, the boy's eyes remained constantly in motion, flickering back and forth so fast his pupils themselves were all but invisible.

His fists were raised by his face, his guard up as he waited for his father to come barreling back over the horizon like a land-bound rocket.

He remained patient as he waited for whatever surprise was coming next.

And waited…

And waited…

And…

Moments turned to seconds turned to minutes as the boy continued to wait, his face losing the expression of hardened vigilance that only seemed cute on a boy his age rather than intimidating.

After fifteen minutes of what seemed like pointless anticipation, the boy dropped his hands to his sides and let out an annoyed huff, eyes glowing as he growled at the empty tundra and scowled at the trees. With an irritated stomp and a pout, little Johnny Veder couldn't help himself but shout, "Is that it, old man?! I know I'm faster than you but you can't be this slow just cause you're old as h-"

BOOM!

The boy's eyes widened as his ears caught the distinct noise of something big breaking the sound barrier, head snapping to the side just in time to catch sight of-

"UGH!"

-catch sight of his father's hyper-dense Voughtanium shield an instant before it slammed into his unprotected stomach at a speed just past that of sound. The ground beneath his feet cracked, the air around him screamed and the blond boy himself went hurtling back from the force of the sudden hit.

After several seconds of flying horizontally over the ground not under his own propulsion, the Veder boy finally came to a stop head down and ass up, little body half-buried up to his waist in a snowbank for the second time that morning.

With a roar far more powerful than a boy his size should produce, young John burst out of a small mountain of snow, eyes burning as the white blanket melted around him almost instantly.

His red gaze snapped to a point just a few meters away as he spotted Soldier Boy chuckling under his breath, the man casually securing his shield back onto his arm as he leaned up against the trunk of a tall spruce. Benjamin smirked down at the scowling boy and raised a hand to cup his chin as his expression grew wider, all the way from cocky to mocking. "What was that about me being old?"

Johnny lunged.

Soldier Boy was faster.

The boy slammed down to the ground with a hard and heavy hand around his neck, barely able to breath as he stared up impotently at his father, eyes blazing with hellfire.

Soldier Boy wasn't bothered as his son continued blasting him with useless displays of heat vision as he lifted the boy up and slammed him back down into the ground with a roar.

And again.

And again.

And again until he had dug a far deeper crater than his son had managed on his own.

Eventually after nearly a dozen repeated hammerings, Soldier Boy spat off to the side, hair still somehow perfect even after weathering enough focused heat to melt through several feet of steel. He glared down once more at his son's still-red eyes, the boy looking both dazed and livid at the same time, a curious expression for a boy his age to wear.

"Try that again and I'll knock your front teeth out, brat," Soldier Boy warned as he looked down at his son, emerald eyes flashing with barely restrained anger of his own. "You hear me?"

Both father and son glared at each other with expressions and faces that mirrored each other for several long seconds, waiting for the other to give in first.

As usual, the father won out.

Little Johnny nodded slowly as his eyes faded back to blue. "I hear you… sir."

"...good." Soldier Boy clicked his tongue and slowly released his hold on his son's neck, the man taking several slow steps back as if daring the boy to try something. "Now, I want you to listen close…"

Johnny's scowl remained on his face but he kept his anger tamped down as firmly as he could. After a second of quiet glaring, the boy pulled himself back up into a sitting position within the small crater he occupied, and nodded once again.

"Listen," Soldier Boy began again, a bitter scowl on his face to match that of his son's still on his face, "I don't give a rat's ass if you take out any white coat that pokes and prods at you too much thinkin' like you're some kind of lab rat," he continued on, voice growing heavier and louder as he spoke. "I've told you that a man gives as good as he gets and if they're gonna make you suffer, you show 'em that you're no pussy. You're a goddamn Veder and you act like it, understand?"

"Yes, sir," Jonathan responded exactly the way his father taught him to, heat slowly leaving his glare as the shield-bearing man continued to speak. "I understand."

"Thing is, you didn't kill a white coat, did you?"

"Father, I-"

"Don't interrupt me," Soldier Boy shut him down, voice calm but firm.

"Sorry, sir."

"You killed your teacher. You killed a dame." Soldier Boy stepped forward. "Why?"

"..." The boy remained silent, heat rising in his eyes as his expression grew stormier with each passing second.

Soldier Boy didn't appreciate the silence. "I asked you a question, boy."

"She said she loved me, okay!" Johnny yelled out, anger and something else in his tone spilling out audibly as he yelled back at his father.

Mouth open and eyebrow raised, all Soldier Boy could do was tilt his head as he responded with a confused, "What?"

"She said she was my mommy and that she loved me."

"..." Soldier Boy stared silently, a blank look on his face.

"I asked her," Johnny continued, small hands into tight fists as his eyes brimmed with heat again. "I asked her if she would be my mommy, and she said she loved me and I could hear her lying to me."

"Kid…"

"She could have just said no."

"Boy…"

"Why did she li-" "JOHN!"

Johnny flinched, eyes locking on to his father as he took an uncertain step back.

"I…" Soldier Boy paused, another heavy sigh leaving the man. "I… I'm gonna be honest, Johnny. My mother… your grandma… She died giving birth to me. I grew up without one just like you, and I know it hurts but…" The bearded supe shook his head. "You just can't take your anger out on some frail bird who doesn't know any better."

"You don't kill dames, understand?" Soldier Boy finally stated, a sigh leaving the man's mouth with the last syllable. "Sure, they're getting in your face, acting a little out of sorts, you give 'em a pop on the head, reset their noggin, remind 'em you're a man, okay, but…" Soldier Boy shook his head once more, "you don't kill 'em."

Johnny nodded again. "Yes, sir."

"Son of a…" Benjamin sighed again, the man rubbing a palm down his face as he did so "Me, I guess. Enough with the sir and cool off with the father, alright. I don't know what I was thinking when I told you to use that but just like me, it's gotten a bit old. If you're gonna call me anything, call me Dad."

Johnny blinked, a small smile growing across his face. "Yes… dad."

"Now, let's get some fucking soup or something. I'm not trying to have you sick or whatever."