Chapter Text
In the end, it wasn’t even a spectacular death.
No heroics. No drawn-out drama. Just a slip, a scream, and the distinct crunch of a skull meeting New York concrete after a fall that really should’ve just ended in a sprained ankle. But that was the thing about luck—it was never really on her side, was it?
One minute Frankie Mayfield was sprinting to make her train down a slick subway stairwell, earbuds in, hoodie up, late for a job she didn’t care about. The next, her world went white.
And then black.
She expected a reboot. Or oblivion. Or, at the very least, Morgan Freeman. Instead, she got:
Breath.
Searing. Sharp. Wrong.
Frankie woke up gasping like she’d been drowning for hours. The first sensation that hit her was pain—not the crushing pain of impact, but something internal , like her blood was on fire and her bones were trying to rearrange themselves.
Then came the awareness. The wrongness of her body.
Not her hoodie. Not her jeans. Definitely not her body.
A chest that rose and fell on its own. A heartbeat.
She shot up in bed. The springs creaking ominously beneath her. “What the—?”
Her voice. It wasn’t hers. Deeper. Stronger. Still feminine, but with a low, confident timbre that didn’t belong in the mouth of a twenty-three-year-old barista who still sometimes got carded for Red Bull.
She looked down. "Jesus Christ, is that my hand?"
It wasn’t.
It was too tan. Too graceful. The nails were done in a pretty red polish. And, when she sat up—wheezing with panic, dark, unfamiliar hair falling in her face— she had boobs. Big ones. Like, gravity-defying . Definitely not hers.
Frankie’s eyes snapped up and inspected the room with such clear vision she could see the dust particles floating in the air. She didn't even know people could have vision this good. She felt like a hawk.
She spotted the mirror—and bolted toward it. She took a step—and suddenly she was in front of the dresser. She tried to stop. To slow down, but couldn’t. Her thigh slammed into the furniture.
CRACK!
But no pain...
She looked down at the mess of wood splinters, half the wardrobe was in pieces, and there was now a fracture running up the plaster from where it had slammed back into the wall. “Jesus, did I just teleport ?” she murmured. Her heart was pounding. She was completely unharmed.
Hesitantly, she looked up from the carnage and into the mirror. Her breath caught in her throat.
The reflection looked like a woman out of a magazine: Tall, toned, defined cheekbones. A jawline that looked like it could cut glass. Long, glossy black curls that looked like they had never known the horrors of dry shampoo. Big, startled blue eyes.
“Who the fuck are you?” she couldn’t help but ask.
She swallowed and looked around again.
There! On the bedside.
She tiptoed over to it carefully. Trying not to do whatever the fuck she’d done the first time.
Beside the boho style lamp was a pair of black, thick-framed glasses and a press badge that read:
LARK KENT, METROPOLITAN GAZETTE
Staff Writer - Politics / Human Interest
…
What?
Lark Kent…
That sounded far too suspiciously like Clark Kent. She was not liking where this was going.
Frankie took a shaky breath and said the only thing she could.
“I think I’m having a psychotic break.”
The bed she’d launched herself out of looked cozy—white sheets, fluffy duvet, disturbingly tasteful throw pillows. It looked like something out of a West Elm catalog.
There were books stacked neatly on the other nightstand. Framed photos on the wall—cityscapes, an old family dog, a group shot at a press junket with people she didn’t recognize. Except… she kind of did.
Her breath hitched.
Memories. Like glitchy pop-ups.
Not Frankie’s.
Coffee at the bodega on 43rd, always with oat milk. A too-long conversation with a coworker trying to set her up on a blind date. The sharp, familiar clack of her heels echoing through the Gazette’s tiled hallways. Her editor, Dave, screaming from three desks away about AP style and clickbait titles.
“Oh god, I know how to spell ‘mayoral,’” she whispered in horror.
Her legs gave out. She dropped onto the edge of the bed, still clutching the glasses like they were a talisman. The furniture beneath her gave a sharp-
CRACK!
She cringed but didn’t get up. The thing still held together, so whatever.
Was Lark like… gone? Buried under the weight of Frankie’s soul? Or was she watching, pissed as hell that someone else was piloting her meat suit?
“Lark Kent.” She said it out loud, testing it like a password.
"Lark Kent. Seriously? Were her parents massive nerds or something?”
But it all felt a little too coincidental for that. Clearly she had fucking superpowers. And Ms. Kent was apparently a journalist and… Did she seriously just get fucking isekai’d into genderbent Clark Kent?
She tried on the glasses and glanced at her reflection in the window. It was dark outside—city-dark, not real dark—but enough to see herself. Instantly, the reflection looked a little less intimidating. Just a hot nerd now. Still striking, but nerdy. She could work with that.
She stood again, slow this time—no more wardrobe carnage. Every step was deliberate. Controlled. She didn’t need another crack in the wall or any more broken furniture.
The city hummed outside the window. Cars. Sirens. Helicopters. All normal sounds. But Frankie could hear them now that she was focusing—every word in a passing conversation, every barking dog. It was like the volume had been turned up on life, and the dial broke off.
“Agh.” She groaned and blocked her ears with her hands
What the hell kind of acid trip had she died into?
Her stomach rumbled. Loudly. Like, window-vibrating loudly. Great. Super-hearing and super-metabolism. She wandered into the kitchen on autopilot and opened the fridge.
“Oh, thank god, carbs.”
A whole shelf of labeled meal-prep containers, each stacked with the rigid precision of someone who absolutely had their shit together. Definitely not her doing.
She downed half a Tupperware of pasta cold. And then she cried.
Not dainty crying. Full-on, ugly, can’t-breathe sobbing into a plastic container of penne arrabbiata.
Because Frankie was dead. And not just dead— reborn . Whoever this Lark was, she’d left behind a life that was now trying to wedge itself into Frankie’s brain. And the worst part?
It felt kinda... normal.
She swallowed the last bite and grabbed the press badge again. The laminate caught the morning light like a beacon.
LARK KENT, METROPOLITAN GAZETTE
Staff Writer - Politics / Human Interest
“So I’m a journalist,” she muttered. “With great tits. And muscles. And-” she raised the hem of the silk tank top she would have never been able to afford. “Six-pack. Cool. Cool cool cool.”
She caught herself in the hallway mirror. Paused. Flexed.
Goddamn. If I had to be stuck in someone else's body, at least its this one.
Okay! Fuck. Focus. You may be a hot chick now, but you’ve gotta focus
She searched around for a laptop before she found it on the dining table between the living room and the kitchen.
She sat in front of it for a minute. Just breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Trying to get used to the feeling of lungs that weren’t hers, skin that didn’t sit right, and a heartbeat that sounded like it belonged to a predator.
“Okay,” she muttered, “Alright. We’re gonna do this the normal way. Step one: don’t Hulk-smash any more furniture. Step two: find out if this is a coma dream or if I really died and woke up as the kind of woman who actually finishes her New Year’s resolutions and fucking meal preps. Jesus. ”
Frankie slipped the laptop open. Password was her birthday—well, Lark’s birthday. The date popped into her head before she even realized she was thinking about it. 02.29.91. February 29th. Pisces. That…annoyingly, seemed to fit.
The computer whirred to life. Chrome was already open, a few tabs bookmarked: Gmail, New York Metro Weather, The Gazette’s website, and— bingo! —YouTube.
She clicked on it.
Instantly, a loud, overly patriotic theme song blared from the speakers. Red, white, and blue exploded across the screen in dramatic 3D animation. She scrambled to turn it down.
VOUGHT INTERNATIONAL: PROTECTING YOU SINCE 1945!
“Meet the Seven! The greatest superheroes in the world!”
She blinked.
“The hell ?”
A banner scrolled across the screen—a guy standing proudly with his weird little flag cape, someone dressed like wonder woman beside him looking like an amazonian Joan of Arc, a tactical ninja looking motherfucker lurking ominously in the back. All of them standing in perfect formation in what looked like the middle of Times Square.
She leaned closer.
And then stared.
She knew that face. The one front and center.
“Oh no.”
Oh no. Oh no no no.
“I’m in The Boys ,” she whispered.
It was him. The creepy blond guy with laser eyes. She’d recognized him—smirking as he shot down a plane with his red glare. It was brutal. There was a little boy on board. The episode had turned her stomach. She never watched another.
“What was his name?” she muttered. “Hollander? No, what the fuck? Uh… shit. Something patriotic. Hometown-no…Homelander?”
The screen switched to a cheesy ad: A mother holding her child on a playground. A narrator promising safety. Security. Hope.
“With the Seven watching over us, America is in good hands.”
Ha. Good hands? More like a chokehold.
She saw a logo at the corner of the screen.
“Vought,” Frankie muttered aloud. The name tickled something in her memory. Not hers. Lark’s.
She clicked away and opened the browser again. Typed in: “Vought International.”
The results flooded in. News sites. Social media. A fan wiki with Homelander’s name in gold. A link to Vought+ streaming service. Photos of Supes. Merchandise. Scandals. Carefully buried articles with weirdly similar headlines like ‘Vought Denies Civilian Casualty Allegations in Botched Raid.’
The deeper she went, the more it hit her like a brick to the head.
This wasn’t just some weird off-brand Marvel/DC thing.
She really was in it.
In The Boys.
And not only that. She was now apparently inside the body of a gender-swapped discount Superman. Complete with a press ID, a wallet full of cash, and memories—Lark’s, not hers— beginning to unfurl like hidden file folders.
And she was apparently not one of them. At least, not officially. No superhero name. No dossier. No bright costume hidden in the closet or trading cards with her face on them.
The web had nothing on “Lark Kent.” Just normal, boring articles with her name on them—some political pieces, some human interest stories. One about a missing dog named Cinnamon that had gone unexpectedly viral a few years ago.
She leaned back in her chair, palms on her temples.
“What the actual hell is happening to me?”
The memories were leaking in more now. Names of city council reps. Street directions in Lark’s hometown in Kansas. The first time Lark drank, and realized alcohol had no effect on her.
Well that fucking sucks!
Frankie tried to focus.
Okay. Facts.
She had a new body. Powers—if the mirror and the broken wardrobe were any indication. Super speed. Super strength. Durability. Insane hearing. Maybe possibly laser eyes if she really was Superman? (She decided not to test that one indoors
She was in The Boys somehow. Which meant danger. Corruption. Blood. So much blood.
But she wasn’t on the map. She didn’t think Vought knew about her. The internet didn’t know about her.
And that, actually, might be the only advantage she had.
Her eyes fell on the press badge again.
Lark Kent.
A nobody with a pen, a laptop, and apparently, the power to punch through steel.
She snorted. “Great. I’ve been isekai’d into a fascist superhero satire with the powers of a god and a LinkedIn account.”
She stood up, dragging her fingers through her hair, trying to process all of it at once. Too many emotions crowded in—grief, confusion, awe, dread.
Frankie wasn’t just alive. She was something else entirely.
She collapsed face-first onto the bed.
CRACK!
The whole bed frame snapped and slumped to the floor.
“ Motherfucker!!” she shouted in surprise. Then she pouted, her eyes brimming with tears. She shoved her face into the duvet. “I want a refund on reincarnation.”