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Butcher’s hands shook against the steering wheel as he drove back to headquarters. Whether it was because of the rapid decline his physical health was on, or because of the sheer fucking insanity his past few days had been, he wasn't sure. He wasn’t sure why he was even going back to headquarters at all, not really. The boys were sure to be livid with him, for disappearing without a trace and ignoring all of their calls and messages for days on end. M.M. might not even let him back inside the building.
But he just had to. He was hoping that one of them, somehow, would help him get his head straight. Help him figure out what the fuck he was going to do. He was looking for some sort of sign, one way or the other, for somebody to talk some fucking sense into him, since the person he’d been scheming with and taking advice from over the past few weeks was apparently nothing more than a figment conjured up by his rotting, tumor-addled brain.
To do it or not to do it? To do it or not to do it? To do it or not–
He needed an outsider’s perspective. Maybe the boys could give him that.
Not that he was going to tell them anything of the sort. He was going to waltz into headquarters, cocky and self-assured as always, and pretend that his entire world hadn’t been violently thrown off its axis. Pretend that he didn’t have an innocent man kidnapped and chained up in a barn miles away. Pretend that he wasn’t haunted by the hallucinations of his deceased loved ones. He was going to ignore M.M. and Starlight’s lectures about his disappearance, ignore the silent looks of disdain and disappointment from Kimiko and Frenchie, ignore the self-righteous little tantrum that Hughie was sure to throw, guilting Butcher with his stupid bloody moral high ground because Hughie was fundamentally good and Butcher was a fucked-up, dying wretch of a man–
… Hughie would hate him for this. Hate that he was even considering this. Hughie had put up with a truly impressive amount of bullshit from Butcher over the years, but this was something that he was sure to never, ever forgive Butcher for.
He shook his head in an attempt to clear it, and only succeeded in worsening the headache that was constantly lurking at his temple as of late. He wasn’t going to let the bloody kid guilt him into not going through with this. Not now, not when he was so close, not when the solution he’d been searching for for over a decade was right at his fingertips–
He’d arrived at their headquarters. He parked as close as he could to the entrance (because nowadays even short walks left him winded and breathless, one of the many symptoms of his rapidly worsening health that he’d been stubbornly ignoring) and sauntered inside, putting as much swing in his step as his battered body would allow.
Starlight, Kimiko, and M.M. were all crowded around a single laptop when he entered, having a conversation in hushed tones that Butcher was sure was delightfully dull. All three of them looked up when they heard the door swing open, their jaws dropping in unison when they caught sight of his face.
Butcher’s predictions were pretty spot on. Kimiko’s features quickly rearranged themselves into a scowl, M.M. let out a loud “Oh, hell no,” rising from his seat in disbelief, and Starlight immediately stormed over to him, practically spitting with fury. “Where the fuck have you been?” she demanded, and it was all Butcher could do not to send his eyes rolling into the back of the skull as Starlight’s eyes glowed briefly with rage. “We’ve been trying to access you for days–”
“Alright, alright, keep your hair on. I’m here now, ain’t I?” M.M. had actually turned around completely, dragging his hands across his face, and Kimiko’s gaze was burning with something resentful and a little bit wild. The expression reminded Butcher of when Frenchie had first dragged Kimiko into their group like a feral cat, and she was still angry and volatile and prone to chucking them across the room at the slightest provocation. And, even though he was a dying man, he didn’t particularly feel like being on the receiving end of her violent wrath today, so he did his best to force his expression into some semblance of regret. “Look, I’m sorry I missed the bleedin’ cocktail party, alright? But you figured it out without me, didn’t you? All made it out in one piece? You’re capable of pulling up your big-boy pants and managing without me for a few days.”
“One piece?” Starlight repeated, a little hysterically. “Do you want me to catch you up on what the fuck has happened since you went on your little vacation? Homelander and Sage are planning on dumping thousands of people into prison camps, Victoria Neuman is helping them orchestrate a fucking coup, Frenchie turned himself in and got thrown in prison , and Hughie–” she cut herself off abruptly, shutting her eyes and pressing her lips into a thin line. She was silent for a moment, seemingly trying to reign her temper in, before she opened her eyes again, her gaze as cold as steel. “Shit is bad. There’s too much at stake right now, you can’t just disappear like that.”
Butcher reflected on that for a moment. He barely gave himself time to dwell on prison camps and fucking coup – after all, none of that would matter if he decided to go through on what he’d been planning to do, did it? – but Starlight’s admissions about Frenchie and Hughie gave him a bit more pause. Frenchie turned himself in? What the fuck had possessed him to do that? He knew that Frenchie had a deceptively bleeding heart – one that had gotten them into trouble on numerous occasions – but couldn’t he have at least shoved all that guilt aside until they’d finished the bloody job? And it had been a while since he’d even laid eyes on Hughie; the kid was probably still skiving off work to sit vigil at his comatose dad’s bedside–
… Except he wasn’t, Butcher realized with a jolt as he cast his eyes around the room and they landed on a single, slouched figure on the other side of the building, far away from everyone else. Butcher hadn’t noticed before, because the kid hadn’t gotten up to express his displeasure at Butcher’s return like the rest of the team – nor, in fact, had he made any signs that he’d noticed Butcher enter at all. Hughie was sitting at a lone desk in the corner of the office, arms wrapped tightly around himself, a dull, faraway look in his eyes as he stared blankly at the wall. The only word Butcher could think to describe the look was hollow.
“Fuck’s wrong with him?” Butcher asked bewilderedly, jerking his head towards the kid’s defeated figure. “His dad finally kick it?”
This question only seemed to make Starlight, if possible, even angrier. “You know,” she hissed, “maybe if you’d been here, you’d have been able to help us come up with a plan that didn’t involve sending him on a dangerous undercover mission right after his fucking dad died!”
Butcher gave an airy wave of his hand. “Lad needs work as a distraction. And besides, the plan worked, didn’t it? You got all the information you needed.”
Starlight’s eyes flashed briefly with something odd– more anger, surely, but also something much sadder and more pained-looking. “You don’t know what he had to go through to get it , ” she said darkly.
Butcher frowned. “Fuck’s that mean?”
“Alright, alright– Annie, Butcher, both of you chill out,” M.M. cut in wearily, pinching the bridge of his nose like this whole conversation was giving him a migraine. He wasn’t the only one.
“But he’s–!” Starlight began indignantly, throwing up an exasperated hand in Butcher’s direction.
“Trust me, I know,” M.M. said, holding his hands up in a placating gesture. “I’m pissed at the motherfucker too, but we don’t have time to be at each other’s throats right now.” Despite these words, M.M. shot Butcher an extremely dirty look before giving an exhausted sigh and sinking back into his chair, gesturing for Butcher to sit next to him. “Butcher, I’ll catch you up. There’s been a lot of… concerning developments.”
Butcher sat down, trying not to let how relieved he was to do so show on his face. Standing was embarrassingly exhausting for him these days. M.M. filled him in on all the events Butcher had missed while he’d been away– they’d ended up sending Hughie into Tek Knight’s party disguised as Webweaver, and he and Starlight managed to figure out the man’s role in the prison camp scheme that Homelander and Sage were cooking up. M.M. then played Butcher the recording of Victoria Neuman they’d managed to snag from the bugs that Hughie had planted while undercover.
Butcher tried his hardest to look like he was really concerned about all of this, but it was already joining the buzz of background noise swimming around in the back of his head. None of this was going to be a problem if he went through with the development of the virus, would it? All he had to do was give Sameer a little nudge in the right direction, and Homelander and Sage and Victoria would cease to be a problem pretty fuckin’ quickly. He’d be saving thousands of innocent people from being imprisoned.
He’d also be ending hundreds of people’s lives.
Hundreds of supes’ lives, his brain corrected nastily. Who would miss them? Homelander’s a supe.
Ryan’s a supe.
To do it or not to do it? To do it or not to do it? To do–
Fuck. This wasn’t helping. He cast his eyes across the room again, desperate for something to distract him from his thoughts, and his eyes landed on Hughie again, who still hadn’t moved a muscle since Butcher showed up. Glancing over at Starlight to make sure she wasn’t listening, he leaned closer to M.M.. “So, are you gonna tell me what the fuck happened to the kid?” he murmured. “He really that beat up over his dad?”
M.M. sighed. It was clear from the look on his face as he glanced over at Hughie that it’d been weighing on him too. “I don’t know, Butcher. But he’s been real fucked up since Tek Knight’s party. Annie and Kimiko had to rescue him after we lost his signal. Something bad must’ve gone down, but none of them seem real keen on telling me what it was.”
Butcher looked over at Hughie as well, squinting as he tried to take in all of the aspects of his appearance that were out of the ordinary. He had his hood pulled over his head, but Butcher had coexisted with Hughie long enough back when they were on the run to know what he looked like when he was chronically sleep deprived, and the kid seemed to be one all-nighter away from keeling over. He was also fidgeting restlessly with the end of his jacket sleeve, and Butcher noted with some alarm as he followed the movement that he could see dark bruises peeking out from underneath the worn cuff of Hughie’s hoodie.
This stupor wasn’t just because of his dad. Hughie had been hurt.
Butcher tried not to let himself feel concerned over this – they all got bruises all the bloody time, it was impossible to avoid in this line of work – but something about these bruises left an uncomfortable pit in Butcher’s stomach. He’d seen and experienced just about every injury a person could have over the years, and he’d seen enough bruises like Hughie’s – perfectly round, uniform bands around each wrist – to know that they could only come from being restrained.
Somebody had Hughie restrained by the wrists. Long enough to bruise.
And, judging by their deep, irritated hue, it looked like Hughie had put up a hell of a fight trying to escape.
What the fuck was that about?
M.M. was still talking to him, but Butcher was no longer listening. Curiosity (and yeah, okay, worry) getting the better of him, he hauled himself to his feet and slowly made his way across the room, stopping when he was right in front of Hughie’s slouched form. The kid still didn’t move.
Butcher cleared his throat loudly. “Alright, Hughie?”
Finally, Hughie looked up at Butcher, and Butcher internally cringed when he saw how pronounced the bags under his eyes were. Bloody hell, this kid looked like he’d been through the wringer. Hughie didn’t say anything, just raised a single eyebrow, like he was waiting for Butcher to continue.
Swallowing his pride with only slight difficulty, Butcher spoke again. “Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t here for the bloody party, alright? I had to see about something important somewhere else. You understand, yeah?”
Like most of the apologies that had been wheedled out of Butcher over the years, it was half-assed and insufficient. But Hughie didn’t call him on it. He just gave a halfhearted shrug, his eyes wandering somewhere past Butcher’s head. “It’s fine,” he muttered dully.
No sanctimonious lecture. Something Butcher should be grateful for, but now only served to increase his concern. He should very well leave Hughie the fuck alone now– he obviously wanted nothing to do with Butcher at the moment and would rather be left to stew in whatever was currently causing his misery.
But Butcher didn’t leave. “...You all right, lad?” he said after an awkward beat of silence. “You look a bit outta sorts. M.M. tells me there might have been a snag with the Webweaver disguise–"
The effect was instantaneous. Suddenly a look of unbridled despair and misery crossed Hughie’s face, so quickly that Butcher almost missed it. It was a look that, for whatever reason, brought up an uncomfortable sensation of déjà vu deep within Butcher's mind, and he felt the knot of unease in his stomach tighten as he tried to figure out why that was.
But Hughie quickly schooled the expression, his mouth setting into a hard line. "It's fine," Hughie said sharply, wrapping his arms tighter around his torso. "It's– I'm not talking about this with you. Just go."
Well, alright then. Butcher couldn’t say he didn’t deserve that, but it still sparked that familiar feeling of annoyance and indignation. “Well, I might have been M.I.A., but at least I’ve actually been trying to find a solution to all the deep shit you lot have found yourselves in,” he fired back, his mouth working faster than his brain. “If you’re just gonna be lazing about, sitting in this corner and having a wank while everyone else does all the work, I think we at least have the right to know why–”
Hughie abruptly rose from his chair. For a fleeting moment Butcher thought Hughie was going to hit him; something cold and furious flashed in his blue eyes, and Butcher instinctively took a small step backwards. But instead Hughie just turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, letting the door slam loudly shut behind him. Just before he disappeared around the corner, Butcher saw a flash of pale white ankle from underneath the cuff of his jeans and saw that the thick, dark ring of bruises Butcher had spotted on his wrists earlier were also wrapped around his ankles.
Starlight quickly rose to her feet when she saw Hughie storm out. She fixed Butcher with yet another glare. “What the fuck did you say to him?” she demanded.
“I didn’t say nothing!”
Starlight clearly didn’t believe him, if the way her eyes narrowed dangerously was anything to go by. She looked like she was itching to lecture him further, but instead she just huffed, turned around and hurried after Hughie.
“Bloody hell,” Butcher muttered, rubbing a hand across his forehead before setting off after the both of them.
He was going to find out what Hughie was keeping from him, one way or another.
*****
It didn’t take long for Butcher to find the mostly-abandoned room that Hughie and Starlight had run off to. He could hear the muffled sounds of their voices coming from behind a closed door just a few feet away. Treading as quietly as he could, he slowly approached the door and pressed his ear to it, ready to engage in some good, old-fashioned eavesdropping.
“– tried to ask me about what happened at Tek Knight’s party,” Butcher heard Hughie’s voice say, strained and slightly panicked. “What if he finds out?”
“Why would he?” Starlight responded, her voice gentle and reassuring. Butcher was sure if he could see her, she’d be rubbing a comforting hand up and down Hughie’s arm, or patting him on the back, or something similarly nauseating and domestic. “I’m not going to say anything, and Kimiko won’t either.”
“Butcher’s not stupid,” Hughie retorted. “I mean– I’m a total hot fucking mess right now, he’s bound to notice that something’s up. He’s gonna figure it out. And when he does, I’m… I’m afraid he’s going to lose it, Annie. What are we gonna do if we can’t reign him in?”
That wasn't something Butcher had considered. Hughie wasn't withholding information out of some petty, spiteful anger, he didn't think Butcher could handle it. Whatever it was, Hughie and Starlight thought that if Butcher found out, he would fly off the handle.
The knot in his stomach tightened even further.
“Well…” Starlight seemed to consider that for a moment. “...even if he does find out– Tek Knight’s dead. It’s not like Butcher can go after him.”
The pieces were slowly starting to come together. So Tek Knight was Hughie’s assailant. An assailant who was now dead. The fact, for some reason, did little to reassure Butcher.
Why would Butcher have to go after him?
“It doesn’t matter,” Hughie responded wearily. “Butcher spent years hating all superheroes because of what Homelander did. He’s already looking for an excuse to march into battle guns-blazing, and if he finds out about Tek Knight, it’ll just make all of that worse. It’ll be Becca all over again.”
It'll be Becca all over again.
Butcher vaguely registered how rapidly his heart was now pounding in his chest. His brain felt scrambled– puzzle pieces were floating to the front of Butcher's mind faster than he could make sense of them, and he desperately tried to jam them together as panic started to cloud his mind for reasons he wasn’t fully conscious of yet.
The purple bands around his wrists and ankles. He'd been restrained, restrained for a long period of time. At a party. At a superhero’s party.
The dark look that had crossed Starlight's face when he'd questioned her, the way she'd flat-out refused to tell Butcher or M.M. what had happened to Hughie. "You don't know what he had to go through to get it," she'd said. What could be so bad that Starlight couldn’t divulge it?
He realized, finally, why that look he'd seen earlier on Hughie's face, the look of complete and utter despair and hopelessness, was so familiar to him. He'd seen that exact expression dozens of times, watching it on his shitty computer screen over breakfast morning after morning after morning, on Becca's face. Right before she'd stood up from that park bench and walked away forever.
The look she'd worn right after she'd been raped.
Butcher thought his knees might give out. Barely conscious of his surroundings, he stumbled away from the door and down the hallway, not stopping until he reached the front doors and threw them open. He stepped out into the brisk air, placing one hand against the cold brick wall in a desperate attempt to keep himself standing. His ears were ringing loudly, hands shaking with rage and hatred and a pain so all-consuming that he felt blinded by it.
It was Becca all over again.
Sometimes Hughie reminded Butcher so much of Lenny that it made him feel dizzy. He’d felt it before, this sickening and disorienting melding of the past and present, when Hughie had stood in his aunt’s living room and admitted that sometimes he wanted to die. Wants to die, present tense. Butcher hadn’t known how to react then– he’d lashed out, he’d threatened to hurt Hughie if he didn’t get out of his sight, because the anger and rage was much easier to deal with than the terror that engulfed him when he allowed himself to dwell on the possibility of Hughie meeting Lenny’s wretched fate. That terror was threatening to choke him once more like an iron fist seizing his lungs, but this time, it wasn’t Lenny’s fate Butcher was terrified of Hughie meeting. It was Becca’s.
And this time, Butcher was too late.
“You know this isn’t gonna stop.”
Butcher let out a miserable groan. He didn’t have to look up to know who was speaking. “Fuck off,” he spat, barely able to force the words out because of the constricting in his chest. “You’re not real, you’re not fucking real–”
Kessler ignored him. “It’s gonna keep happening,” he continued, taking a step closer to Butcher. “Supes are depraved fucking animals; they take what they want and they don’t care who they take it from. First from Becca, then from Hughie, next from who the fuck knows. The only way to keep the people you love safe is to put every supe in the fucking ground.”
“Hughie wouldn’t want that.”
Butcher sucked in a harsh breath, his head snapping over to meet Becca’s sad, angry eyes.
“Do you see what’s happening, Billy?” she continued. “Hughie doesn’t want you to know, just like I didn’t want you to know. Hughie went to Annie, and I went to Vought, because you can’t be trusted to keep it together when someone you love gets hurt. What would Hughie say if he knew you were even thinking about this? He’s in love with a supe.”
“Yeah, and he was also assaulted by a supe.” Kessler gave a maniacal grin, stepping even closer to Butcher until he was talking right into his ear . “How far do you think it got between Tek Knight and Hughie before Starlight and Kimiko pulled him out?” Butcher shook his head violently, fighting against the nausea clawing its way up his throat. “They were able to rescue him this time, but what about next time, huh? What’s gonna happen when someone more dangerous gets hold of Hughie, like Homelander got hold of Becca?”
“That… that ain’t gonna happen,” Butcher wheezed. “I ain’t gonna let it.”
“You?” Kessler barked out a laugh. “At this rate, it’ll be a miracle if you’re even still standing by next week. You’re not doing shit to stop a supe. The only way you can make sure Hughie is safe is if you make sure they’re all wiped out before you die.”
“Billy, you can’t!” Becca pleaded. “If you force Sameer to make this virus, there’s no way for you to keep Ryan from catching it–”
“Ryan’s just a fucking supe freak, though, right?” Kessler cut her off, still grinning like Christmas had come early. “Your words. Without that virus, you’re going to die before you ever get Ryan away from Homelander.”
Butcher shook his head again, frantic. “But… M.M. said–”
“You think M.M. is gonna be doing you any favors after all the hell you put his team through?” Kessler said incredulously. “M.M. isn’t gonna do a thing to help that kid escape. Ryan is gonna live the rest of his life on Homelander’s knee, and then he’s gonna grow up to be a filthy fucking rapist, just like his daddy. And The Deep, and Soldier Boy, and Tek Knight–”
“Um… Butcher?”
Somehow, Butcher willed himself to glance up. He wasn’t looking into Becca’s or Kessler’s eyes anymore, but Hughie’s, brows furrowed with worry and confusion and something that looked oddly like regret. For one wild, fleeting moment Butcher was sure that he must be a hallucination, too, here to weigh in on his moral quandary and make him feel even worse. But then Hughie reached out and laid a warm, very solid hand on his shoulder, as if to steady him, and Butcher realized belatedly that he was swaying alarmingly where he stood.
“Are you… alright?” Hughie said apprehensively, watching Butcher like he was afraid the man would topple over.
“I’m…” Butcher’s eyes wandered to Hughie’s hand on his shoulder, and his gaze fell once more on the ring of bruises encircling Hughie’s wrist. He swallowed harshly, shutting his eyes tight and shrugging Hughie’s hand away. “I’m fine, lad. Just needed some air.”
“...Right,” Hughie said, sounding a bit skeptical, but he withdrew his hand without argument, wrapping his arms around his middle the way he’d done back inside the building. He took a deep breath, then spoke once more, his eyes flitting down to his shoes. “Look, I’m sorry for snapping at you, alright? I know I’m being totally useless right now, I’m just– it’s… it’s been a hell of a week for me.”
There was a slight quiver in Hughie’s voice at those words, and his arms tightened even more around his stomach, like he was trying to shield himself. Butcher thought he really might vomit now. How bad was it? How far did it go? How utterly and monumentally did Butcher fail this kid?
“U-um… yeah, anyway.” Hughie gave his head a little shake before continuing. “I’m just trying to say– I’m glad you’re back, I guess. To be honest, we could really use all the help we can get right now–”
“Yeah, well, don’t get used to it,” Butcher cut him off, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails dug painfully into his palms. “I ain’t staying. I gotta take off again.”
“Wh– huh? Seriously?” Hughie watched incredulously as Butcher slowly turned around and started walking back to his car. His angry voice carried out across the parking lot. “You’re just gonna show up here, contribute jack shit and disappear again? What was the point of showing up at all if you’re not going to help us?”
Butcher ignored him. He couldn’t even look at the kid. The present was starting to blur around the edges again, the past leaking in and distorting his vision.
His brother. His wife. His canary. The first two he’d lost, due to his own failures, his own inaction, his own indecisiveness. He’d come dangerously close to losing the third countless times. He’d come far too close to suffering the first two’s fate. He’d been hurt, assaulted, violated, all while Butcher was hemming and hawing miles away trying to figure out what he was going to do.
No more. Butcher was going to put a stop to it.
He didn’t care if Hughie hated him forever after this. He’d come here looking for a sign, right? Something to point him in one direction or the other? A reason to justify the drastic, dangerous thing he was planning to do?
Well, he’d just found his fucking reason.