Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want

46

"We need to let their romance blossom. We have the strong feeling that breaking him psychologically is our best way to destroy him. And we're going to use his assistant turned girlfriend for that."

Butcher didn't like to work with Supes. Being Vought affiliated or not, he believed none of them were trustworthy. Now the Boys had one with them, and most of them were too eager to listen to a person they never saw before. It was a shapeshifter - one forcibly turned Supe who was working with others of his kind. It was a man of east Asian descent, explaining how Vought through their goons forcefully injected Compound V into the bloodstreams of most of the inhabitants of the small town in China that he came from. The ones who resisted were shot in sight, in front of their terrorized families. The worst part was that they chose the people they judged to be healthy, which meant many didn't make the cut and were just brutally murdered. Some of the injected humans died, some became horribly mutated, but the ones who survived were thrown around as bait for Homelander to play pretend he was a real superhero. Some of these people either became corrupt, suffered horrible deaths or started cults that worshipped their Supe status. Nothing good came out of it. The ones with similar powers decided to reunite and bring Vought down once and for all. It didn't only affect Asia, but it also reached the Middle East. Anything happening to these people in the eyes of the American media was considered irrelevant and that's why Vought was never prosecuted. No matter how these countries tried to show the corporation's violations of human rights, the international community didn't seem to care. So they decided to take matters into their own hands.

As much as Butcher recognized with the fact Vought had once again violated the rights of others for their own gain, the man and his friends were still Supes. Starlight seemed touched by the stranger's sob story and it seemed like Hughie and Frenchie had some weird empathy towards him. Maybe it was the fact a Supe had mistreated his wife and had taken her away from him forever, and he was broken. Becca was the reason Butcher tried to be a better man, and Becca wasn't there anymore. If Supes didn't exist and weren't worshipped to that degree by the American people, perhaps she would be home. His wife had been gone for years and it seemed like the system and society had failed him. Every two months or so, the company had to face a scandal and give a half assed apology that everyone accepted. The Army was useless against Homelander and the other Supes never rebelled for fear that he would go insane. Butcher knew it wasn't fair to put dozens of civilians to put him down, but he was frustrated no one at least tried. The man was a maniac and everyone who lived near him knew that. Nina probably did too.

And that's why Butcher didn't feel sorry if Nina was a casualty at all.

Starlight would say over and over again that Nina was a good person, that she was a hardworking girl that came to the United States like many other immigrants and that Homelander was lying to her. Annie said time and time again that Maeve and even other people tried to talk to her about Homelander, but he had super hearing and had Nina attached to his hip at all times. He was love bombing her and treating her like a princess, so it would be hard to convince her that her current boyfriend was evil and had destroyed many lives. Butcher didn't believe that. He was evil, his blue eyes cold as the ninth circle of hell, where Lucifer was stuck. He thought of no one but himself, and any person who fucked him would clearly be aware of his selfishness and lack of empathy. It's weird to think that if Becca hadn't been messed up pretty badly by that demon, Butcher would be a better person. He would probably give her the benefit of the doubt. But he had given that benefit to so many people, including Starlight and Kimiko themselves. It didn't seem to be working at all.

"I saw the way you look at him, Butcher," said MM, trying to keep his voice down. The shapeshifter had his own place to stay, and he had left some hours prior. The Boys were preparing themselves to sleep, and Butcher was going to eat something when his friend stopped him.

"Look at who?"

"The Chen guy? The shapeshifter," replied MM.

"I have no reason to be nice to a Supe," Butcher scoffed.

"I know you don't," MM sat on a chair that was around them. Butcher continued to stand, impatiently as that talk was stopping him from eating. They were already holed up somewhere with a horrible improvised kitchen, and the notion of having to trust a shapeshifter just made everything worse.

"Then what..."

"We ran out of options," MM raised his eyebrows, "for real this time."

"We can always come up with another plan..."

"Okay, then," MM sighed, "I'm ready to hear it."

"What?", Butcher frowned.

"The plan, the plan you have," MM pointed at him, "because if you're so certain of it, you must have thought of another plan now."

Butcher fell silent.

"That's what I thought. You don't have a plan. Neither of us do," MM nodded.

Butcher was fuming with anger, but MM was right.

"You've been consumed by anger, my friend," MM shook his head, "for what happened to you, for what they did to Becca."

"Don't talk about my wife, Marvin," Butcher replied, because it hurt to hear coming from another person and because the anger of losing her was the only reason he kept going. He knew it wasn't healthy, but there was nothing more in the world for him.

"My family has been destroyed by Vought, and these scars won't heal," said MM, pointing at his own chest.

Butcher closed his eyes and sighed.

"I swear to fucking God I'll take any opportunity I see, liking Supes or not," MM stated, "and if this is our chance, we should get it."

"So we should just trust him, Marvin?", said Butcher, whispering aggressively, "he turned into Kimiko and came here with us without us noticing and you want me to trust him?"

"Yes, because you have no choice," MM rubbed his face.

MM looked distraught. Mentioning his family didn't make him any good. He had strained his relationship with his daughter, he had divorced his wife while trying to destroy Vought. His pain was not the same as Butcher's but it was caused by the same people.

"We're not getting any younger, Butcher," MM pointed out whispering, "do you want to do this for the rest of your life?"