Chapter Text
“Fuck, how did he slip away like that?” Hughie takes a large bite from his burger. “We got him pinned down. He was right there!”
“If that cunt were so easy to kill, he wouldn’t be Homelander.” Butcher seems less surprised by the recent development of their mission. “We got very close today. Next time we’ll get it done.”
Hughie glances at Soldier Boy, who’s been strangely quiet since they got back. He didn’t touch the take out box in front of him, and has only been drinking from a bottle of whiskey for the last half an hour.
Butcher senses the tension in the air, and follows his gaze to their temporary ally. “Oi, you’re alright?”
Soldier Boy blinks and looks up, like he’s pulled away from deep thoughts. “Me? Yeah.”
They share a look. The fact that he just answered the question without throwing in some needless crude sexual insult, is evident that something is in fact wrong.
“What is it? Spit it out already.” Butcher eggs him on, knowing exactly which button to push. “Didn’t take you to be the shy type.”
Soldier Boy rolls his eyes dramatically and takes another swig. Ok, something’s seriously wrong if he didn’t say anything back to that. Hughie puts down his half finished burger, having suddenly lost all appetite.
“Something’s not right. I don’t know what.” Soldier Boy touches the bottle neck absentmindedly. “I’m not injured, that much I know. But something’s off.”
“Off how? Are you in pain?”
“No, I’m not fucking in pain.”
“Ok! Just asking.” He puts up a hand appeasingly. “Well, why don’t we all go get some rest? You guys were smashing each other around pretty hard back there. Maybe you just need to sleep it off.”
Soldier Boy doesn’t look convinced, but thankfully he just shrugs without saying anything else.
“Good idea. I’m off to bed.” Butcher crumbles the wrapping paper of his burger into a ball and tosses it into the trash can across the room. “Tomorrow we’ll get started on Mindstorm, yeah?”
“Three down, three more to go.” Soldier Boy swallows one last mouthful of liquor and sets down the half empty bottle. “Mindstorm, Noir, and then back to Homelander.”
“Yup, we’ll pick it up right where we left off tomorrow.” Hughie stands up too, wasting no time to remove himself from this room.
He barely makes two steps before hearing a loud thud.
“Holy shit!” He looks at Soldier Boy’s unconscious body on the floor in complete shock.
“What the fuck? Is he dead?” Butcher rushes back in, the same disbelief on his face.
“No, he’s fine.” Hughie exhales, feeling his shoulders relax. The pulse under his fingers is strong and steady, despite a little quickened. “I don’t know what happened. He just passed out!”
“For fuck’s sake, what now?”
They turn around to see Legend standing by the doorway, a cigar in hand. He doesn’t look concerned at all, just annoyed.
“I don’t see anything.” Butcher turns Soldier Boy onto his back, looking for blood or any signs of trauma, but the dark uniform doesn’t give him much to work with.
“We need a doctor.” Hughie looks up at the owner of this penthouse. “I know we’re already troubling you, but please, we can’t leave him like this, and we don’t know what’s wrong.”
Legend sighs deeply and pulls out his phone, saying something under his breath as he walks away. Hughie can’t hear what he’s saying, but he’s probably cussing them out.
“How to get this fucking thing off?” Butcher pats down the tight uniform frustratedly. “I don’t even see a zipper!”
“Um, I think I can help with that.” As awkward as it is, he has the easiest solution at the moment.
It takes a few seconds for Butcher to understand. Then the older man huffs and moves back. “Right, go ahead.”
He hooks Soldier Boy’s arm around his shoulder. The next second, the unconscious supe is laying in bed completely naked, his dark green uniform a messy pile on the floor. Hughie quickly untangles himself to put his own clothes back on, before allowing his eyes to land on the naked body.
Soldier Boy looks like a pristine sculpture on silk sheets, not one scratch or bruise on his flawless skin and muscles. That’s what the body of a supe is supposed to look like, right? Sheer strength and durability. Perfection. So what the hell’s happening now?
Butcher throws a blanket over Soldier Boy’s hip without looking directly at the area. “The fuck are you staring at him like that for?”
“What? I was checking for injuries like you did!”
“He shouldn’t get injured or sick. That’s the point!” Butcher grabs the half bottle of whiskey left by Soldier Boy earlier. “What do we need this cunt for, if he needs a beauty sleep after a fight like a fucking princess?”
“Right, he seemed fine earlier. Maybe it’s some delayed internal damage from the cryo chamber?” He scratches his head. He’s not a doctor or academic. Frenchie would have loved to solve this mystery.
Butcher takes a generous gulp of liquor and glances at Soldier Boy’s unmoving frame. “Let’s see what the doctor says.”
*
Said doctor arrives 20 minutes later, and immediately starts to check on his patient without asking any questions. Hughie wonders how many supes and civilians he’s treated under the table. How much dirt has been swept under the rug by professionals like this?
The doctor scans Soldier Boy’s body with a small handheld device Hughie’s never seen before. It’s connected to a screen that shows a bunch of charts and images none of them can understand.
“What are you doing?”
The supe suddenly wakes up and clutches the doctor’s wrist. That poor man immediately starts crying out in pain. Soldier Boy is either still weakened or holding back, otherwise his bones would have cracked already.
“Hey! Hands off!” Butcher blocks a punch before it can land on the doctor. “You passed out. He’s helping you.”
The hardened look on Soldier Boy’s face slowly turns to confusion. “What?”
“Yeah.” Butcher takes the opportunity to free the doctor’s hand from his grasp. “So calm the fuck down and let this man do his job.”
“It’s ok, um, thank you.” The doctor massages his sore wrist and adjusts his glasses. “I think I’m done anyway, yeah. I’ll just take a look at these, ok? It’ll just be a minute.”
The doctor escapes, leaving the three of them staring awkwardly at each other.
“That doesn’t make sense. I don’t pass out.” Soldier Boy breaks the silence first, glaring at Hughie with narrowed eyes. “Did you do something, hm? Slipped me something because you don’t like what we’re doing, and you’re too much of a pussy to stand up to me face to face?”
“What? No!” He stares at the supe incredulously. He should have left this asshole on the cold floor earlier. “Why the hell would I do that? Maybe it’s all the weed and coke and whatever else you’ve been doing yourself!”
“Oi, chill out, both of you.” Butcher places a hand on his shoulder and turns to Soldier Boy. “The kid didn’t do nothing, and I doubt some coke could knock you out. You said something felt off, and then you hit the floor. We need to figure out what’s wrong with you before we do anything else.”
“And have some decency.” Legend appears at the doorway again and tosses over a silk robe. “The last person walking around naked in this room was Angelina Jolie.”
“Not my fault.” Soldier Boy ties the robe around his waist. “Blame the little cock sucker here.”
“Ok you know what? That’s it!” He puts up both palms and starts backing out of the room. “I’m never helping you again!”
“Good news, gentlemen.” The doctor walks back in with a notepad, but his voice is strained, and he looks like he’s on the verge of crying and laughing at the same time, if that’s possible.
Hughie shares a look with Butcher. Whatever this is, it’s absolutely not gonna be good news.
“Ok, what is it?” Soldier Boy asks directly, wasting no time. He definitely also noticed the doctor’s inconsistent demeanor.
Legend is already on his way out again, seemingly uninterested in his unwelcome guest’s health. But one glance at the doctor’s notepad is all it takes to stop him in his tracks.
The old man lets out a short laugh and pats the doctor on the back. “This is not the time for jokes, buddy.”
“Well um, it’s not a joke.” The doctor adjusts his glasses again needlessly. “You have a…an artificial container in your abdomen, connected to your blood vessels.”
He glances at Soldier Boy nervously, a drop of sweat hitting his left eyebrow.
“The fuck do you mean an artificial container?”
Legend moves his face closer to the notepad’s screen and squints, fully invested now.
“Jesus Christ! That’s really a baby!” He blurts out before the doctor could.
The room falls silent. Hughie feels his own eyes grow wide and his lips part. Did he hear that right? He understands every word, but…what?! His brain has stopped computing, which literally never happens. His quick thinking has saved his life multiple times, and Butcher’s too. And now he can’t think at all.
“Wait I’m sorry, what are you…” He can’t stop a snort coming out of his throat. “Is he…pregnant?”
“Personally I wouldn’t use that term, because really, it’s nothing like it.” The doctor wipes his forehead. “Someone must have placed this container through surgery, and connected it to blood vessels to supply nutrients to the embryo inside. The structure of the container is truly meticulous work. I’ve never seen anything like it. Do you know how it was constructed? This is the epitome of bioengineering! I’d like to…”
The doctor is still rambling on, and Hughie is horrified at his lack of ability to read the room. Granted, he likely doesn’t know anything about the 40 years Soldier Boy spent in Russia, but is he damn blind to the death stare? Hughie is about to tell the doctor to shut up, but before he opens his mouth, a familiar shade of golden light shines on his face.
“Fuck, no! Don’t do it!” He tries to reach out to Soldier Boy but someone shoves him to the side.
“What are you doing?!” He screams at Butcher. “He’s about to…”
Butcher punches Soldier Boy hard in the face.
He gasps. His body tenses up instinctively, bracing for certain death. But somehow, the golden light from Soldier Boy’s chest stalls for a moment, blinks, and then gradually fades.
“Sorry mate, had to snap you out of it.” Butcher raises his hands. “Worked, didn’t it?”
Strangely, Soldier Boy doesn’t immediately jump up to kill Butcher. And now Hughie recognizes his stare earlier wasn’t exactly the cold murderer look, more like something distant, like he was focused on things beyond this room. Now it’s definitely the cold murderer look, but it’s not directed at Butcher.
“Get it out of me.”
“Ah yes, of course. I need to run more tests, and there’s also the issue with your healing factor—“
“Now!”
“Yeah! Ok! I’ll figure it out. I just need to…” The doctor makes a vague gesture at the door. “Let me check if I have everything I need, yeah? I’ll be back. I promise!”
He practically runs out of the door, followed by Legend muttering something along the lines of “now I’ve truly seen everything."
The three of them are left in the most awkward situation known to mankind. No one says a word, and everyone avoids eye contact. On his end, his eyes are dedicated loyally to the exquisite pattern on the carpet. Is it wool? Looks like it. Must be nice to step on it barefeet, not that this is a good time to try. God, how he wishes he could call Annie and tell her everything. Because seriously, how is anyone supposed to take a secret like this to their grave? The shock and horror aside, no one can convince him this isn’t some ultimate cosmic karma. You think it’s humiliating for a dad to carry his own child in his arms? Well, good luck carrying one in your body!
He feels the corners of his mouth start to curve up, so he bites hard on his bottom lip. Nope, he doesn’t want to die yet. Fuck, this is torture. Maybe he should just go back to his own room without saying anything, but leaving in this situation also feels like an awful thing to do.
As expected, his mouth does what it always does when he’s nervous. “Don’t worry. I’m sure the doctor can just…”
“Kid, stop talking.”
“Right, ok.”
Butcher offers the whiskey bottle to Soldier Boy. “Here, won’t hurt since you’re not keeping it anyway.”
Also it’s probably long dead because of…well, everything. At this point it’s likely just a ball of dead tissues and infection. He’s sure Butcher’s also thinking the same, not that either of them will say it out loud.
Soldier Boy grabs the bottle roughly and downs half of the remaining liquor in one go, and when he speaks again, there’s a roughness in his voice that sends a small chill down Hughie’s spine.
“These fucking commies.” He takes another gulp. “I killed them way too quickly.”
Hughie wipes his hands on his jeans uncomfortably. All of this is fucked, what the Russians did to him and what he wanted to do.
“I should have rounded them all up and let them taste every single thing they did to me.”
“Might make you feel good for a bit, but still won’t change a thing, innit?” Butcher crosses his arms. “Let’s get this over with, and focus on the people who're still alive for you to get revenge on.”
Soldier Boy doesn’t respond and goes back to the alcohol. None of them speaks for another half hour, until the doctor comes back. Hughie genuinely thinks that might be the most difficult thing he’s ever done.
*
“As I said earlier, the most difficult aspect of the surgery is keeping the incision open long enough with your healing factor.” The doctor lays the tools on a white tablecloth as he explains. “I think I can manage with some improvisation. It’s just a removal. It won’t kill you if I do it quickly, but get a little sloppy with it.”
Hughie wants to ask if that’s also why they don’t need a sterilized environment. Guess a supe’s body is also immune to regular infections.
“I gotta say, the fetus is extraordinary. It’s perfectly healthy and meets all developmental marks.”
“You’ve got to be joking.” Butcher speaks his mind perfectly.
“Not at all! And what’s better, I’m already seeing signs of power.” The doctor flashes them a smile like he’s doing a presentation at an academic conference. “From what I can tell, it responds to energy passively. It absorbs sudden external energy going into the body, stores them around it, and releases them at a later time.”
“Wait, what the fuck are you talking about?” Soldier Boy sits up from the bed. “What power? It’s a fucking bundle of cells.”
“With all due respect, sir, everyone is a bundle of cells.” The doctor picks up two scalpels, comparing their blade sizes. “And the power of those cells, was what made you pass out earlier. It absorbed some of the energy inflicted on you during the fight, and released it later in your body, giving you delayed internal damage. They’re all healed now of course, but your body was just confused and exhausted.”
Butcher takes a cautious step forward. “So you’re saying this could be a natural born supe.”
“Not could be, will be, if it develops to term.” The doctor takes out a syringe and fills it with a light blue liquid. “It’s a shame if you ask me, but I’m a professional, and my patient has made the decision.”
Honestly, he finds that respectable, which is proof of how low the bars have become these days.
“Wait, I don’t…” Soldier Boy pinches the skin between his brows. This is the first time Hughie has seen him genuinely overwhelmed. “How old is…this thing?”
“From the size and development, about 18 weeks.”
“What?” He speaks again before he can stop himself. “Sorry but um, I mean, he doesn’t look…you know.”
Thankfully Soldier Boy looks equally surprised for the same reason, so he gets away with it this time.
“Oh yes, that’s because the container isn’t positioned at the same place as a woman’s womb. It wouldn’t make sense to do it that way.”
“Tell me more about its powers.” There’s a change in tone of Soldier Boy’s voice, more curious, with much less finality it carried earlier.
“Pretty much what I said earlier, plus durability and healing, since it’s still alive, you know.”
“All those powers will be stronger after it’s born?”
“Almost certainly yes. Powers grow like everything else.” A glint of raw excitement colors the doctor’s dark eyes. “Are you considering changing your mind?”
“Changing your mind?” Butcher interrupts incredulously. “Are you mental? Have you forgotten how this thing was put into you?”
Soldier Boy shrugs. “My chest blast was put into me the same way. You have no problem with that one.”
“What the…are you hearing yourself?” Butcher runs a hand down his face. “Alright, everything aside, what’s your plan, really? You’re a man! It’s a fucking miracle that you’ve lived this long with it!”
“Actually, that’s fine in this case. This case only!”
“Oh shut up! You’re not helping.” Hughie is dangerously close to punching this doctor in the face, if Butcher doesn’t do it first.
“No, keep talking.” Soldier Boy gets up from bed and walks to the doctor in an eerily calm demeanor. “Energy absorption and redirection? At what scale are you thinking?”
“I can’t know for sure at this stage, but the fact that it’s already happening? We’re looking at something significant here.”
“Will he be more powerful than me?”
“I, I don’t know about that, sir.”
“It’s not a trick. Just answer me.”
Soldier Boy gently puts a hand on the doctor’s shoulder, and the mortal man shudders.
“Co…could be, yes.”
“Great, that’s all I need to know.”
Soldier Boy smiles almost sweetly, but all Hughie feels is a bone deep coldness. “You can’t be serious.”
“Mind your own fucking business.”
“You’re not even thinking about it as a child! This is—”
“This is your business, so we want no part of it.” Butcher steps forward and places a firm hand on his back. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Deal’s off.”
*
Sometimes a few seconds can make a life worth of difference. And those exact ten seconds from Soldier Boy’s bedroom to the front door is what Hughie still reminisces about years later.
“Wait, just hang on a second!” He catches up to Butcher as the older man is about to open the door. “Let’s think about this.”
“What’s there to think? He’s useless to us now.”
“Right, for now. But I mean this is crazy! If he somehow manages to pull this off, there’s gonna be another natural born supe, a real powerful one!”
“Nothing to worry about here,” Butcher scoffs. “We got a better chance at killing Homelander with our bare hands, than both of them surviving whatever the fuck this is.”
“Oh really? Because so far, it’s survived the cryo chamber, God knows what torture, a fight with Homelander, weed, coke, alcohol?” He runs out of fingers on his hand. “Come on! Is it really so far-fetched that it’ll survive for another five months?”
Butcher stays silent for a long time, and when he speaks again, he doesn’t directly admit he was wrong earlier. “And if Vought gets their hands on him in those five months, they’ll get a freshly baked new supe.”
“Exactly!”
Butcher sighs deeply and slumps against the wall, finally turning away from the doorknob. “Should have left that cunt in the freezer.”
“Yup, couldn’t agree more.”