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lamentationsofalonelypotato · 19 days ago

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Chapter 14: Don't Be A Bundt Cake

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you never expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy, Miscommunication Trope

Word Count: 13.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it), Swearing, Mentions of Sex, Sexual Innuendo, Talks of Death, DENIAL, Idiots in Love, Pining by the Reader (and SB, but he won't admit it) Depressing Thoughts, Mentions of sexual assault/rape (not detailed at all, really just in passing) Talks about weed, Sexist comments, Ben makes derogatory comments, Threatening Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Note: This is told from Reader's perspective. Any references to the reader is made using you or your. There is minimal use of y/n. I tried my best to proofread, but nobody's perfect. If you don’t like, don’t read, but if you do like, you’re my favorite!

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

A/N: I am so sorry this one took me a bit longer. The writers block was fighting me the whole way, but we are very closely nearing the end of this series and the moment the reader and Ben stop being so stinkin' stubborn.

Reader POV

You lean your forehead against the cool window, watching the world flash by in a flurry of color. The wooded forests had vanished hours ago and all that was left were the yellowed sprawling fields of corn and grain and family farms that were laid sporadically along the interstate. Each one a little world that caught the flecks of golden sunlight as the sun began to peak above the horizon.

The bus rolled smooth and steady over the weathered pavement towards it's destination and was filled with an odd assortment of people young and old. There was man with a brightly colored parrot that had been singing "It's A Small World After All" since you left NYC, a woman with a little boy playing with an iPad and who refused to turn down the volume no matter how many times his mother asked him to, a group of teenagers a few seats up that continued to pass around a flask, and due to how far back you were sitting on the bus an uncomfortable smell emanated from the bathroom each time the door was opened.

But you didn't notice any of it.

The only thing on your mind were the events that happened almost twenty hours ago. They continued to circle your mind, playing over and over again like a perverted cassette tape making you sink further into the worn cloth covered seat at the back of the bus. The images were haunting, some new and some old, but all the more still horrible to re-live.

The song "Nights In White Satin" floating into the backseat of your family's car, the flash of unnatural light you knew was never lightning, the caskets at your parent's funeral covered in flowers that were much to pretty to lay on something so morbid, Elijah's body succumbing to the poppies that ripped him apart, the proud sneer on your brother's face when he admitted to killing your parents, Darren's broken and bloodied body strewn in pieces over the street with the creature standing over him with a dripping red maw, the ruined building that housed "Please Don't Die" reduced to nothing more than rubble, and the look on Ben's face when you turned your back on him and fled the scene.

For some reason that particular image seemed to cling on to you and refused to fade. You'd never seen him look that way, almost… helpless and a little fearful. In all the time you'd known him, Ben had never looked at you that way. Sure you'd seen him proud, angry, cocky, lustful, mischievous, but never fearful. And you were sure that it wasn't an emotion that he was used to feeling, but that begged the question… why?

Why was he looking at me like that? Why wouldn't he let me go? And what was he afraid of?

The creature curled in your lap snorts something in it's sleep, turning it’s head further into the cradle of your elbow to shut out the brilliant early morning sunlight. It was now the size of a toaster and had warranted several odd looks whenever you got off to change buses, but you didn't care.

You weren't sure about anything anymore. Everything your brother confessed to you made you feel like you were living a lie and the revelation of exactly what your powers could do- take life from plants to heal yourself, create whatever the hell it was on your lap, and speak to plants… it scared you.

You thought for so long that you knew everything about your powers, that you were in control, but now you weren't sure.

You felt different, as if something had unlocked deep down that you couldn't shut up again.

You'd felt different after you killed Elijah, but this was more alive, weaving and twisting in the pit of your stomach. You felt more connected to the earth, to the world outside the bus even though you were divided by glass and metal. You could feel the energy that thrummed through the body of the creature on your lap, bending to your will, the life force of the plants it was formed from molding with you, becoming a part of you.

You felt so different than the person you had been before Darren entered the shop, so uncertain, and there was only one place you wanted to be when you felt like this… home. You couldn't wait to run up the worn front steps of your grandmother's house and into her arms. She always knew what to say in times like this.

And you desperately needed the comfort of her embrace.

The phone in your pocket buzzes again and you flip the screen to see the ridiculous selfie Annie and you had taken on Halloween last year. The one that you'd both spent dressed up as the two brothers from your favorite paranormal tv show. It wasn't the first time she'd called. Annie had called and texted you more times than you could count over the past twenty hours but you didn't answer her. You didn’t want to.

It was the first time that you didn't want to talk to her, but talking to her meant that you'd have to re-live all of it again and you were clawing at the last shred of sanity you had left to keep it together.

The overwhelming waves of emotion kept pummeling you, dragging you deeper beneath the white surf. Each one brought the memories of what happened surging over you and were followed by everything that Darren said to you. Years of taking care of Darren and doing whatever he wished were tearing at your soul, years of giving up little things in your life to make him happy, and years of taking care of a man who you thought cared about you, but hated you enough to kill your parents and try to kill you too.

It made your skin crawl. Each time your brother told you that he loved you was an even bigger lie and now that you knew the truth and saw him for what he was, it felt like you were drowning. The darkness that ebbed just on the edge was begging you to leap into the abyss, but you were resisting the best you could.

The tears had stopped falling miles ago, but you couldn't stop the memories or the emotion that formed a cold ball in the pit of your stomach.

A sigh works it's way up and you pull your legs on the seat underneath you, jostling the creature on your lap that raises it's head for a moment to blink it's black eyes at you sleepily.

It was surprisingly docile right now, especially considering that twenty hours ago it had ripped your brother to shreds. In fact it seemed to understand how upset you were and had spent the better part of the last twenty hours rubbing it's head against your arm as if trying to bring you some comfort. It was settled on your lap, the weight of it a comfort, almost like a weighted plushy that gave you something to focus on.

"It's alright buddy." You whisper, scratching him under his chin. "We're almost home."

The phone in your jacket pocket buzzes again, but when you pull it out to turn it off, you catch a glimpse of the screen, and you hesitate. Because this time it's not Annie who's calling, it’s Ben.

The picture that flashes on the screen under the contact name "Gramps" is the picture of Mr. Fredrickson from Up. It always made you smile whenever he called you and you saw the picture because Ben did often remind you of him. He was certainly just as grumpy as Mr. Fredrickson and just as out of touch, but you thought it was cute.

Your thumb hovers over the answer button and you think about talking to him.

But what would I say?

You weren't sure what to say to him, or why you wanted to speak to him so badly, why you wanted him to be sitting here on the bus with you as you went home, and why you wanted him to hold you against his chest while you allowed yourself to break, but you did. You wanted to feel his awkward shoulder pat and his awkward version of hand holding and you wanted to hear him try to tell you to "buck up" or whatever he thought that a comforting word should be.

He's really not the best at that.

You smile to yourself at the memory of how he tried to comfort you back at the hospital, but the longer you sit there and look down at the picture on the screen the worse you feel.

Maybe that scared you more than your newfound powers, how much you were realizing that you needed him, how much you depended on him when things got too much for you to bear. The memory of him appearing as soon as you needed him back at the shop, another of him grabbing Darren and throwing him into the street as soon as Darren insulted you comes in a flash, and finally followed by the memory of Ben carrying you out of Elijah's office while you curled into his chest. You couldn't remember too much from that moment, in fact you'd thought that Ben had kissed you on top of your head, but you ascribed that to the haze of pain you'd been in from your broken arm.

What you did remember was how wonderfully warm he was after you'd been trapped in that damn freezer and how nice it felt to be in his arms. Another memory of Ben sleeping on the couch at the hospital bubbles up and you feel something in your chest begin to crack open. And you try your best to tell yourself the same thing that you always do when you feel like Ben might care more about you that he was letting on.

Ben doesn't want that. He's made it perfectly clear. He doesn't want a relationship. He's only wants one night, that's why he goes out with all those women-

You hesitate, thumb still hovering over the answer button as you do, the memory of the week you'd spent at the apartment with him flickering in the back of your mind. The week where he refused to leave you alone in the apartment, where he refused to do any jobs for Butcher, where he took care of you the best way he could, when he sat with you on the couch and made you laugh with his ridiculous movies, and the week where he hadn't had one date.

Your finger itched to answer the phone, but you couldn't, because you didn't want to feel this way about Ben, not when he'd told you countless times that you kept romanticizing him, not when he told you that he didn't want a relationship, and not when you could feel yourself beginning to fall for someone you thought was the wrong man.

For just a moment you tried to pretend that it was different, that he was different, but you didn't want to. It only made it hurt more.

The phone stops ringing, but the pit in your stomach still gapes open at you and for the first time in twenty hours you feel tears begin to fall. You didn't know why you were crying about this, why the thought of not picking up Ben's phone call seemed to hurt more than everything that had happened, but something made it hurt.

The bus driver announces over the overhead that you're reaching your final destination as he takes the exit for your hometown. The familiar buildings that line the streets are sheathed in a honeyed glow from the sun, the long shadow of the bus darkening them momentarily as it rumbles down the small streets to the bus station.

When it rumbles to a stop at the bus station you wait for everyone else to get off, trying to summon the strength to stand, and swipe the back of your hand across your face to rid yourself of the remaining tears.

The bus station was about a thirty minute walk from your grandmother's house, and you still hadn't called her. You didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell her that Darren was dead and that he was the reason why your parents were dead.

The creature crawls up your body to drape it's warm body over the back of your neck as you stand. It wasn't bothering to hide, besides the people in your hometown already thought that you were odd because you were a supe and you'd always welcomed it. You give him a scratch on top of his head and his warm tongue flicks on the bottom of your earlobe as if thanking you before it curls further into the side of your neck, seeking warmth.

The first few steps on solid ground are shaky, but you find the strength while taking in a deep cleansing breath of the outside world, letting the gentle warmth of the sun and the tickle of the autumn breeze pull at your coat. You hadn't stopped at your apartment before coming here, instead you had stumbled your way to the bus station covered in dust, flecked in blood, and demanded the first ticket back to Illinois. It was lucky that the next bus was leaving immediately, because you didn’t want to spend another second in NYC, not when all you wanted was to be home.

Plus you were worried that someone had recorded what exactly happened outside the plant shop and you didn't want to get arrested.

It was self defense anyway. Maybe Jake would represent me in court.

The thought of Jake makes you twinge. You hadn't checked to see if he was alright before you ran from the scene. Not to mention you'd destroyed the shop he'd put all his life savings into after he stopped being a lawyer.

Oh fuck, what if he sues me? He can't exactly sue Darren…

You hear someone call your name and you open your eyes.

Your grandmother is standing in front of the same baby blue pickup truck that she'd had longer than you've been alive, wearing a long multicolored skirt and a pressed white blouse tucked elegantly into it. Her silver hair is loose and long, curling over her shoulders in gentle waves. She looks the same way she looked one week ago when she left, and you've never seen anything so beautiful in your life.

You're running before you can stop yourself, crumbling into her warm embrace, with more tears streaking down your face, but she doesn't mind.

"Shh. It's alright honey." She whispers, rubbing her hand over your back, her embrace steady and surprisingly strong. "Let's go home."

Her home is the same as it's always been. A two story Victorian house painted in a happy yellow shade, with a white wrap around porch and two white rocking chairs sitting empty on the front porch. You'd spent more nights than you could count rocking silently beside her with a crochet project in your lap listening to the rain fall and soak the world outside, while the plants sang praises with every gentle bend beneath the heavy droplets.

You could barely remember the home you spent in your early years with your parents, not when you'd spent most of your childhood spending the night here and after your parents died living here permanently. There was still a large oak tree were a wooden swing swung in the slight breeze on the left side of the yard, a gardenia bush that stretched as high as the second story on the right side of the house and brushed it's soft leaves against the sunshine colored outer walls, a garden filled with both flowering plants and herbs that perked up on both sides of the front yard as you walked up the path, and a cobblestone path that Annie and you had spent hours of your shared childhood covering in chalk art.

Neither of you were good, but when the rain would fall and smudge the clean lines, you'd jump in the puddles that pooled along the walkway singing the lyrics to ABBA's "Cassandra" not quite understanding what it meant.

Standing here outside your house made you miss Annie and feel worse about not calling or texting her back, but you didn't feel like talking about what happened and you were sure that Butcher filled her in. The only thing that you wanted was to collapse in your bedroom upstairs and curl under the comforters.

Despite everything the house was a welcome sight, but at the same time it was different. You could feel the plants calling out to you, asking for you, bending towards you just to touch your shoes as you walked by. You'd never felt so connected with them before, not even when you were in your apartment or working at the shop. It was overwhelming.

And although a part of you was frightened by it, another part of you rejoiced in it. You didn't feel alone, didn't feel weak, and you knew that you never would ever again.

The creature nuzzled into the side of your neck with a sigh, soaking up the sun's healing rays as you walked up the front steps with your grandmother following behind you silently. She hadn't spoken since she picked you up at the bus station and you hadn't supplied anything in the ten minute car ride back to her house.

You didn't know where to start and you were still trying to process everything yourself.

The inside of her house was just as cozy and warm as it was the day you moved out. There were photos of your parents and you covering the walls (Darren's had been placed in the closet long ago), half-finished knitting projects sorted in different baskets on both the dining room table and the living room coffee table, spools of yarn were strewn over the couch sorted by color, and the fresh smell of gardenia wafted through the open windows on the breeze.

It was home. This was what you'd been missing the moment everything began to crash over you, but as you stood there in the familiar living room it felt like something was missing. Something tugged at the back of your mind, but you couldn't put your finger on it.

There was something or rather someone that should be here, but you didn't know what or who. And your mind supplied Annie, but you weren't sure that's who you meant.

"Let's have some tea." Your grandmother says from behind you and you feel her soft hands come down on your shoulders to steer you through the familiar creative chaos and into the large kitchen at the back of the house.

The kitchen isn't spared from the madness, it rarely was. There are boxes upon boxes of cookies in different stages of being packaged all over the counter, dirty bowls and a measuring cup stacked in the sink, and a large opened bag of chocolate chips spilling over the flour covered kitchen island.

It wasn't unusual to find the kitchen or the house in a state of chaos, your grandmother always said that a house should look lived in and that the mess was part of the fun of any major project as long as you were responsible enough to clean it up.

"Bake sale?" You ask as you sit down in the breakfast nook, uttering the first words that you'd said to another human being in twenty hours.

The next breath that you inhale was supposed to be cleansing, but you can still feel a weight pressing down on your chest, the same one that settled in the moment everything happened with Darren.

You contemplate again how you're going to tell her that Darren is dead and was the reason why your parents died.

Damn it Darren.

"Mhmm." She hums, filling the well used red kettle. "Annie's mother practically cornered me in the supermarket yesterday and begged me to make cookies. I love Annie, but her mother needs someone to pull that stick out of her ass. It's been up there for so long that I'm sure it's rotten."

The creature crawls down from your shoulders and down your arm to sniff at one of the chocolate chip cookies nearest you. It hadn't eaten since…

Darren.

You wince slightly at the thought and hope that you hadn't created something that needed and craved human flesh. The last thing you wanted to unleash on the world was Audry two especially in the wake of Homelander.

Truthfully you were waiting for the guilt at killing your brother to come, but it never had and you wondered if it ever would.

Probably not. He deserved that, he killed our parents, he tried to kill me, he tried to kill Ben.

The thought of Ben again makes a lump form in the back of your throat. You didn't know what was happening to you only that you felt guilty for leaving him like that, for yelling at him to let you go, and just vanishing on him when he probably thought that you were going back to the apartment.

He doesn't know where I am. Maybe that's why he tried to call, because he got back to the apartment and couldn't find me there and he was worried. You press your lips together. Yeah. Worried. Right.

"Honey?" Your grandmother says in a soothing voice

You look up from the box of chocolate chip cookies that you didn't remember picking up. Even the creature is looking at you with an expression that you can only explain as worry.

"Yeah?" Your voice shakes slightly.

She's leaning back against the counter, arms crossed over her chest, head tilted slightly to the side, her beautiful grayed hair pulled up in an elegant bun, but in her eyes you can see genuine concern. "Fuck." She sighs after a minute.

You blink in surprise. It was the first time that you'd ever heard her say that word in your entire life.

"I shouldn't have left." She breathes. "I told Ben to look out for you. I told him, that little bastard was bound to show up again and what did he do? He left you at that plant shop alone with no protection!"

You'd only seen her really angry a handful of times in your lifetime. Like you, your grandmother often had a gentle disposition and didn't get angry unless the situation called for it.

I mean, Darren admitted to killing our parents and then got fucking ripped apart. But how does she know about any of that? I haven't told her…

"How did you know that he left me there? Did Ben call you?" You ask putting down the box of cookies.

An odd expression crosses her face, as if she's contemplating something. "No." She hesitates again. "I saw it."

"No." Your grandmother hesitates. "I saw it."

"You saw it?" You repeat, confused.

What's going on?

"Too late of course, but I'm a little rusty. I was able to warn Ben that Darren was coming back. That's how he got there so quickly or rather-" She shrugs sheepishly. "He got there in time to make sure that Darren didn't get you to forgive him. Which you shouldn't have at all, but I know he's always had a talent for manipulating you."

"What?"

Is she saying what I think she's saying?

Instead of explaining further your grandmother walks out of the kitchen, leaving the kettle behind on the stove and you in a state of utter confusion.

Is she saying that she can see the future? Because that would mean that she's a supe and there's only one supe in history that I know of that can do that. A supe that no one has seen in over forty years.

You can hear her open the door to the closet under the stairs and the sound of her sifting through all the junk that the two of you had shoved in there over the years instead of finding the right place to put it.

When she comes back into the kitchen, she's holding a giant cardboard file box that you'd never paid attention to each time you opened the closet to find something. Your eyes shift from the box to her still not comprehending exactly what she was saying.

"I probably should have told you this a while ago, but…" She trails off and nods her head at the box before turning back to the kettle on the stove that has begun to scream. "I kept putting it off."

The box is old, worn at the edges, and theres a musty black fabric beneath a collection of yellowed photographs. You pull out the one on top to examine it.

Ben is standing there in his full Soldier Boy regalia outside of Vought tower and the woman standing next to him is Soothsayer. The outfit she wore was familiar, a black-skin tight suit with a blind fold tied over her eyes.

Soothsayer was a supe who could see the future and who was apart of Payback, a supe that had vanished a year before the mission in Nicaragua and no one knew where she went. There were rumors that she'd died and that she'd been a Russian spy, but you'd never believed them. You'd heard Butcher talk about how he tried to find her when he was trying to figure out what happened to Soldier Boy, but he never had. Said that the trail went cold.

But now you knew where she went, because she was standing directly in front of you.

She's Soothsayer? Holy fuck that's why Ben kept accusing her of cheating in the poker game because he knew that she could see the future.

"You were Soothsayer?" You gasp. "But why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you tell me?"

She continues to measure the tea leaves. "I didn't tell anyone."

"Grandpa didn't know? But he was alive when you were a supe?"

Your grandfather had never spoken about a history with supes that you remember.

"No." She turns to look at you, a hurt expression crossing over her face for a minute. "Well, I know that I said I was going to have tea, but if we're going to talk about this I'm going to need something a little bit stronger."

Your grandmother opens a cabinet under the stove an pulls out an enormous bottle of scotch. Truth be told you'd never seen her drink more than just a glass of wine, to see her like this was about as shocking as seeing a polar bear sunning itself on a Florida beach.

"Do you still want the blueberry tea or do you need something a little stronger?" She looks back over her shoulder at you as she pulls down a glass for herself.

"I think I need something stronger." You answer honestly.

Learning about everything Darren had done was one thing, but finding out that your grandmother used to be a famous supe and that she never told you about it was another thing. It was like looking at another person. You'd always loved your grandmother's gentle way, her care for her community and her family soft, but now you weren't sure you really knew who she was.

She sits down across from you and hands you a glass of the amber colored liquid. There's a heavy silence that hangs between the two of you as she tries to find a way to start. The photo of her and Ben is laying on top of what you realize is her uniform inside the box and she smiles down at the photo, just a little twitch at the corner of her lips.

"I met Ben when I was twenty three years old." She begins taking a sip from the glass. "Legend 'discovered' me. I had the injection of Compound V maybe two years before that, not when I was born, but I hadn't gotten popular. Other powers were much more flashy and by then there were so many heroes coming out of the woodwork that someone with the ability to see the future didn't seem as marketable."

There's something reflected in her blue eyes, the same eyes your father had, that you can't place. "I had just moved to New York, I had no money, and the way I was getting it was by pretending to be a fortune teller and betting on some sports events on the side. It wasn't hard to prove that I could see the future, the past was more difficult, but Legend somehow stumbled into my shop and figured out that I was a supe. And he didn't think I was too bad looking so he helped me get big."

"You pretended to be a fortune teller?"

She snorts into her glass. "Mhmm. People really will believe anything if they're desperate enough and back then there was so much turmoil going on with Russia that people were scared and wanted to feel comforted. My job provided some of that."

"But why did you walk away from it if you were such a big hero." You ask. "Everyone knew your name, you were-"

Your grandmother raises an eyebrow at you and you fall silent so she can continue. "When I got onto Payback that's when everything exploded for me, the films, the commercials, the ridiculous ads." She sighs. "That's also when I met Ben."

You take a sip from the glass in front of you, sputtering slightly. It was stronger than you were expecting. "And you two were-"

Please don't say dating, please don't say dating, please don't say…

"Friends. Just friends." Diana sits back against the back of the breakfast nook, sinking into the navy blue pillows. "But he is almost as charming now as he was then."

You cringe at the thought of Ben coming on to a younger version of your grandmother.

She taps her glass with her index finger deep in thought. "But I think that I was the only person that Ben actually talked to, the only person that he was comfortable being around."

"What do you mean?" You ask confused. "Didn't he talk to Countess and to Legend?"

Her expression hardens at the mention of Countess's name. "He didn't talk to her the way he talked to me. Ben is difficult, he always has been and I think that most of the people he meet him write him off as this asshole with a chauvinistic look on the world, but he's not. At least, not all the time. There are so many people that he's met that are never willing to take a chance on him. To trust that there is really something beneath all of that bravado."

It was what you had been thinking for the past week, that there was more to Ben than he was willing to let people see, but you were slowly realizing that Ben was letting you see those parts. In the quiet moments at your shared apartment when he sat with you while you read or made you laugh or walked you to and from work you saw another side of Ben that you never saw when he was around anyone else. The guilt rises again when you think of how you ran from him, how you turned your back and left him standing there to clean up your mess.

I shouldn’t have done that, but it was all just so overwhelming and I didn't want to talk to anyone.

"I think that Ben is the most loyal friend I ever had. No one ever seems to believe me when I say that. That we were just friends, but nothing happened between us."

"You didn't date? Or sleep together?" You ask cautiously. It was difficult to imagine Ben being friends with a woman and not having a sexual relationship with her.

Well. We're friends, but that's different.

The last thing you wanted to think about was Ben and your grandmother having sex.

I would need so much therapy after that. You sigh. Yeah, because after all the shit I've been through and found out about my life in the last twenty hours, the knowledge that Ben fucked my grandmother is what's going to push me over the edge.

"No." She shakes her head with a small smile. "About a week after I met Ben, I was running late to a movie shoot and I stepped off the crosswalk without looking. There was a car coming and I didn't see it. Ironic isn't it?" She laughs at herself. "I can see the future and I didn't see a car coming, but your grandfather did and he grabbed the back of my jacket and yanked me onto the sidewalk, saved my life. And the second my eyes locked with his I saw our future. I saw our wedding, our first house, I saw our son take his first steps and I saw how much I would love him and how much he would love me." She clears her throat for a minute, her fingers tighten on the glass, and her gaze drops to the wedding ring on her left hand. “The future is never set in stone, it’s fluid. It morphs and shapes with your decisions, but in the future I saw, I was so happy. And I didn’t want to lose that.”

Your grandfather had passed a few years ago, but you knew it weighed on her everyday. She had spent the week after he died in her room not saying anything to anyone. And sometimes she'd look out the window into the backyard with an odd expression, but you knew that meant she was thinking of him.

Growing up you'd seen how in love the two of them were, more so than your parents. Seen the flowers your grandfather always brought home just because he was thinking of her, watched him do little things around the house without being asked, saw how they never walked away angry from one another, and seen the soppy expression he'd get when he watched your grandmother move around the kitchen baking with a grace that you'd never possessed.

You reach across the table to touch her hand and she takes it gratefully.

"I didn't want to tell him that I was a supe, and at the beginning I thought I could balance it all, but then Ben started dating Countess." She takes another sip from her glass. "She hated me."

"What? Why?" You ask. The creature crawls across the table to sniff at the glass in front of you, before it snorts and falls into your lap, curling into a ball.

"Countess was a bitch." Your grandmother says mirthlessly, her expression hardening. "She wanted to possess Ben completely. Only loved how famous he was, how popular it made her, and he threw himself at her feet, in his own way, not understanding that love didn’t look that way. He’s never had a good example of it in his life. And she never understood that Ben and I were just friends. By then I had been dating your grandfather for a few months and things were getting serious. It was about a year before everything that happened in Nicaragua."

She presses her lips together as if remembering what happened to Ben there. "She was jealous, possessive, and she came to me one night. Ben was out of town for a film so she knew we wouldn’t be interrupted. She threatened to tell your grandfather who I really was and threatened to kill him.” Her jaw sets. “My powers were never really as offensive as hers were. And she said that Ben wouldn’t ever protect me over her because he loved her and would do anything to make her happy. So I left and I never looked back.”

And here I thought I couldn't hate Countess any more than I did for what she did to Ben.

“You didn’t talk to him ever again?” You wonder out loud.

She left without telling him goodbye?

“There was the occasional phone call. Sometimes Ben would ask me to see who was going to win a ball game or something so he could make a few bucks. He stopped by to say hi a few times because he was in the neighborhood. One time he brought your father a baseball glove that was way too big for a one year old.” She snorts, the memory flashing in her eyes. “I always thought Ben would be a good dad some day. But I think seeing your father was when Ben realized how much he wanted to have kids. And I think seeing the way your grandfather treated me made him start to feel conflicted about Countess. But he respected that I walked away, he saw that I was happy.”

“But what about Nicaragua?"

A dark look crosses her face followed by something that looks suspiciously like guilt. “I saw what they were going to do to him.”

“What? But why didn't you tell him what they were planning? Why didn't you-"

"I tried." She snaps, shoulders tense, but then they drop. "I called Ben, but Stan answered. By then your father was turning two, your grandfather had opened up his practice, and Stan threatened me, he knew where we were and knew everything about us. So I kept my mouth shut and I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

You could feel your heart breaking for her.

Ben was her best friend and she had to sit by and watch them do that to him. She saw what they were going to do and they were going to kill her for it, kill my family for it.

The anger that surges in your chest makes the creature in your lap stir and grow a few inches, but you tamp it down before it gets bigger than a small dog.

“Does Ben know?” You ask her to distract yourself.

You didn't want Ben to hate your grandmother for this, didn't want him to hate her for something that wasn't her fault.

She nods. “Yes. I told him everything.”

“When?”

“The moment I saw him in your hospital room. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. I wasn't expecting him to be there, but it all poured out of me. I was so surprised to see him there. I hadn't seen a future where he came back."

“Was he mad?”

I mean… he didn't seem mad when I woke up, not to mention he was upset when she left to come back to Illinois.

“Not at me.” She shakes her head. “He knew how much I wanted a normal life and how much I loved your grandfather. He doesn’t blame me for any of it.”

“Good. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

The glass in front of you is still more than half-full but you don't want to risk another sip of what you're sure is gasoline packaged to look like Scotch. Your grandmother reaches to pour herself another glass.

“I didn’t want to until you were ready.”

“And when would that be?”

Your grandmother shrugs. “Maybe on my deathbed.”

You weren't angry for her not telling you, more surprised, but now that you knew everything about her it was hard to see her the same way you had.

You snort. “And no one knew?”

“Your dad figured it out.”

“How? When?”

“The moment you made that strawberry plant grow from your high chair.” She shakes her head with a smile. “It skipped a generation. Don’t know why, but you got it all somehow.”

“I was never injected?”

“No. That was a lie your father created. He knew that your grandfather didn't know and he knew that I didn't want your grandfather to know."

“Darren thought I was.”

“I know.”

At the mention of your brother's name, you watch her expression harden and she takes another swig from the glass in front of her, not flinching as the liquid goes down her throat.

“Did you see everything that happened?” You ask in a small voice.

You still weren't 100% sure how it was her powers worked, but you figured that she was able to see some of what Darren did and what he said.

“Yes.”

“You heard everything Darren said?"

“Yes.”

You chew the inside of your cheek for a minute hoping that she didn't take it as hard as you did. “Did you know that he killed them?”

“No.” She breathes, rolling the glass between her hands for a moment. “The night they died, I got a vision a few minutes before the car ran off the road. I was the one who called the police and who told them where to look, but I never saw that it was Darren or that it was anyone causing the accident. All I saw was the three of you in the car. I should have known.” Her voice breaks.

“It’s not your fault.” You squeeze her hand.

“And it’s not yours either.” She squeezes your hand back.

The memories are beginning to float up from the recesses of your mind and your teeth clench together as you try to keep them at bay.

“I know.” You breathe. The memory of the ruined shop flashes through your head. “I didn’t know that I could do something like that.” You gently touch your healed right arm and glance at the creature that is nibbling on the edge of the cardboard box with its sharp splinter-like teeth. “I feel so different and I don’t know how to go back to the way I was.”

“I don’t think you ever will.”

"Really?"

The thought was unwelcome. You were hoping that all of this was going to blow over, but you knew it wouldn't. Your powers had changed. There was an energy that thrummed in your veins now, stretching out of the house to the plants that grew in the garden. You could feel them all if you concentrated.

She frowns. “When you told me that you were working for Butcher I was worried about you getting involved in the supe world. I didn’t want that life for you, didn’t want you to suffer the way I did-“

“Was it really that bad?"

“Not all the time, just at the end. But I think that’s why I loved your grandfather so much. Because he was different than all the supes. He was down to earth, not just normal but-“ She shrugs. “I think Compound V does something to our minds, makes them more susceptible and when you’re surrounded by people using their powers and thinking that they’re gods it’s easy to lose who you are. I was glad I left when I did."

“Great." You huff, thinking about how your powers had grown exponentially since you killed your brother. It was scaring you to think that you would reach a point where you acted like Homelander, where you saw yourself as a god and killed anyone who stood in your way.

As tired as the stereotype of you only being able to make the flowers grow, you liked doing that. You liked healing plants, tending to them, and helping them grow. For you it had never been about using your powers the way that you had to kill Elijah and your brother and had always been about spreading a little more joy and love like your grandmother did with her kindness in her community.

Your mind flashes back to the first night that Ben stayed with you in your apartment and he'd asked you why you worked for Butcher and told you that he thought you "didn't fit."

Before you hadn't. You knew that. You weren't intimidating to look at or fueled by revenge or had a bone to pick with supes. You'd joined because you thought it was the right thing to do and because you wanted to be closer with Annie. She had been so involved in the supe world and you'd felt like you were losing your best friend. When in reality being at "Please Don't Die" was the only thing that felt natural for you.

You could feel yourself changing and you weren't sure that you wanted to and you weren't sure if you were changing for the better. Deep down you still felt like you, despite everything Darren had revealed, but your powers were greater than you'd thought they could be.

“No.” She squeezes your hand pulling you out of your head. “I don’t see you losing yourself in this.”

“You’ve seen-“ Your eyes widen.

“The future yeah.” Her lips twitch up at the ends in a smile. “It is what I do.”

“That’s so weird.”

You hadn't meant to say it, but you really didn't want to know too much about your future.

Well, not all that much. Maybe just a little.

“You of all people have no right to judge what’s weird. Not with Godzilla sitting in your lap.”

"Godzilla" yawns, flashing a mouthful of his pointy teeth, before settling back down on your thighs.

You smile for the first time in twenty hours, but then it drops. “I don’t like losing control. I thought I knew who I was but now I don’t-“ The emotions were bubbling up again, chest tightening, and lungs beginning to gasp for air. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I am or what I can do and-“

“There’s nothing wrong with not being in control.”

“But what if I hurt someone? What if I kill-“ You body shakes as you think about all the important people in your life, Annie, Hughie, Butcher, Kimiko, MM, Frenchie- and then your mind stutters on Ben.

“Your powers are growing and there’s nothing to be afraid of or ashamed of. If you’re afraid of them it won’t get easier for you. You have to embrace the fear to see the lights that line the path through it.”

"I killed Darren, I killed Elijah-"

"Not because you lost control. You did it because you were protecting yourself and protecting your friends."

"But-"

"Who is it that you're scared of hurting? Annie?" Her expression turns sympathetic. "Annie is a supe and understands what it's like to lose control. None of us are in control all the time and it's ridiculous to believe that you won't lose control at least once."

Your throat clenches tightly, because when she asked the question you didn't see Annie's face, you saw Ben's. You knew that it was probably ridiculous to worry about hurting a guy with a nuclear reactor stuffed in his chest or a guy who'd been through every torture known to man, but you were. And you weren't entirely sure if you meant hurting him with just your powers.

Tears crest and fall down your cheeks as you sit there, throat thickening. "I don't want to hurt Ben."

"He's a little more indestructible than us sweetie." She cracks a smile, but you can't smile back and you don't answer because you're unsure how to.

She sits back against the breakfast nook and sighs, examining your face and slowly realizes what you mean. "Ben is complicated. He always has been. I like to think that most of it, is his father's fault. Has he told you anything about him?"

You shake your head.

"He was a dick. Made Ben think that he was a disappointment his whole life. I don't think that Ben has had someone love him unconditionally since his mother died. And loving Countess only made it worse for him. Her love was jealous, possessive, and I don't think that he's really come to terms with what real love should look like." She lets out a breath, tapping her index finger against the glass. "I never saw him as more than a friend, but I do love him. It's not a crime to love him."

"I don't love him." You say it immediately.

"Why not?"

"What?" You sputter. "I don't know what you're-"

"Tell me why you don't love him." Your grandma says methodically, as if she's trying to talk you through it.

"Because I-" The pressure was back in the back of your throat and you couldn't quite meet her eye. "Because-" You scramble for the answer, trying your darndest to keep your heart from clenching in your chest. "I want what you and grandpa had, what Annie and Hughie have, and what my parents had. A strong relationship with someone who sees all my flaws, the little parts, and the darkness and still choses to fall in love with me anyway. I don't want just one night I want every night. I want something real and Ben has said countless times that he-"

"So you've talked about it with Ben?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Only because he kept trying to sleep with me and I told him that I didn't want to have sex with him." You reply exasperated.

"You don't?"

"Gran!"

"What? He's attractive."

"It doesn't matter. None of it does. Because Ben has said that he doesn't have relationships, that he doesn't care about feelings, or emotions." Saying the words that Ben had told you countless times made something inside begin to shrivel up and die. "And I do. And I don't want to manipulate him into being something he's not or force him into a relationship that's doomed from the beginning. Ben is Ben. He's not changing or-"

"He has." She interrupts.

"What?"

"The Ben I saw in your hospital room is not the one I knew." She says it so matter of fact that makes it hard to breathe. "And neither was the one that I saw in your apartment when I stayed with you. I mean he is in essence Ben, but-"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"He is changing. Not completely, but he's acting differently than when he was with Countess. I mean, I saw all the things he did for her. The way he was around her."

"Why does that matter?"

"Because he loved her."

The words make your heart seize in your chest. "Ben doesn't love me. He's my roommate and my friend-" It was the same thing that you kept telling yourself on repeat to beat back the other feelings that you hadn't quite identified yet. "And he's told me that he doesn't want a relationship and that I should try to meet other people."

That last part was a lie, but you honestly didn't know where she was going with this conversation or why it was getting so hard to breathe.

"Have you thought that maybe Ben doesn't want to love you because he's scared?"

"He doesn't love me and Ben isn't afraid of anything."

"He is. It might not look the same way on him as it does on everyone else, but if you pay close enough attention you can catch it." She hesitates. "And I think if you pay attention to you, you'll see what it is that you're afraid of too."

What does she mean? What the hell am I afraid of? Ben isn't afraid of anything, he's practically shouted that from the mountaintops like Julie Andrews.

"I already told you what I'm afraid of."

"I'm not talking about you hurting someone honey. There's something else that you refuse to admit to yourself because you're scared." She smiles sadly at you. "You should though, because when you embrace it, what comes after is really beautiful." There's a far off look in her eyes and you realize that she'd seen something further ahead that she wasn't letting on.

"And it's all I want for you. To be happy." Your grandmother stands from the other side of the booth "I think you need some rest. You drove all night long and I doubt you got any sleep. And I have to package all of these before Annie's mother calls down the four horsemen of the Apocalypse on me."

"Wait-"

"Please sweetie." She lays her hand down on your arm. "I think you'll feel a little better about all of this when you've had some rest." Her fingers raise to push back some of the hair that's fallen forward into your eyes. "Hmm?"

You didn't want to rest, you wanted to talk about this, but you knew better than to argue with her. Not to mention she was right, you hadn't slept.

"And when you wake up I'll make your favorite for dinner, alright?" She smiles, but there's something behind it that you can't place.

"Okay."

And this time you don't argue with her. You go up the worn staircase that you have your entire life and collapse onto your bed, wondering exactly what it was she saw your future hold, and what it is that you won't admit to yourself.

Soldier Boy POV

There was no light in the apartment save from the burning red tip of Ben's blunt and the bluish glow emanating from the tv that caught the dips and sharp edges of his face. But it was nothing more than background noise.

His hand absentmindedly stroked along Bean's back, his eyes focused on the ceiling above the couch. He hadn't moved in hours. It had been over twenty four hours since everything that happened at the plant shop, since you'd summoned a creature from the depths of the store, since Darren had thrown Ben through the plate glass windows of the bakery, and since Ben had last seen you.

He didn't understand why you hadn't let him take you back to the apartment and why it was that you had to leave. Ben hadn't liked the feeling that stabbed him in the chest when you turned your back on him and ran away. He'd felt the urge to comfort you the way he'd watched Hughie do for Annie in the car a week ago, but you hadn't let him.

Instead all he'd done is stood there and watched you run, still covered in dust, rubble, and blood. Worse was you hadn't let him check you for injuries and Ben hated the thought that you were hurt somewhere and he didn't know where you were.

You were so much more fragile than he was. He was realizing that more every day, was acutely aware of it after everything that happened with Elijah. Honestly, sitting there in the hospital with you laying there asleep with nothing that he could do, but wait for you to wake up had been agony. Not to mention that looking at the bruises around your throat, over your eye, and the bright green cast only made him feel worse. He'd never felt so helpless in his entire life and he hated it. Because Ben wasn't some helpless damsel in distress, he was a man and a man shouldn't wait on anyone or feel out of control, or at least, that's what he told himself.

Ben hears someone walk down the hallway outside the apartment and he perks up to listen, hoping that it's you finally coming home. Ben's mind stutters on the word "home." He'd lived many places in his life, apartments that felt more like way-stations, and the drafty cold mansion back in Philadelphia where he grew up, but neither felt like home. And although he hated how small your apartment was, it was the first place that Ben liked living in. He was starting to understand the word home.

But the feet keep moving past the apartment and Ben sinks into the couch cushions. Even Bean seems to be disappointed. "It's alright buddy." Ben mutters. "She'll come back."

But he wasn't sure.

Ben also wasn't used to feeling this way. It was close to the way that he felt when he went to Boston and was sitting in that damn hotel room waiting for something to happen and he still didn't understand what it meant. He didn't understand why he couldn't stand it that you weren't back yet. It made him feel like a woman waiting for her husband to get home from work when he told her that he was "running late." He'd tried to distract himself by looking at some possible prospects on Tinder, but just like the week after you'd come home from the hospital and just like the date he had in Boston, no one held any appeal.

His mind was awake and roaming around, pacing back and forth. The blunt was supposed to help, but it hadn't.

His phone chirps and Ben picks it up to look at the screen, but it's not you, it's Jake.

Jake: I know that I'm not your favorite person, but thank you for what you did.

Ben huffs and turns his phone face down on the couch once more. "What a fucking pussy."

When you left Ben had realized that Jake was still inside the building and as much as he wanted race after you, he understood that you'd be even more upset if you'd killed Jake. So Ben had tromped back through the building and found him trapped beneath some rubble. Jake was okay, just unconscious, but Ben had carried him out and put him on the sidewalk before he high tailed it out of there. The last thing that he wanted was to be caught with a shredded body outside a ruined building.

I didn't do it for him. I did it for her. Ben thinks to himself, looking down at the text message.

As much as he hated the thought of saving your future boyfriend, he didn't want to see what it did to you if you found out that you killed Jake, so he'd done it to avoid watching you cry again.

Ben didn't understand why he hated watching you cry.

Women cry. They're damn emotional all the time. He tries to reason with himself taking a puff from the blunt pinched between his thumb and forefinger. And she fucking cries way too much.

The image of you crying outside of the shop in the wake of everything that happened pricks something under his ribcage. Fuck.

Ben didn't feel remorse for what happened, well, the only thing he regretted was not getting there sooner and getting to fuck Darren up himself. When Diana had called him to tell him that Darren was coming, Ben had practically ripped the apartment door off in his haste to get back to you. He hadn’t wanted to leave you at the plant shop, but Butcher had told Ben, that he had a possible location for Darren, but it came up empty and Ben had been at Butcher's apartment chewing him out for sending him on a fucking wild goose chase.

It only made Ben more angry to allow Darren to speak to you, but he was trying to let you handle it even though he wanted to handle him. But it had brought him an unholy amount of joy to throw Darren in front of that minivan and to watch that creature tear him apart while the final whitish blue pulses of electricity jumped and crackled down the street making the streetlights shower sparks everywhere.

But Ben was more upset that Darren had been able to land a few hits on you before you killed him.

Ben remembered the giant lizard that crawled out of what was left of "Please Don't Die" and felt his lips quirk up into a smile. As much as he hated the entire situation, Ben couldn't help but feel a little surge of pride at what you'd done to your brother. He'd never seen you look so powerful standing there in the street, your eyes glowing a brilliant green, arms outstretched, and the ground trembling around you as the world begged to be unleashed.

Of course he'd been just as surprised as you were at the fact that you'd healed your broken arm. He wasn't sure if you'd noticed it yet, but you looked different too. There weren't as many lines on your face and your hair was more springy, the few silver hairs that Ben had noticed in passing were no longer there.

He wasn't sure what that meant, but there was something that felt suspiciously like hope tingling in his stomach, hope that you weren't as fragile anymore and hope that it meant you wouldn't die.

When Diana had told Ben that her husband had died, he saw the pain in her eyes when she said it, saw her relieving the memory, and for some reason as soon as she said that he was dead, the first thing Ben thought about was you. Ben hadn't considered his inability to age as much in the past, hadn't cared about outliving anyone before. Seeing Countess as an older woman had made him more aware of it. Looking at the woman who he once thought he loved, had showed him what that was like. Not that he had a problem with daring older women, Ben always thought that women really did get better with age, but it was what came next that Ben wasn't fond of.

And for some reason thinking that one day he'd wake up and see the marks of age on your face or one day he'd wake up and he wouldn't be able to annoy you or hear you yell at him made his chest tight.

Ben takes another hit of his blunt. The longer he sat there the more then unnatural feeling stirred in the pit of his stomach, thrumming through his veins, the feeling that he was trying to avoid. He thought that the joint would calm him down, but he found himself jumping at every creak and footstep in the apartment building, perking up each time and hoping that it was you coming home.

He didn't know where you were. You hadn't answered any of his texts or calls and Ben was ashamed at how many times that he had tried to call you.

Get a fucking grip. He'd thought to himself when he typed out another text message to send you, stopping himself from sending it.

But he'd been so desperate to hear from you that he'd actually gone to talk to Annie who seemed upset that she couldn't get ahold of you either. When Hughie and Annie had seen how upset Ben had been, Hughie had laid his hand on Ben's arm and told him not to worry. Ben had yelled at him that he "wasn't fucking worried and to mind his own business" and had shaken off Hughie's comforting hand before stomping out of the shared apartment.

No one else seemed to be as concerned about finding you. Butcher, MM, and Frenchie were all deeply involved in trying to figure out the cover-up for what happened outside the plant shop. By some miracle no one had caught a picture of your face, but there was little they could do about Darren's body that had been strewn across the street. Annie was having to deal with the repercussions at work, trying to handle what the news was calling a "super villain threat."

Personally, Ben thought that since they froze Homelander, the Seven looked weak and Ben believed that the superhero team that represented America shouldn't look weak. Of course before Ben had also thought that they looked like a bunch of pussies and again felt himself sink deeper into the couch when he thought about what his supposed son had become.

He shakes off the feelings he has about it and his thoughts turn back inevitably to you.

Ben wasn't used to thinking about someone as much as he thought of you, but each time he settled back into the apartment and you weren't there he was hyperaware of how quiet it was.

Maybe I should call Diana. She might know where she is.

As soon as Ben thinks that, his phone begins to ring, but Ben doesn't bother to look at who it is before he answers it.

"Hello?" Ben huffs out a breath of smoke that hangs in the air in front of his face, catching in the bluish light coming from the television.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" The voice on the other side of the line yells at him.

"Di?"

"Yes it's me. Who did you think it was? Santa Clause?" Your grandmother snarks.

"Why are you calling me and why the fuck are you so mad? What did I do?" Ben answers slightly annoyed.

As much as you got under his skin, your grandmother had been the same way. He actually thought that it was amusing that even before he figured out that she was your grandmother that he had often compared you to her in his mind. You had the same mannerisms, the same defiant and stubborn attitude that drove Ben up the wall, and you were just as beautiful as she was.

Ben was okay with admitting that he was attracted to you. To him that felt normal, it was the other feelings that he was conflicted about, the ones that he'd never felt before stirring in his chest that made him feel "too emotional" and "woman-like."

Truthfully, Ben was sure that if your grandmother had given him a shot that maybe he would have felt that way about her too. She was the only person that Ben actually trusted in the 80's, the only person that was brave enough to call him out on all his shit. You did that now. But he liked her husband also, so Ben was content with letting her go. He liked how happy that Henry, your grandfather, had made her. He knew that she wasn't happy as a supe and seeing her so happy and in love made Ben feel something that was close to happiness.

And it was seeing the way the two of them were together made Ben wonder if what he had with Countess was the same thing. Because he did have feelings about her that were different, but each time he went to visit Diana and saw your father playing on her lap he felt that there was something missing in his life.

It was the same way that he thought something was missing when you weren't in the apartment, but Ben hadn't realized that yet.

"Because I don't understand what the hell you're doing!" Diana replies and Ben honestly doesn't know why she's angry with him.

"About what?"

"My granddaughter."

Ben sits up the blunt in his fingertips forgotten. "Is she there with you?"

"Yes." Her voice softens for a moment.

Ben relaxes and leans back onto the couch, sighing in relief. "Good. That's good." Relief swelled in his chest when he thought about you staying with her, safe.

That's what she meant when she said that she wanted to go home. Home is with her grandmother. Ben stopped the next thought before he could go there.

The thought that home wasn't with him.

Ben was trying not to think about that or think about you hating him. He didn't think you did, well, didn't think you did anymore. At first it really was touch and go, but now he was almost eighty percent sure after you'd told him more than once that you weren't afraid of him and didn’t hate him that you sometimes wanted him around.

"No, not good."

"What do you mean? Is she okay?" Ben's grip on the phone tightens so hard that he's sure that he hears the screen cracking.

"No."

"What happened?" Ben's voice is a growl, the feelings of relief evaporating as soon as they had begun to bloom in his chest. He mentally calculated how long it would take him to get to you.

"Her entire life fucking fell apart and where are you? Not here!"

Oh. Ben relaxed a little bit.

"I don't need to be there." He says on an exhale of smoke.

"Yes you do!" Diana presses.

"No, I don't. She a big girl she doesn't need me there, she's-" Ben takes a puff from the joint.

“If you were any denser you’d be a Bundt cake Benjamin!” She says exasperated.

"What the fuck are you talking about doll? I am not-"

“Let me guess." She interrupts and Ben can imagine her tapping her foot. He hated when she did that. "You’re moping around smoking a blunt on the couch probably with a glass of something that you're hoping to numb whatever the hell it is you're feeling."

Ben's eyes shift to the bottle of whiskey on the coffee table that he hadn't touched in a few minutes.

“I’m not fucking moping and stop spying on me!” He snaps back at Diana.

He hated how well she knew him. She was his best friend in the 80's through all the shit, she had seen him at his worst and at his best too many times to count.

“I don’t have to use my powers to know what you’re doing. I know you Ben.”

"Sorry to disappoint you sweetheart.” Ben grits his teeth, temper flaring hot. “But if you know me as well as you fucking say you do then you then you know that this is-“

“You avoiding your feelings by acting aloof and brooding like a fucked up version of Mr. Darcy.” She interrupts.

She certainly hasn't changed.

“I am not avoiding-“

“She needs you here Ben.” Diana stamps her foot, the same way you do when Ben pisses you off, and Ben can hear it.

“She doesn’t need me! She said that she wanted to go home, that she didn’t want to be here with me! I tried to-“ Ben shouts back standing up. It was the exact thing that he'd been thinking for the past twenty four hours, that you didn’t need him and that you didn't want to be any where near him.

That last thought made an uncomfortable sensation prickle in his gut when he thought it, because all it did was remind him of how you acted when the two of you first met, when you didn't want him to live with you and tried your darndest to make him go away.

He didn’t want to and he wasn't sure why that was.

“Try harder.” Diana interrupts him again and frankly it was pissing him off.

Ben clenches his jaw. “I think that you’ve confused me with someone else baby.”

“Don’t you 'baby' me Benjamin! We both know that you’re doing what you always do when things get hard for you.”

“And what’s that?”

“You pretend not to care and shut out everyone who tries to care for you. Not to mention you drown yourself in drugs, booze, and women.”

“She doesn’t care about me!” He spits.

“She does!” Diana snaps back. “And believe it or not she needs you here and she wants you here.”

"But-"

"Ben please." It was the first time that he'd heard Diana sound softer and almost pleading since the conversation started. "Don't do this to her. She's worth more than Countess and all those other women you've fallen into bed with."

"Do you really think I don't know that?" He roars. The answer surprises himself. "Do you think I don't know that she's different?"

Wait what?

"If you know that, then why aren't you here?"

He hesitates.

Everything you said to him the night of the party comes roaring back. You looking beautiful in a dress that made his throat tight, and you telling him that you just wanted to be friends and that you understood that he wasn't the type of guy to have relationships. He didn't understand why it stung a bit when you said that, but it had.

Ben thinks about the week that the two of you spent together after Diana went home, when he tried his best to take care of you, distract you from everything that happened with his movies, and would sit with you and try to make you laugh. He'd never wanted to take care of someone before.

Not to mention he kind of liked the way you laughed. He wouldn’t admit that to anyone, but each time you did, it made him want to laugh too. That had never happened to him before. But he wanted to make you laugh to forget everything that happened with Elijah. His fist clenches when he thinks of exactly what Elijah tried to do to you and it makes him feel so mad that he feels close to spontaneously combusting. Ben might not be the best role model when it came to women, but he couldn’t imagine the type of man who would force himself on someone else.

It had made him angry when he thought that you were suggesting that he would try something when he first moved in, because he wasn't that type of man.

Ben was trying to be better for you. He wasn't admitting that, but he really was trying to be better. He didn't understand why. You'd told him countless times that you didn’t want to be with him, that you wanted to be with someone else like Jake.

Ben frowns when he thinks about the man he'd pulled from the rubble of the shop. And again thinks to himself that you should be with someone different, someone who was a supe and could understand you. Ben had seen how difficult it was for Diana when she was keeping her supe life a secret from your grandfather and he didn't want you to have to do that with someone.

"Because I'm not-" Ben begins to say, but he holds his tongue. It was too honest, too raw, too unlike him to admit this to anyone.

Because I'm not this guy. Because I'm not the one she wants. Because I'm not some knight on a white horse. Because she's everything right with the world and I'm just a fucking asshole who sleeps on her couch.

"Ben." Diana breathes and he can practically hear her pinching the bridge of her nose. "In all the years I've known you, you've never done what you did for her with anyone else. You carried her out of that warehouse, you stayed with her in the hospital even after she woke up, you took care of her when she came home, you protected her from Darren. You can't ignore all those things."

"I'm not ignoring them. She's my friend." The word sours in his mouth as he says it. "And she would have done the same thing for me." He knew it was true.

She's a good person and she wouldn't let me chase her away if any of that shit happened to me and I told her to leave me alone.

"Yes she would. Because she cares about you." Diana sighs.

"She doesn't."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Because she's told me what she wants!" Ben shouts so loudly he can feel the room shaking. "She wants to be friends-“

"Because she doesn't think that you want a relationship you nitwit!"

"I don't." Ben spits the words before he can stop them, but as he does something tightens at the base of his throat.

"How is it that it's been forty fucking years and you're still able to dance on the grave of my last nerve?"

Ben chuckles. "I missed you too sweetheart."

She sighs into the phone again making it crackle in Ben's ear. "She needs you.” Diana repeats. “And I think you need her too.”

His temper was flaring again, the thoughts that his father pressed into him surging up before he can stop the words. “I don’t need anyone. I’m Sol-“

“If you say that you’re Soldier Boy, I’m going to reach through this phone and slap you silly.” She snaps. “And you do need her, but you’re still just too stubborn to admit it.”

“I-“

“Ben I know that everything that happened with Countess was fucked up, but my granddaughter she-“ Diana pauses before she changes the thought. “You say that you know she’s different, but right now you’re treating her the same way you treat all those other women.”

“I’m not-“

“My granddaughter has decided you’re important to her and once that’s happened it’s hard to make her let go. You saw the way she was with Darren and that guy was a manipulative asshole. Imagine what she thinks of you.”

“I-“

“Stop making excuses!”

“You didn’t even hear what I was going to say!” Ben shouts.

“And I don’t need to! Think what you want Ben but if you’d stop acting so stubborn and so ridiculously blind to what’s right in front of you. I promise that what comes next is worth the risk.”

“Don’t go all fucking mystical on me doll.”

“And don’t go all macho- no feelings asshole on me! So stop being so damn stubborn, get on a plane and get your ass here.” She retorts. “Don’t fuck this up Benjamin because if you do I’ll fuck you up.”

The line goes dead.

Ben sat there for a minute in the silence still holding the phone up to his ear, listening to what your grandmother said to him ring around in his head for a second.

No one ever spoke to him that way. In fact, Ben had never allowed anyone to speak to him the way that she did, well, not until you came along. You reminded him so much of her that it was astounding and he wasn't going to admit that maybe it's why he liked being around you so much.

Ben frowns at what Diana said, thinking about the unusual feelings that were swirling in the pit of his stomach. He felt wrong and the feelings were odd for him. He hadn't felt anything remotely like this ever in his life, not even for Countess.

And although Ben refused to be afraid of anything, the feelings he was having scared him. He didn’t understand and he wasn't sure that he wanted to. He wasn't sure that he wanted to see where this ended up. He felt like he was in too deep.

As much as he wanted to go to you like Diana ordered him to, he wasn't sure that he should. Something was holding him back, digging it's heels in and refusing to budge.

But why do I feel like-

His phone rings and he doesn't look at the caller ID when he picks up, expecting it to be Diana again, yelling at him.

"Di I-"

But it's not Diana.

"Hello Ben. It's nice to hear your voice again." The familiar voice says, sounding calm and collected.

"What the fuck do you want?" Ben snarls.

"I thought it was time the two of us had a chat.”

A/N: At this point Diana is really just trying to give both Ben and the reader the kick in the pants they need. And yes I know another cliffhanger, but you know you love it. 🤭😉 We are quickly reaching the end of this series, but that means the confession scene is coming and I am so excited about it!!

As always thank you so much for reading! Reblogs, likes, and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. I love hearing what y'all think! If you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series let me know. 😊

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zepskies · 2 months ago

Text

Right off the bat, I knew we were in for trouble with Darren, even before I read the warnings for this chapter. 😰

"And I told you it's a surprise." His hands tighten on the wheel as if you're annoying him, before he glances over at you with a tight smile. "Come on sissy, it's like you don't even trust me."

Fuuuuck I hate this guy. It's on sight, and it's personal. 😂

He's my brother, what did Ben think was going to happen? And why was he so angry?

Because Ben sensed his shifty/suss/no good POS vibes, that's why.

"I don't, we worked something out." Darren answers vaguely, turning off of the expressway and onto a side street.

I'm sorry but Jesus fucking Christ!!! I want to shake her at this point. Ask him more questions. Get it out of him!!

The foreboding is so painful because I have a really bad feeling of where this is heading...

The horror stories you saw on the internet made you worry about that and the last thing you wanted to do was go on a date with a guy who had a taste for human flesh or wanted to turn you into a skin suit.

Ugh, as a woman, this is so damn real. 😭 My bestie and I used to have a code word via text for her to call me if a date was going weird or south lol. I love that she and Annie seem to have a similar system. (And of course I like how Annie was able to figure out whoever was texting her was NOT her friend.)

Your entire body goes cold. "He wouldn't do that. My brother wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn’t give me to you as fucking payment!"

Yeeeep, that's where I thought we were headed. 😰 Fucking Darren. But omg the Elijah Black reveal was so good! I was not expecting that.

“What are you doing?” Ben questions. By now he could feel something unfamiliar tightening in his chest, a weird feeling that he couldn't place.

Hurry TF up and figure it out, Ben, because our girl needs you!! But it was interesting to get into his head in how he reflects on what the reader said to him about sex and relationships. His head is starting to turn. Perhaps he's starting to realize how he really feels about her too? I have a feeling when he finds out where the reader's been kept, he's going to wise up.

His rage at Darren at the end was *chef's kiss*. I would love to see him bend that little piece of shit into a pretzel.

I now literally CANNOT wait until the next chapter to see what happens. My hopeless romantic heart both suffers and sings when there's a perilous save. 😭

Chapter 11: It's Giving Kidnapping?

Pairing: Soldier Boy x f!reader, Reader POV, Soldier Boy POV

Summary: When you decided to work with Butcher and his merry band of supe hunters to take down Homelander, you neve expected to be saddled with a sullen, grumpy, jerk like Soldier Boy when the job was done. The more you're around him the more you hate him, but you can't help but wonder, is he really as big a jerk as you think? Reader is a supe with plant powers. This takes place in an AU about a month after the end of The Boys Season 3, in which Butcher has let Soldier Boy continue to work with him on his team. (I'm real bad at summaries, please forgive me!)

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers (Not in this chapter), Slow Burn, Age Difference (Reader is in her 20s), Soft Ben/ Soldier Boy, Protective Ben/Soldier Boy

Word Count: 10.1K

Warnings: I'm going to label this 18+ because Soldier Boy (he's a warning and everyone knows it) and because there is an unwanted sexual advance (not Soldier Boy) (it's more someone making the reader feel uncomfortable and the person talking to the reader, not so much touching, but it's still there and it's wrong), Violence, Swearing, Mentions of sex, Thoughts of Sex, Kidnapping, GASLIGHTING, Threatening, Denial, A whole lot of denial, Sexism, Creepiness, Manipulation, Talks about weed, Super manipulative trash man, And another Super Manipulative Trash Man but this time he's even more creepy, Ben/Soldier Boy might be a little bit OOC.

Internal monologue is in italics and is in first person.

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Reader POV

"So where is it that we're going again?" You ask your brother Darren while looking absentmindedly out the passenger side window of his car watching the other people on the bridge.

The sun was shining, bathing the interior of the car in a warm light, the clouds puffy and the sky a beautiful blue that faded into the background behind the iconic New York Skyline as the buildings raised their hands to worship the beautiful day. It was the perfect day for you to grab a paper back and a cup of iced pineapple tea and make your way to Central Park, instead you were stuck in a car with your brother who was taking you God knows were.

"I told you it's a surprise." Darren replies, hitting the gas to cut off someone in the fast lane who honks at him, but Darren only flips them the bird and continues to speed down the bridge.

You had been in the car for over thirty minutes, a car that Darren said was a "loan" from his new BFF, the same person that he was ecstatic about you meeting.

The car was fancier than what you were used to, state of the art with butterscotch colored leather seats so supple and smooth that it felt like you were being hugged by the passenger side chair. The windows were made of thicker glass and you guessed that they must be bulletproof given how sturdy they looked, not to mention they were also darker than average so no one could see into the vehicle, but you could see out. The car was four doors and was made by a European company that you'd never heard of, but you were sure it was expensive. The car probably cost more than the entire inventory of "Please Don't Die" and the building the shop inhabited.

This is weird. You think to yourself, squeezing the leather seat in your hand.

Most of the "friends" your brother introduced you to were as down on their luck as Darren and just as eager to ask for a loan from anyone they could. You'd never met one that could afford a new car let alone a car that looked like it should be owned by the wealthiest man in New York City.

Your frown deepens as you try to figure out where the two of you are going and who it is Darren wants you to meet.

Truthfully, Darren was acting like you didn't hate surprises, you did. Every time your brother dropped by unannounced made you furious. You'd told him over and over again to call first, but no matter what you did each time he showed up without so much as a text.

You sigh audibly. "I just want to be prepared for wherever it is we're going."

"And I told you it's a surprise." His hands tighten on the wheel as if you're annoying him, before he glances over at you with a tight smile. "Come on sissy, it's like you don't even trust me."

The word "trust" makes you frown at him and drags you back to your apartment thirty minutes ago when Ben told you that you were stupid and "too trusting." You didn't understand why Ben got so mad at you going with Darren.

He's my brother, what did Ben think was going to happen? And why was he so angry?

You cross your arms over your chest and lean back into the plush seat.

Who did Ben think he was? He's not my dad! And I am not just some stupid little ditzy girl who needs a big strong man to protect me! I am a grown woman who has survived this long without someone like him butting into all of my business.

The more you sat there in the car, the more your frown deepens, and the more angry you became. You didn't understand why he treated you that way when you hadn't done anything to warrant his temper.

He's just a temperamental petulant child who thinks that he knows everything and that his opinion should be treated with the highest regard!

Usually, you would feel bad about what you had shouted at Ben about his old team and about his son, but not right now. You didn't understand why he was getting so angry and why he cared so much about what you were doing with your brother.

Does Ben really think that Darren would do anything to hurt me?

The whiplash that Ben kept putting you through where he seemed to care and then he didn't was getting old quick…

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her."

You wince as Ben's words ring in your ears making something stick in your chest. They had hurt more than you thought they would, maybe because you were starting to care about Ben and you thought that he was starting to care about you.

Because what other reason would he walk with you to work, pick you up, and bring you coffee sometimes? And why did he seem to be almost worried when Darren suggested that you meet his friend?

But he doesn't care about you. He's made that much perfectly clear.

You chew the inside of your cheek contemplating the conversation the two of you shared. Maybe I did say some things that were a little harsh, but Ben was being a total dick and he deserved what I said!

A flash of Ben and you tangled in one another this morning comes roaring back bringing a wave of heat flashing through you. Your cheeks flush and the wildflowers growing on the opposite side of the bridge outside of the car all flare bright pink in the sunlight when Darren drives the car past them.

You had been so close to kissing him, so close to letting yourself sink into his warmth and lose yourself in all he was. He was so strong and broad and warm in all the right ways, not to mention he looked really cute this morning with his eyes still a little hazy from sleep and his dark hair falling forward into his face, mused just slightly against the pillow. You could still feel his body laying on top of yours, but the weight wasn't oppressive, it was perfect, like a weighted blanket that made your anxiety fade away. The feeling of his powerful chest beneath the palms of your hands as you dragged them up to tangle his hair ghosts through your body.

Despite Ben's gruff exterior those few soft moments this morning you wished hadn't slipped through your fingertips, you wanted to kiss him, wanted to feel what it was like for him to kiss you softly as if he wished to savor you. The one you'd shared outside your apartment was hungry and frenzied, but you had a feeling deep down in your gut that the kiss Ben and you would have shared on the couch would have been different. The moment felt different too. The way he looked at you, the way he smiled when he noticed the apple tree flowering, and the way he held you close to him with care.

No. I am not going to think about any of that right now. He was a jerk for no reason and even if he wasn't Ben said he didn't care about me. Which is exactly what I've been trying to say since I first met him, he doesn't want to date me, he just wants to fuck me and move on.

When you'd walked out of your bedroom in a fresh outfit, Ben had already gone, and Jake had answered you back saying that it was okay for you to take the day off. Jake rarely said that it was a bad idea, he had said that he would "miss you" but instead of that filling you with warmth it did absolutely nothing. You figured that it was because of the fight Ben and you had. The anger, frustration, hurt, and rage was still currently swirling around your head and whenever it came to a peak you'd get a flash of how good it felt to wake up with Ben on top of you.

"How did you meet your friend?" You ask to keep your mind from wandering back to Ben.

"The usual."

"Usual, meaning?"

"Met him at Richie's poker game, we hit it off." Darren adjusts the radio and flips it to an 80's rock song that you can't remember the name of.

You sigh. "You owe him money don't you?"

"No I don't!" Darren clams up, his hands tightening on the wheel for a moment. "Well, just a little…"

Typical, just typical. Should have brought my damn checkbook.

"I thought you said that you didn't need money?" You pinch the bridge of your nose doing another mental calculation of how much you could give your brother.

"I don't, we worked something out." Darren answers vaguely, turning off of the expressway and onto a side street.

The buildings outside the window begin to be more and more spaced out, becoming more industrial. Each one you pass is fenced in and are quickly changing into giant warehouses and desolate streets. There aren't any other cars on the road with you and you hadn't seen another person in a few minutes.

"Well this looks… murdery." You frown at another empty warehouse with rusting sides and a roof that’s caved in.

Why are we all the way out here?

"It's not murdery, it's just eclectic. Don't be so judgmental." Darren rolls his eyes at you as he makes a left turn in front of a warehouse that is larger than the others, but in much better shape.

It's fenced with barbed wire swirling along the top of the chain links, but there's a man standing at the gate with a leather jacket, sunglasses, and a clip board, the first person you’d seen outside of the car since Darren got off the expressway. He gestures for Darren to roll down the window with the clipboard.

"Hey there Joe." Darren says smoothly, leaning his elbow on the window frame, the picture of ease.

"Darren." Joe states eyes falling on where you're sitting in the passenger seat. "That her?"

"Yeah this is my sister." Darren flashes the usual smile, the one you've seen him use countless times when he needs to schmooze someone or close a "deal."

"Hi." You say awkwardly, smiling at the man identified as Joe.

Something about this feels wrong. Why does he know who I am? I thought I was just meeting Darren's friend?

All Joe does is frown at you. "Doesn't look like a supe."

You turn to look at your brother surprised. Darren knew that it was something you didn't share with everyone, that it was something you only revealed when you had to.

Darren shrugs it off with a laugh. "She is, trust me."

"Hmm." Joe grunts. "And you're late. The boss doesn't like it when people are late."

"Sorry it was her fault. Told her to put on something nice and you know how women are." Darren is completely in his element, gesturing with his hands, and smoothing down any ruffled feathers.

But the whole situation makes you more uncertain.

Who was "the boss?" Is that Darren's friend? And why the fuck did he tell Joe that I was a supe?

You pull on the end of your long sleeved blouse nervously. Darren hadn’t let you leave the house before approving your outfit and finally when you'd walked out of your bedroom wearing a long sleeved green with white polka dot blouse and a pair of dark jeans and your converse he had said that you were "presentable" but then insisted that you leave your hair down.

It made you feel like you were about to go to a job interview. You didn't understand why Darren made you change so many times or why he cared what you wore to meet another one of his skeevy friends. They never seemed to dress up to meet you, so why should you dress up to meet them? Not to mention Darren wasn't wearing anything different than his usual outfit.

He was wearing his black army jacket over a pair of black ripped jeans and a Meatloaf t-shirt. He'd changed out the gauges in his ears for black pointed spikes and the two rings in Darren's right eyebrow were now bright blue. Darren runs his hand over his buzzed hair, giving you a flash of his onyx skull ring on his thumb.

"Yeah I get it, my old lady does the same thing." Joe eyes you appreciatively and winks. "Cleans up nice though."

"Thank you." You reply dryly.

Joe waves Darren through and as he does, you see a gun in a holster hanging against the left side of his chest under his leather jacket.

"Darren what is this? Why was he armed? And why the fuck did you tell him I was a supe?" You shout at your brother as soon as he rolls up the window.

"Oh well, my friend is kind of important and Joe is just some extra security." Darren pulls the car into a parking spot just outside of the building. He says it like you're overreacting, but you didn't think you were. This entire situation was suspicious. "I told him you were a supe because he's just trying to keep my friend safe. He asked an honest question and I didn't want to lie to him."

Bullshit. Darren doesn't give a fuck about lying to other people.

Sometimes you even wondered if Darren gave a fuck about lying to you. That thought was usually brushed away by the reassertion that Darren was your brother and you trusted what he said.

But everything about this situation made you feel odd. You didn’t understand why Darren had to bring you here to meet his friend or why his friend wanted to meet you in the first place or why his friend seemed to need so much security. You'd never had one of Darren's friends ask to meet you before, most of the time you just showed up to meet Darren and they were there scratching something in public that they shouldn't be.

"Come on Darren, you know how much I hate telling people that I'm a supe-"

"Relax. It's already done, let's just move on." He waves a hand, ignoring you.

"Please, tell me what I'm doing here. This is more than me just meeting your friend."

"Hey." He brings his hand down on yours where it rests on the middle console. "I know you're nervous, but I would never do anything to hurt you." Darren's blue eyes are wide with sincerity. "Do you really think I would?"

"Well-" You bite the inside of your cheek.

He's your brother. He wouldn’t hurt you. You say it to reassure yourself, but it doesn’t stick completely.

"Come on." Darren sighs it as if he's genuinely upset that you thought he would. "I'm your brother, I'm your only family and I love you sis. I just want to do what's best for you. And my friend is really nice and he keeps saying that he wants to meet you. Not to mention he's loaded and I know that you struggle with things like that and he said that he'd help you out."

"What?" You sputter in surprise. "Why would he do that? Why would you talk to him about me?

"Because he's a nice guy and I like to brag about how amazing you are to everyone I meet." Darren smiles. "Now come on I don't want to keep Eli waiting and we're already late."

"Eli?"

It was the first time that Darren had used his friend's name and somewhere at the back of your mind it rang a bell.

"My friend. You're gonna love him. Come on I don't want to keep him waiting." Darren repeats as he gets out of the car first, but you stay in it for a second absorbing the entire situation.

You had half a mind to text Butcher or Annie, something about the whole situation made alarm bells go off in your head, and as mean as Ben had been, you wondered if he was right, if this was something you should be worried about.

And weirder still a piece of you wished that Ben was here with you. You didn't know why, but you did.

Instead of calling or texting someone, you discretely unlock your phone and check that the tracking software Annie and you downloaded to keep tabs on one another when you moved into the city was on. No one else knew about it, in fact the app was disguised as a period tracker on your home screen so if someone were to take your phone all they would see is another general app and they'd immediately pass over it.

You'd never had to use it before in an emergency situation. Annie and you both used it when you went on a date with someone you barely knew as an extra precaution in case the guy turned out to be a freak or a secret cannibal. The horror stories you saw on the internet made you worry about that and the last thing you wanted to do was go on a date with a guy who had a taste for human flesh or wanted to turn you into a skin suit.

You open the passenger side door of the car and step out into the sunshine, tucking your phone into your pocket back pocket while looking up at the building. It glints a dull gray in the morning light, but the general appearance of the building does little to make you feel better about the whole situation. Memories of all the other times you met Darren's friends came flitting back across your mind, all of which occurred at a fast-food restaurant or a random poker game or a bar. Not to mention you'd never had one of his friends specifically ask to meet you before and you'd never met one in the middle of nowhere at a warehouse that was fenced in and patrolled by armed guards.

Darren adjusts the collar of his jacket flipping it down before he looks back at you. "Come on."

"Darren I don't think-"

Darren looks up to the sky with a heavy sigh as if your apprehension is annoying him. "Sis come on." He walks closer to you. "That asshole, Ben, is in your head. Are you really going to trust some random guy you live with or me? Your own flesh and blood?"

"Well-"

"Have I ever put you in a dangerous position before?"

"No."

"Exactly. I care about you so much and I would never do anything to hurt you." He takes your hand, eyes soft in the morning light. "I love you. You're the only family I have left that matters. And I promise if anything in there makes you uncomfortable we can leave. Just say the word."

"Really?"

"Yes." Darren nods once. "Fuck, sissy I'm not taking you here against your will. If you don't want to go in we don’t have to, but you said that you would come with me and you never break your word. Not to mention it would make me happy."

He's my brother. He loves me. He would never hurt me. It's going to be okay.

You let out a soft breath and squeeze his hand. "Okay."

Darren leads you to the thick metal door and opens it for you so you can walk in first and as soon as you do, you stop mid-step. The inside of the warehouse is covered with tables, but they're not empty, each table holds more weed plants than you can fit inside your entire apartment. The room is so green that you have to squint for a moment for your eyes to adjust from all the brightness outside. There are large fluorescent lights hanging above each table trying to give the plants the sunlight they need, but the plants don’t look good.

The plants are wilting, dying, and some have a strange black substance that fans out over the leaves in a vein-like pattern, choking the green that remains. Dead plants in piles are stacked on the edges of the room, already succumbing to whatever the hell was wrong with them.

You'd never seen a plant have something like that before. Even the energy given off by the plants is not the usual one you feel when surrounded by so many, it feels wrong, sickly, almost oppressive. You've never felt something that felt so wrong from any of the plants that you had encountered in the past.

You walk up to one of the tables, examining the black veins that are creeping along the gentle bend of the leaves up from the stalks. "What happened?"

"No idea." Darren shrugs. An unlit cigarette is perched between his lips and he's searching through his jacket pockets for his lighter. The one he'd had for years that looked like a silver dragon. "Eli said that he came back from somewhere and he found them like this."

"Oh."

"Do you think you can fix them?"

"What?" You turn to look at him incredulously. "This is weed. This is illegal why the fuck would I fix this?"

"Come on. Don’t be so high and mighty." Darren groans. "They're plants. You've told me countless times that you hate it when plants suffer. Well all of these are suffering!"

"Not the same thing!"

"You're telling me if Newton's dad's cornfield was suffering you wouldn't wave a hand and work some of that plant lover shit to save it?"

"That cornfield is his family's livelihood this is-"

"It's Eli's livelihood. It's how he makes so much money!"

"Is this why you brought me here?" You shout crossing your arms over your chest. "To fix all of these?"

"No. I wanted you to meet my friend and he's waiting for us so we might as well fucking go." Darren grouses, turning to walk up a rickety staircase that leads to the second level of the warehouse.

But you don’t believe him, because why else would Darren bring you to a place with a plant related problem, not to mention why would Darren get so angry when you refused to.

Did he really think I was going to fix an entire warehouse full of weed plants? The last thing I'm gonna do is help Eli cultivate his crop.

You weren't surprised that Darren's friend wasn't as above board as everyone else. You knew that your brother tended to get involved with people who weren't as law abiding, not to mention your brother's moral compass didn't always point North when it came to other people, but you didn't think that he would involve you in something like this.

Occasionally the moral boundaries you had were pushed when it came to what you did for Butcher, but at least he respected you when you said no.

Darren continues to stomp up the stairs angrily, another reason why you believed that Darren was lying to you.

He knew that if he mentioned any of this I would never come with him.

He throws open the door at the top of the stairs not bothering to knock and you follow behind him, fuming.

The room just inside is not what you were expecting. The entire wall to the left is made entirely of glass giving whomever is inhabiting the room an amazing view of the water beyond, water that you didn't realize was so close when Darren pulled up to the building. There's a giant wooden antique desk at the back at the room with a large maroon leather desk chair sitting behind it and two smaller leather chairs in front of the desk. A few bookshelves line the non-windowed walls, but there's no one else in the room, just Darren and you.

Where's his friend?

Darren sighs and exhales a breath of smoke, before he turns to look at you with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry sis. I shouldn’t have reacted like that. I know that you've always been more on the straight and narrow than me and I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"What?" You weren't expecting him to sound so sorry, if anything you thought that your brother would have started yelling at you all over again. Why is he apologizing.

"Yeah." He rubs a free hand over the top of his buzzed hair sheepishly. "I shouldn't have gotten so mad about it. Of course you don’t have to do anything you don't want to do."

"Thank you." You sigh. "And I'm sorry. I do hate to see plants suffer, but that out there is different than what I do regularly."

"I know. And I don’t want you to be uncomfortable" Darren grabs your hand with his free hand, before he looks around the room. "Guess Eli is also running a little late huh?" He smiles and it reassures you that you've been forgiven.

"Yeah. Weird that he's not here. Especially when Joe said he was waiting for us and-"

"Oh shit!" Darren interrupts you, lets go of your hand and smacks himself on the forehead. "I completely forgot."

"Forgot what?"

He's frantically patting down his pockets looking for something. "I was supposed to call Richie. I told him I would and I-" He continues to check his pockets, the cigarette still burning between his lips. Darren talks around it. "Can I borrow your phone real quick? I think I left mine in the car."

"But-"

"Please it'll take like, two seconds. I told him that I'd meet up with him later and I want to take you to lunch after this to make up for all that shit." Darren nods his head back towards the door where the tables of weed plants are.

"Oh you don’t have to take me to lunch Darren, I can-"

"No." Darren smiles. "I want to. It’s the least I can do, driving you all the way out here and making you meet Eli."

"Um-" You look around the empty office expecting Eli to materialize out of nowhere. "Sure. But please make it quick. I don’t want to be in here alone with this random dude."

"He's not a random dude, he's my friend. And he's a gentleman, definitely a better person that that dick you have at your apartment." Darren waves a hand before he takes your phone. "You'll be fine. And we can go wherever you want for lunch."

You frown at Darren's comment about Ben as he disappears out the door and leaves you in the large office.

Honestly you did think that Ben could be a dick at times, but there were other times when he was almost sweet, well, sort of at least.

Not before he left today.

You think about what you yelled at him, about him needing people, but just wanting to push them away. That you were sure about. You believed that Ben did need people, but he had so many trust issues about everything that had happened in the past that it made him suspicious and not want to admit it to himself. That and you figured if he believed he was such a "manly man" he thought that it was ridiculous and feminine to admit that he needed someone.

Which again, you thought was stupid because you'd always seen emotional maturity in a man as an attractive trait. You liked when men could be vulnerable around you, you liked when they were honest, and you liked when they had the confidence and security to break around you so you could help them. And you found yourself wanting to help Ben, even though you thought you shouldn't.

He's not a bad guy, he's just got a ton of trust issues, machoistic ideas, and an inability to open up to anyone.

You tap your fingertip against your bicep where they were crossed in front of your chest and make your way to one of the bookshelves to look at the books. Some were antiques, others were versions of classics that you had read when you were a child, but you were sure that each volume was worth more than the apartment building you lived in. Some of the spines were so faded that you could just barely make out the flecked golden lettering and others were in another language that you couldn't understand.

Honestly, you could see yourself sitting in the big maroon chair curled up with one of these books, reading through the book with a large cup of tea while looking out over the water and admiring the iconic New York Skyline across the bay. It was a nice office, but your mind began to drift back to the quiet moments Ben and you shared a few days ago when you curled up on the couch beside him and read through your current obsession while he sat with the paper on the other side. It was nice and you were surprised that the two of you could share such a quiet moment together without ripping each other's heads off.

Maybe I should call and apologize. You think to yourself while you stroke your fingertip down one of the spines. I shouldn’t have said those things about his team or his son. And yes maybe he shouted some things at me too, but maybe he also feels bad and he's just not man enough to tell me that he's sorry. Or maybe he doesn’t give a fuck and he couldn’t care less about me.

The words he snarled at your brother, vibrate through your head again.

"Do whatever the fuck you want. It's not like I give a shit about her…"

You hear someone come through the door and because you expect it to be Darren, you don’t turn to look at him.

"I'm sorry to keep you waiting darling." The voice says in a warm and low rumble, the ends tilting in an accent that you can't place. But your entire body freezes, because you knew that voice.

You slowly turn to look at the man who just entered the room eyes widening.

"Ms. Worthington. It is so nice to see you again. How was the drive?" Elijah Black asks with a pleasant smile, one eyebrow raised at you. "Not too much traffic I hope."

Elijah Black looks almost exactly the same way he did at the fundraiser a few days ago and the use of the fake last name you used only reminds you that he hadn't forgotten meeting you. His greying black hair curls behind his ears in waves that have been slicked back over his head. More of his sun-kissed golden skin is revealed to you, showing tattoos that curl up his muscular arms and disappear into the rolled up sleeves of his navy dress shirt. The top two buttons are unbuttoned revealing more of his muscular chest and the dark ink that swirls up from his pecs and licks up onto his collar bones. He's wearing a gold chain to offset the dark swirls of the tattoos, but he still is built like a body-builder, bigger than Ben across, not taller, but taller than you.

Oh fuck. This is not good.

You reach for your phone in your back pocket, prepared to send an emergency text to Butcher and Annie, the one you should have sent before when you were outside, but talked yourself out of. But then you remember that Darren still has your phone and he's not back yet.

"Mr. Black. Funny seeing you here." You clear the fear from your voice, fighting the shudder of fear when you watch Elijah's eyes trace up your figure, clinging to places that make you wish that you hadn’t worn something so tight.

"Please call me Elijah." He purrs, taking another step forward into the room. The door is closed behind him and Darren is gone. "I was disappointed when you used a fake name the other night. I was hoping to get to know you better." Elijah almost looks a little hurt, before his lips twitch into a smirk. "Of course Soldier Boy also seemed to be opposed to the idea, but he's not here now is he?"

"He's outside actually, just give him a second."

"You’re a terrible liar." Elijah chuckles. "I'd hate to see you try to play poker."

"Well give me a chance and I'm sure I'll surprise you."

Elijah is blocking the only exit. The windows could be an option, but it would mean that you’d have to throw something at it or you'd have to throw him through the window. You were strong, but not strong enough to do something like that. Not to mention you had a feeling that Elijah was a supe. The way he carried himself with a careful confidence seemed dangerous.

"Oh I can’t wait to see just how many surprises you have." His eyes trace up and down your body again in a way that makes your throat tighten and a wave of revulsion prickle over your skin. Even though you're wearing a long sleeved shirt and pants, you feel naked under his gaze.

"Darren said that Soldier Boy and you had a fight." Elijah taps his fingers against the edge of the wooden desk. "I hope he didn't hurt you."

Why did Darren tell Elijah that we had a fight? And where the fuck did my brother go?

"That's none of your business-" You say taking a step back moving around the back of the desk, preparing to run the other way and make a break for the door.

Elijah shrugs. "I like to know everything about the women I get involved with."

"We're not involved. I don’t know a fucking thing about you." You spit backing away.

This is bad. This is very bad.

There weren't any plants in the room and you didn’t have any seeds with you. The other option would be the plants out in the warehouse, but each time you tried to reach for them, all you could feel was the sickly energy they had, and honestly it was making you feel a little bit nauseous. You’d never encountered that before, usually plants made you feel stronger, but they were all so sick that it was overwhelming your senses. You wondered if Elijah planned that.

"Well let's change that. I'd love for you to get to know me better." Elijah continues to move forward through the room slowly. "It’s a pity that the two of you had a spat, especially because you seem to care so much about him and he seems to care about you, and especially because what he said must have hurt you, but I suppose it's better for me."

Ben doesn’t care about me, but Elijah doesn’t have to know that. If he knows who Ben really is, then he knows how dangerous he is, and if Elijah thinks that Ben will come to get me, that might be everything I need to make him back off.

"Why is that?" You inch around the table with Elijah following after you.

He's still smiling as if he believes that he's won.

"Because he won't come to save you if he hates you. Darren told me that the things you said to him were quite cruel. And I guess none of your team will be coming either."

Darren heard what we yelled at each other and he just pretended not to. He knew that Ben and I had a fight. He knows that Ben is Soldier Boy. Why would Darren do this? He's my brother-

"Of course my team will come to get me. They're on their way right now. And if I were you I'd let me go now, before this becomes an even bigger problem than it is." The lie isn’t completely out of your mouth before Elijah starts to laugh at you.

"No. They're all in Boston, including Soldier Boy." Elijah's smirk grows like the cat who caught the canary. "A thing about those anonymous tips, none of them seem to be that helpful. But Butcher wanted to catch that electric buffoon so badly I thought I might as well give him a push, not in the right direction unfortunately. I was hoping that Solider Boy and you would catch him the other night. He's been causing some trouble for me. Someone like him is bad for business, especially when I'm expanding into auto-motives."

"Oh no. The drug business isn't working out for you? So sad." You snark eyes flicking to the window for a minute and wondering if you could grab a chair and throw it out before he stopped you.

Elijah looks delighted. "I see you've noticed the problem. A rival of mine broke in and poisoned them, and instead of throwing away that much product and wasting more money I thought of you."

"What about me?"

"Well, your brother mentioned something in a game about his sister being able to 'make plants grow.' Honestly, your brother has a problem keeping his mouth shut about lots of things, but I was intrigued. He didn't see the value of such a gift as I did. And when Darren accumulated such a large sum of debt after the game I offered a deal."

"And what deal is that?" You take another step back, not looking away from Elijah.

"You."

Your entire body goes cold. "He wouldn't do that. My brother wouldn't do that to me. He wouldn’t give me to you as fucking payment!"

Because that was what Elijah was suggesting, he was suggesting that Darren would use you to pay off his gambling debts. Darren had done some shitty things in the past, but this seemed to be too much for him.

He wouldn’t do that to me. I'm his sister not some stranger. Darren is a lot of things, but that is too cold to consider.

"Oh my darling." Elijah sighs and throws you a pitying look. "He did. Do you really think he had to call someone? That he left his phone in the car? He needed your phone so you wouldn't call Butcher." Elijah looks at you as if you're a kicked puppy in need of solace. "But don't worry. I always take care of my toys, especially ones that are as beautiful as you."

"If you touch me I'm going to-" You begin to snarl at him

"You've got spirit." He smiles continuing to move towards you as you back away towards the door. "It always makes it more fun. More of a challenge to break."

"Stay away from me."

"I can't wait for you to beg for me to touch you."

"I mean it." You leap backward to grab the doorhandle, but as you do Elijah lunges across the room, grabbing your right arm to pull you away from the door.

He's still holding on and you bring your foot up between his legs hoping to find something soft, but when you do Elijah only laughs and tightens his grip on your arm and you hear a high-pitched snap that vibrates through your body.

At first you don’t understand what the sound was, but a wave of pain surges up and you realize the high pitched snap was the sound of your right arm breaking. The nausea comes roaring back, but the pain is almost excruciating as you try to pull your now broken arm from his grasp.

"Don't worry." Elijah purrs again. "I'm going to take good care of you."

And it's the last thing you hear as everything goes dark.

Soldier Boy POV

4 Days Later…

Ben leaned back in the faded floral cloth armchair in the corner of the crowded motel room, his head thrown against the back of the chair, as he takes a hit from the blunt in between his thumb and forefinger. The other people in the room continue to bicker and shout at one another pouring over a map and a laptop on the lone table pressed under the window in the corner of the room and it was ruining his buzz.

It had been four days since Ben had been shoved into the back of a car and taken to Boston, four days of listening to Butcher bitch and moan about why none of them could locate the electric supe, and four days since Ben had last seen you.

He exhales a cloud of smoke remembering the conversation the two of you had before he left. Honestly, he hadn’t meant to make you cry and he had no idea where any of what he shouted at you came from, but he was just so damn frustrated about the way your asshole brother was treating you and how damn trusting you were that he just exploded.

Everything he told you, he thought was obvious and something that you could see for yourself. And yet you stood there, eyes wide with tears, while he shouted those things at you and then you had the audacity to yell back at him.

He'd never met anyone so completely clueless and trusting before and it was infuriating. He hated that you let that asshole use you, hated how submissive you got whenever your brother brought up the fact that he was your only family, and Ben hated how you couldn’t see what was directly in front of your face.

All he'd wanted to do was tell you to be careful, and instead he insulted you. And then he'd had to listen to you cry to yourself quietly in your room like you also hadn't insulted him.

Why the fuck do I give a shit? She's just being damn hormonal and never wants to listen to anyone, but herself.

Ben's frown deepens when he remembers what you shouted back at him. He'd never allowed anyone to speak to him that way, then again no one had ever had the balls to and he respected that. Well, respected it, but wished you would fucking stop.

Worse still was that Ben didn't understand why he couldn't stop thinking about you. He'd never had that happen before, usually all it took to get a woman out of his mind was a quick fuck with whatever walked by, but that hadn't worked when he tried it last night.

He'd changed his location on tinder and gone out with a girl who looked nothing like you, and seemed to be the stupidest person Ben had ever met. This time he had bought her dinner, and Ben could feel himself zoning out while she talked about nothing at all. He thought of you while she talked, thought about how you always seemed to speak with purpose and how when you spoke about things they always seemed interesting and important. Not to mention he liked it when you talked because he wanted to learn more about you. You were so different than the women he'd met over the years and it was refreshing. Ben didn't like that he felt that way. He'd never been one for talking, he thought it was fucking boring, but for some reason talking to you was different.

The only time his date shut up was when Ben took her back to her apartment and yet on the walk home all Ben could think of is if you were okay. He didn't like that he had left you with your brother and he had been debating to tell Butcher to fuck off and follow Darren and you, but he hadn't wanted to after you said all that shit about his son and his old team.

Why the fuck do I give a shit what happens to her? All we do is live together. I'm not fucking her, I'm not-

He wasn't used to worrying about someone else, but he was worried about you and again Ben didn’t like it. He didn't like it so much that he almost walked back around the block to his previous date's apartment to see if she was ready to go for round three, but he didn't. Instead he went back to the motel room and tried to sleep, but he couldn't.

Over the past four days, each time Annie's phone rang or chirped he perked up hoping that it was you on the other line and every time it wasn't he seemed to sink further into the chair.

Ben puffed on the joint, but it wasn't as soothing as it had been in the past. The buzz wasn't taking the edge off the thoughts he had of you and it only pissed him off more.

Ben hadn't ever met anyone like you before. You were different and most of the time he never understood you, but he liked that about you. He liked that you were different than all the other women he had met in the past and he liked that you seemed to surprise him. He also thought that was why he liked talking to you, because he wanted to learn more about you so he could understand more.

Ben had never wanted to do that with anyone before, most of the time he just moved on, but not you. As much as he hated to admit it, it was making him want to spend more time around you, because you were interesting, odd, but interesting.

Especially because you kept refusing to sleep with him. It was a point of pride for him, being able to work whoever he wanted into bed with him, but not you. He had tried time and time again to get you to sleep with him using every trick in the book and yet, nothing.

Ben's mind flashes back to the other night at the party when you told him that you wouldn’t sleep with him was because you thought he "threw women away." It struck a nerve more than he thought it would when you said that to him. In fact, women had said similar things to him in the past, but he'd only laughed in their faces, but when you said it to him, it hit something deep inside that he thought he had locked away a long time ago. And weirder still Ben didn’t like it when you said that he wasn't "one for relationships" as if he couldn’t do it if he really tried.

I can do anything.

Ben downs the scotch in his other hand considering what you said and thinks of Countess. He thought that he'd loved her, he'd been in a relationship with her, an open one, but still it was something.

He remembered when you said that sex meant something to you and Ben had never met someone who felt that way before. Someone who thought that sex was special and should be shared with someone you loved. It was weird for him to consider that and Ben supposed that the only way he was ever going to have sex with you was if you fell in love with him or if he fell in love with you.

Yeah, like that'll fucking happen.

He rolled his eyes at the thought. He didn't think that he'd ever be able to fall in love with someone like you. Not with someone who infuriated him as much as you did and was so different than him in every way. Not when you made him angry and annoyed all the time because you refused to listen, talked back, and yelled at him.

The memory of you in his arms when he woke up four days ago surfaces and Ben swallows. He was going to kiss you, and you were going to let him, he knew it.

When he'd kissed you outside of your apartment the first night he came home with you, he'd only done it to make Mike leave you alone, but he hadn't expected to like it so much. And he'd wanted to kiss you badly when he woke up next to you. He thought you looked cute, your body soft against his, your hair flaring out over the pillow, your eyes wide, and your lips supple and welcoming. He'd wanted to trace his thumb over your lower lip, wanted to taste your lips again, and lose himself in everything you were.

I sound like a fucking pussy.

Ben sighed to himself again and closed his eyes, hoping to drown out his thoughts of you with the conversation Butcher and Annie were having over the laptop. MM was cleaning a gun and glaring at Ben while Kimiko and Frenchie were talking in rapid fire sign language that Ben couldn't understand and he wished you were there to translate or at least there to talk to him.

It's always so boring when she's not here.

Ben froze, thumb and middle finger pressed tightly on the blunt. He'd never done that before, never wanted a woman around to talk to, but that was what he meant. Even with Countess it was different. He wanted her around for a good fuck but they didn't talk about anything important and they certainly didn't sit around on the couch and watch his old films and he never sat with her while she read a book.

Ben's mind went back to the other day when you'd sat with him quietly on the other side of the couch, your gaze so focused on the pages of a book that you hadn't seen him watch you read. He noticed that when you did, you sometimes stopped breathing, like you'd forgotten that you needed to and whatever was in the book was more important than oxygen and that you sometimes formed the words with your lips as you did. Ben didn't know why he thought it was so interesting when you read, but he couldn’t look away. Sometimes during the day he'd have some free time from Butcher and he'd walk past the plant shop to see what you were doing and would see you sitting at the counter reading to yourself. He always thought about going inside, but you looked so peaceful that he didn’t want to interrupt you.

It was better than when he found you talking with that idiot Jake. Ben rolled his eyes to himself at the thought of your boss.

He definitely wants to fuck her. Ben sighs crossing his legs. And she wants him to. She shouldn't. She needs someone that'll actually be able to handle her. That guy's built like a fucking twig, not to mention he's not a supe.

Ben's jaw tightened with the thought of walking in on the two of you fucking in the apartment. You had made a rule about Ben not having any women there, but you'd never said anything about you bringing back someone. You hadn't yet and Ben hoped that you wouldn't bring Jake there anytime soon. His grip on the arm of the chair tightens to the point that he pierces through inside to the stuffing. Ben wasn't sure he'd be able to go into the apartment to listen to the two of you, let alone smell him all over you when you were done.

It was bad enough when you'd come back to the apartment smelling like the plant guy and Ben didn't want to experience what it was like after you'd had sex with him and have to smell him all over you. That also made him a little confused. Ben had fucked plenty of women who had significant others, women who threw themselves at him, and he hadn't cared about sharing. Not to mention Ben didn't get jealous, ever, whenever Countess had messed around with someone else at Herogasm Ben would watch, but with you… The sound of the arm of the chair breaking in his hand is audible when he thinks about someone else touching you, but no one else notices.

What the fuck is wrong with me? Why do I care? She's infuriating! And she's always so damn angry with me all the time that I'm pretty sure she'd never let me kiss her ever again let alone touch-

"Hello?" Annie held her phone up to her ear interrupting Ben's train of thought. "Oh hey Jake what's-"

Ben perked up at the sound of Jake's name with a frown. He hoped again that while he was gone you wouldn't sleep with him.

"I'm worried, I haven't heard anything from her and she didn't come in for her shift this morning." Ben heard Jake say on the other side of the line referring to you.

His muscles tensed slightly. Ben hadn’t wanted to leave you there with your brother, something about the guy made him antsy. Ben had met men like him in the past, men who used things like family and love to manipulate people into caring about him. He knew that Darren was your brother and you were just so kind and open that you would do whatever he asked without question.

Darren knew that. He knew exactly what to say to her to get her to give in.

Ben wondered how much you’d let Darren get away with in the past and quietly made a promise to himself that he wouldn't let Darren get anything out of you ever again for as long as Ben was around.

"Do you think she's running late?" Annie asks diplomatically, but Ben doesn’t miss the way her eyebrows scrunch together and the worried look she throws Hughie who is sitting across the table looking up at her.

"Not three hours. I tried to text her and when she texted back the message was weird." Jake presses.

"What do you mean weird?"

"Well, she used a lot of emoji's and she never does that."

Ben watched Annie's smile pull down into a frown. "Huh. Here I'm going to try to call her and I'll call you back okay."

"Sure."

Annie hangs up the phone and scrolls her finger on the screen to find your number.

"Everything alright?" Hughie asks leaning back in his chair.

"I'm not sure." Annie puts the phone up to her ear again.

Ben can hear the ringing on the other side of the line and he finds himself leaning forward, waiting for you to answer.

"Come on. Pick up the phone." Annie whispers while tapping her foot on the ground.

When you don't she opens the text thread of messages the two of you have and texts you. When you moved to the city the two of you had come up with phrases and words that you used to warn each other of danger. Annie insisted on it. Two single women living in a big city meant that the two of you were targets even if you were supes and as capable as the two of you felt handling your own, it was a comfort to have someone else.

Annie: Hey babe! I'm thinking about dying my hair blue again. Thoughts?

She waited patiently staring at the screen. Ben couldn't help but watch her with interest, he didn't know what was going on, only that Annie seemed to be worried. Something that he had never seen her be.

You: Hey girl! I think you should go for it! You always rock it.

Ben hears Annie's sharp intake of breath and rises from his chair understanding that something is wrong.

"Fuck." Annie mutters.

In middle school as an act of rebellion, Annie had tried to dye her hair blue with a box of cheap hair dye the two of you bought at the pharmacy in town while Annie's mother was away. But when it was done, something had obviously gone wrong. The dye must have been old or maybe just too cheap to do any good because it had dyed Annie's hair a vomit colored green. And to make matters worse, Annie had a terrible allergic reaction. It was that day the two of you realized that she was allergic to the chemicals most hair dyes. Her entire head had swelled up and she had to go to the Emergency Room.

Not to mention when Annie's mother showed up she told Annie she "deserved it" for doing that to her hair. The only way the Doctors could help her was to wash her hair out with bleach and then when that didn't work they cut it all off.

Annie had to wear itchy wigs for months after.

The correct response you were supposed to have was:

"Fuck no. Do you want to shave your head again?"

"Butcher-" Annie says raising her eyes from her phone.

"Yeah?" He doesn't look up from the map in front of him, trying to find out where the supe is hiding.

"We have to go back." She touches his shoulder to get his attention.

"Why?" Butcher looks at her annoyed, and he was. He had devoted a lot of man power to finding this supe and a lot of his own personal time. The last thing he was going to do is to come up empty handed.

Annie says your name. "Is in trouble."

"What do you mean?" Ben asks.

"She didn't show up to work today and she never just skips." Annie explains. "And we have code messages we made and she answered wrong." She holds out her phone to show Butcher the text thread.

“Hair dye?” Butcher still doesn’t look convinced.

“She knows I’m allergic. And she didn’t show up to work today.”

“Maybe she slept in-“ Butcher didn't want to drive all the way back to NYC for no reason, not when he believed he was close to catching the electric supe.

“She loves that job. And yes maybe she runs late, but she’d never just vanish or not go into work without calling Jake.” Annie pulls her phone back and begins to swipe through.

“What are you doing?” Ben questions. By now he could feel something unfamiliar tightening in his chest, a weird feeling that he couldn't place.

“We share our locations with one another.” Annie replies typing something on her phone. “I just have to find the app and-“ She looks down at the screen for a moment before raising it so Butcher can see. “See look! Why would she be all the way in Brooklyn?”

“Maybe that’s where her brother took her.” Ben grunts taking another puff from the joint in his fingers, hoping that it will relieve some of the weird tension he was feeling, but it doesn't.

Annie swivels her head around to glare at Ben so fast he gets whiplash. "Wait a minute. Darren's in town? Why didn't you say anything?"

“Yeah. Fucker spent the night four days ago.”

“And you left her with him alone?"

“He was going to take her to meet his friend-”

“For fucks sake Ben, why didn’t you just slather her in honey and tie her to an ant hill?" Annie shouts waving her hands dramatically at him.

Guess she doesn't like him either.

"Well-"

Annie isn't interested in what he has to say, instead she begins to type something on her phone and raises it one final time to her ear.

"Where the fuck is she?" Annie snarls into the phone and it doesn’t take Ben much time to figure out that she's called Darren.

"Who?" The voice of your brother fills the phone and Ben's hands clench together into fists at his sides.

Ben can tell he's lying from just one word and he feels rage begin to replace the odd feeling, licking up against the walls of his chest like an unquenchable fire.

"You know who you fucking leech." Annie spits.

"I don’t know. I took her back to her place after she met my friend. Think they hit it off." Darren sounds casual and Ben can almost imagine the sick smirk on his face.

"If you’re lying, I’m going to roast you alive like the pig you are."

"Oh baby the way you talk to me."

"Darren I’m serious."

"I don’t understand why you’re getting your panties in a wad Annie. She’s fine. I took her back to the plant shop four days ago after she met my friend, because she wanted to go to work. I haven’t heard from her since."

"Darren-" Annie begins to say, but Ben crosses the room so fast he didn't remember moving and snatches the phone from Annie.

"Listen to me you little shit." Ben growls into the phone. "If she's fucking hurt I am going to show you what it's like to be turned inside out."

"Whoa easy there Benny boy I don’t know who the fuck you think you are but-"

"For your sake I hope you're telling the truth, because if you're not there's going to be no where for you to hide from me and there's not going to be enough left of you to wipe up with a tissue." Ben hits the off button on the phone call and as he does he realizes that everyone in the room is staring at him with wide eyes, but he ignores it.

"Oi what the fuck was that mate?" Butcher says, but Ben ignores him.

"You can either give me the fucking keys to your car or I can take them from what's left of you." Ben snarls. "You get to pick."

Butcher eyes him for a minute, considering. "Come on yank, let's go."

A/N: And we have the reappearance of Elijah Black who is just as creepy as he was the first time. Maybe more? Wanted to throw in a little bit of Ben POV because it's a lot of fun to write and he's just so conflicted about everything, not to mention just as clueless as the reader when it comes to how he really feels.

As always thank you for reading! Reblogs and comments are not required, but are always appreciated. Feedback is always welcome. If you'd like to be added to my taglist for this series please let me know :)

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