A/N: Man, I haven't written anything in a long time! So I reeeaaaally like Hellboy comics. Roger is a character who is only in the comics, and is introduced pretty early on and is actually like a super awesome character and I love him a whole lot. I know a lot of people mostly just like the Hellboy movies, and they're super awesome too, but hmu if you want to read the comics and I can show you how to get all of them for free (or for not-free if you're okay with paying.) Anyways, thank you so much for reading, and I hope to write more of this
Hellboy fumed silently from the shadow of the dilapidated wall he was resting against. His lit cigar emitted a faint trail of pearlescent smoke, the inky vapor contrasting against his furious, glowing eyes. He watched as Roger spoke with a group of BPRD agents a couple yards away, animatedly describing the events of the past few hours. He struggled to keep his rage in check, as is the usual for him; but this time, he could barely contain himself. He had never before been so angry with the organization that legally adopted him as a boy. Any sort of forgiveness was no longer an option.
The Battle of the Conqueror Worm was no simple dispute for the BPRD field agents. Hellboy was still having a hard time coming to terms with the reality that he almost lost his fellow agent, Roger, after the Homunculus was possessed by the vindictive spirit of the Worm. Closing his eyes in anguish, he remembered how Roger begged him to push that detonator, to blow him to pieces in order to prevent him from being subjugated by the foul entity. If Manning had been the one there instead of him, Roger would be long gone by now.
Fucking Manning. Hellboy spent a brief second fantasizing about all the different ways he could rearrange the vertebrae in the pitiful man's spine. Oh look, a swan. Just before setting out for the last field mission, Manning had pulled him aside to let him know the truth about Roger, and to present to him the detonator that would put a swift end to the newly awakened being. Roger had spent five-hundred years laying dormant in a Romanian basement, a twisted science experiment in which someone could create an artificial human being out of blood, herbs, and energy. Never experiencing sentience or consciousness, Roger had laid prostrated on that wooden operating table for centuries, abandoned and alone; until one Liz Sherman and her fellow agent, Bud Waller, had happened upon him by chance. Falling under some sort of fugue, Liz had approached the empty vessel and unintentionally channeled her own life energy, her fire, into Roger, thus awakening him. Unfortunately, this was a very disruptive and disorienting ideal for Roger, and in his newfound consciousness, had accidentally killed Bud.
After he had had a chance to calm down, Roger was discovered wandering the castle grounds of his former home, awash with guilt over what he had done and begging for God to punish him. Hellboy and Kate Corrigan had apprehended him then, hoping that he would be able to shed light on Liz's strange condition, for during this time, Liz had begun to rapidly decline. All of her power had gone into Roger, in order to ignite the spark that had laid dormant within him for all those years. She had no substance, and had become a shadow of her former self.
Upon discovering the consequences of his resurrection, Roger had immediately requested to see Liz. Upon his arrival in her hospital room, he had returned every last speck of the lifeforce that Liz had given to him, rejuvenating her and saving her from death, while simultaneously leaving him cold and desolate once more. It was a heartbreaking ordeal, as some of the agents, like Hellboy and Abe, had become quite fond of the Homunculus.
Three years after these events, Roger was still comatose and moments away from being dissected by the BPRD when Abe Sapien had interrupted the procedure with a solution; an artificial energy source was to be implanted inside of Roger, allowing him to live and act as an agent of the BPRD. During the installation of Roger's power source, however, a bomb was simultaneously implanted within his chest cavity; a fail-safe, should Roger act out in any way. For this bomb, Hellboy was handed the detonator just before the beginning of the Conqueror Worm mission. Manning had entrusted Hellboy with the responsibility of destroying Roger, should he lose control of himself and begin to rampage. Just remembering the nonchalant action of dropping that inconspicuous silver tube into his red, calloused hand caused Hellboy to shiver with disgust.
It's like we're not even people, he thought angrily. We're animals, liabilities. We're a fucking commodity to be exploited and destroyed once we start gettin' nasty. Hellboy chewed thoughtfully on the ragged end of his cigar. He remembered with pleasure the pointed response he had given Manning, wishing he could have hurt the bastard more.
"Excuse me?" he spat, hardly believing what he was listening to.
"An incendiary bomb just large enough to-" Manning had replied, before being cut off.
"Excuse me?!" Hellboy roared. He was overcome with emotion, with grief, disgust, hatred, shame. The BPRD had put a bomb into Roger, the sweet and inquisitive Homunculus. A bomb.
"We had no choice! He killed Bud Waller and sucked the life out of Liz Sherman!" Manning sputtered. He had always been quite intimidated by the hulking, red half-demon and he did not like it when the brute started raising his voice. He knew enough about the late Professor Bruttenholm's charge to know that bad things happened when he got angry.
"Jesus Christ, he was an abandoned science project gathering dust in a Romanian basement for five-hundred years! When Liz zapped him to life, he freaked out a little. Who wouldn't?" Hellboy spat. He felt sick to his stomach. It might have been the fact that he had nothing but two Cuban cigars and a Red Bull for breakfast but he was pretty sure it was this asshole standing in front of him. "But how many lives did he save, including mine, when he melted his brother, the giant human fat monster? Then didn't he voluntarily zap Liz back to life at the cost of his own life?"
Hellboy paused to stick Manning with a withering, hateful glance. Then, he said, "I'm sick about what happened to Bud, and so is Roger. I know it. But this sort of thing happens in this line of work! Liz Sherman is one of my best friends...but when she was eleven, she burned thirty-two people to death. When are you gonna put a bomb in her?!" Hellboy was almost screaming by the end of his speech. They had done nothing but fought for the BPRD since the moment they had all become agents; him, Liz, Abe, all of them. And this was how they were repaid.
"Don't be ridiculous. Liz Sherman is human. Roger is not." Hellboy chuckled incredulously at this, shaking his head and looking down at the ground. "I don't like this any more than you do. I'm just telling you what I've been told - Roger cannot be allowed to jeopardize other agents. He is considered expendable." Hellboy's mouth opened slightly in shock. Expendable. He would never forget the sound of Manning's voice as he had nonchalantly dropped that crucifying adjective.
Manning continued. "Take this." He proffered the silver device to Hellboy.
"What is it?" he had asked, struggling to keep the venom out of his voice.
"Don't touch the top button. That's the detonator for Roger." Hellboy froze, for he had flipped open the small silver lid, revealing the inconspicuous, red button resting underneath. He stared imploringly at the small red disc; red like him, red like the hand that literally held Roger's life. The red filled his entire vision. All he could see was red. Manning's voice snapped his attention back to the small, balding man. "If anything goes wrong with him up there, you don't take any chances. You use that." He stopped, looking at the stricken expression on Hellboy's face. "I'm sorry."
Hellboy turned away from him wordlessly, pocketing the small, deadly device. He opened the door to the room they had been speaking in. Turning slightly, he said, "you know, I'm not human either, remember?" Manning maintained eye contact, the image of Hellboy's sorrowful, golden eyes leaving trace images on his own long after he had left. "When are you guys gonna put a bomb on me?"
Hellboy missed whatever Manning had to say next. He stormed away from the cottage, his black hooves leaving flattened prints in the mountain grass as he moved to where Kate was standing a dozen meters away. Their conversation had left a rock the size of his right hand sitting within his belly. Fucking Manning.
Snapping back to the present, Hellboy looked up as Roger left the two agents behind and began walking towards him. His cigar was dangerously close to falling inside of his mouth, so he flicked it into the grass and stamped it out on the ground. His left hand trailed into the pocket of his trench coat, absently brushing against the silver tube once more. Roger smiled as he reached him in the shade.
"Hellboy! The agents are very happy with me. They say we did a great job, taking care of that worm," Roger beamed happily. His body was composed of a material almost like stone, but he still smiled warmly at the other, and his body language was open and relaxed.
"All thanks to you, buddy. Couldn't have done it without ya," Hellboy responded, grinning. He clapped Roger on the shoulder warmly with his right hand, for once unafraid that he would hurt someone with the impressive weight of the Right Hand of Doom. Roger was much tougher than most of his friends, however. The Homunculus grinned at the praise. He hadn't admitted it before, but he looked up to Hellboy above all others. In all that he did, he hoped that the other would be proud of him.
"Thank you, Hellboy. I am just happy that I was struck by that lightning when I was; it blasted that horrible worm right out of me," he said softly. He was jovial, but Hellboy could tell that he was still pretty shaken up. He could feel the silver device had grown warm in his pocket from touching it for so long, and he withdrew his hand.
"Hey, man...are you okay? I mean, jeez...things got kinda rough back there," Hellboy responded. He searched the other man's hardened face, struggling to catch his gaze. Roger was silent for a long time.
"Hellboy...how did you know?" he almost whispered. His body language had become tired, exhausted. Roger looked much older than five-hundred in that moment.
Hellboy's tail twitched slightly with curiosity. "How did I know what?" he asked. Roger looked up, meeting his gaze with his own opaque eyes.
"How did you know not to kill me?" Roger's voice wavered. Hellboy wasn't even sure if he had the ability to cry.
"Shit, man...I just knew. Ya know?" Hellboy hissed. His disgust for the BPRD was rekindled anew, seeing how troubled Roger looked now. "I would never have pushed that dang button."
"But-! Even though I-I begged you to!" Roger cried, throwing his hands up in frustration. The agents standing in the clearing looked over in curiosity. "I felt that horrible monster inside me...he was thinking for me, moving for me…" Roger was shuddering, his palms pressed firmly against his temples.
"Alright, alright, jeez, just keep your voice down…" Hellboy whispered, peeking over Roger's shoulder at the congregated agents. "Like I said, I just knew. Whatever happened with that worm, whatever it made you do...I wasn't gonna do that to you. I wasn't gonna let the damn Bureau make me do that to you. Okay?" Hellboy whispered loudly. The last part came out a little more forcefully than he intended, and he winced at the sound of his own voice. God damnit, can't I be tender for just one freakin' second?
"I...I…" Roger sputtered. At a loss for words, he dropped his hands to his sides. Looking defeated, he chewed on his bottom lip.
"You're not expendable, Roger." Hellboy put his right hand on Roger's shoulder, and the Homunculus looked up at him. "Don't you ever let the damn BPRD make you think that, okay? You and me, we're people. We're not humans, but we sure as hell ain't cannon fodder, alright?" He smiled crookedly at the other. Searching his eyes for a moment, Roger smiled softly and nodded his head.
"Thank you, Hellboy," he replied. "We should probably be returning to the other agents now. They'll want a report of what happened." Hellboy stiffened, and removed his hand from Roger's shoulder.
"Yeah, about that…" Hellboy said softly, staring down at the ground. He could see the dashed remains of his cigar, no longer smoking and covered with ants. "Listen, Roger...I'm not goin' back to the Bureau."
Roger narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean?" he asked.
Hellboy exhaled, wishing he had another cigar right now. "I mean I'm quitting."
Roger didn't say anything for a few moments. "You're not going to be an agent anymore?"
"No. I can't work for an organization that treats us like garbage. I can't be part of...that…" he gestured at the group of agents by a landed helicopter. "...when they think it's okay to put a bomb in someone just because they're not a human being. Understand?" he growled. He didn't mean to sound so angry, and he hoped that Roger didn't feel as though he was angry at him.
Roger picked absently at a loose string on the BPRD vest he was wearing. His shoulders drooped, and he looked disappointed. "I understand," he said.
Hellboy licked a sore on the inside of his cheek and scratched at one of his filed-down horns. "Well, y'see...I was wondering if you wanted to come with me?" he asked, looking up at the other. He wouldn't forgive himself if he let Roger go back to the very people who didn't care if he lived or died.
Roger brightened, and perked up immediately. "Really? You...you want me to accompany you?" he asked, his eyes flashing excitedly.
Hellboy grinned widely. "Yeah, man. It'd be just you and me. No BPRD assholes to worry about. We can just go our own way," he said, placing a large hand on his own hip. Roger stood there, smiling for a moment, before nodding.
"Yes, I would love to go with you," he responded. He laughed jovially, his previous dejection lost. For a moment, he had been worried that his hero was going to leave him behind, but he actually wanted him to come along!
Hellboy gently bumped him in the chest with his right hand, a gesture of endearment. "Good to hear, kid. C'mon, let's go find Kate to say goodbye. After that, who knows?" He laughed, and Roger laughed along with him. Shrugging off his BPRD vest, Roger walked with Hellboy into the clearing, towards the mass of indifferent agents. Kate was standing expectantly off to the side, catching sight of them as they walked over to her. Hellboy wished he would have been able to see Abe and Liz before leaving. He had always hated goodbyes.