4 years is less than a week, right? I'm really ashamed of how long it took me to update this but hopefully you like this chapter. If it makes you feel any better(it does for me), 16 year old me was going in a completely different and all together more shitty direction than 20 year old me. Also, it will be 3 chapters now.

The angry frown on Virgil's face didn't fade even as he looked down on his unconscious friend. Daisy had been there with him but left some time during the night with her mother. Now that she wasn't there, he felt the control over his power slipping. He couldn't bring himself to care.

Richie blinked awake, squinting at his best friend. "Virgil? That you?" He felt on the bedside table for his glasses.

"Yeah it's me," Virgil said tightly. He pulled out the two halves Richie's glasses, broken at the bridge, and handed them to the bedridden teen.

"Great," Richie sighed. "Guess I shouldn't be surprised." He gave a half-hearted 'heh.' Virgil didn't return the fake laughter.

"Who did this?"

"What? I... I can't really remember. Just some homophobic gangsters I guess..." Richie frowned. "I don't know how they knew..."

"What did they look like?" Richie heard the venom in his friend's voice. He put the broken remains of his glasses up to his eyes and saw the look of barely tempered rage on Virgil's face.

Richie spoke in a low, calming voice. "Whoa, Virg. What are you going to do?" He'd never seen his friend like this. Anger was a far cry away from Virgil's usual coping mechanism of bad humor.

"I'm gonna do what's right." Virgil didn't really feel like explaining himself to Richie right now.

"So you're going to find them and turn them into the police?" Richie asked skeptically.

"Something like that."

The blond frowned. "Look, I want those ass holes to pay as much as you do but I don't want you to do something stupid."

"I'm not going kill them, if that's what you think."

"That's not what I thought, actually," Richie replied, alarmed.

"Well they deserve anything else!" Virgil snapped. A burst of electricity from his clenched fist made Richie's heart monitor go dead. An alarm sounded.

"And who are you to judge that?" Now Richie was getting upset.

"You mean besides Static?" Virgil replied in a shouted whisper.

"Last time I checked, Static was about saving people, not vengeance." Virgil was about to reply but a nurse rushed in. She was at Richie's side in instant.

"Well, you don't look like your heart's stopped," she commented with a smile.

Richie took a deep breath so he wouldn't snap at her. "Yeah it just kind off sparked and turned off." The three people turned to look at the now smoking machine.

The nurse frowned. "Hmm. That's never happened before. Are either of you hurt?" They both shook their head. "Good. I'm going to go get you a new heart monitor. Be back soon."

They watched her leave before continuing their conversation. "You're acting like they should just be off the hook for jumping you! That's a hate crime!"

"What you're talking about is illegal too!" Richie tried to sit up but his bruised back hurt him too much. If the nurse's interruption did calm down the argument, Richie having to use the mechanical bed to sit up did. Virgil felt his fury quell.

"They can't be allowed to get away with this," Virgil said. Richie began to recognize his best friend again.

"I know, bro." He looked like he was about to say something else but a rapping on the door interrupted him.

"Excuse me, Son. I need to talk to the patient about the incident that just happened." It was the doctor. The young nurse from before peeked out from behind him, wheeling in a spare monitor. She grinned and waved at Richie.

"Alright. I'm gone." He gave Richie a handshake with a half hug. As Virgil began to leave, Richie called to him.

"Virg?" The dark teen looked over his shoulder. "He had a dragon tattoo on his face."

Virgil nodded but he gave no sign that the fire in him was going to return. Richie was quietly relieved. The medical personnel watched him leave before closing the door and getting to work.

The nurse began unhooking him from the fried machine. She smiled. "Was that your boyfriend?"

I contemplated just deleting this story because the writing was terrible, I wouldn't read this story, but because it seemed like so many people wanted to see an update for this, I decided to keep it up until I felt inspiration. Surprisingly, it did come on a Friday afternoon at work (typed this whole chapter on my phone). Rewrite of chapter 1 is likely. I make no promises about that or when the next and final chapter will come out. We know how well that turned out last time.