Paper had never been so irritating. Maybe… because it was pink?
Butch plucked the pink sticky note off the A6 sheet. Buttercup recognised the burnt orange calligraphy even from her seat on the lab's steps.
"A masked ball, huh? Have you seen this? I'm being 'rejoiced'." He swung the invite above his head like he was trying to show off a particularly hefty pay cheque. Looked like his shoulder had fully healed.
Butch's mood had shifted. The last ten minutes had consisted of silence and snide remarks. It was beyond stupid – she'd come to figure out the mechanics of their counterpart connection, but anyone would think he didn't want his powers back. "Uh huh," she replied. "Don't tell me you're thinking of going."
He was scanning the invite again. "I'm a free man, remember?" He tipped his head towards the crumpled note on the lab table. "The pink paper says so."
Blossom; so it was her post-it after all. What was she playing at? They hadn't spoken since the drone incident this morning and Buttercup couldn't shake the feeling that she was out of the loop.
Butch leant against the table and grinned. "Hey… isn't Princess loaded?"
Buttercup snorted. "Yeah," loaded with something alright.
He pushed the invite into his pocket. "In that case… I'm the guest of honour. It'd just be bad manners not to attend."
"…" It was a joint effort. But she was honestly getting sick of reminding everyone. It wasn't like Princess cared anyway, according to Mitch, she was just after her prince charming. The whole situation was ridiculous. "I'll be there too."
"Well that's not weird at all." He gave her a look. "You do realise this ball is the fancy kind, right?"
What other type of ball was there? "Bubbles has been bugging me to go. Plus I'm a puff; I might as well show up." She felt the need to explain herself and it didn't sit well with her, especially because her reasons felt strangely like lies.
Butch shrugged. "As long as you're not going to ruin my fun."
"Please. We couldn't care less what you do." When he'd decided to stick around, he'd also decided to continue helping them out. No one had said the exact words, but… Butch was basically an honorary powerpuff girl.
The thought made her chuckle; she never thought she'd see the day.
Buttercup looked around the lab. Since losing his powers, Butch had unpacked his belongings and settled in; his borrowed shirts were either stacked in his cardboard box or hung from one of the Professor's incubators. There was no doubt that he felt completely at home.
The banister was one of the only items that wasn't currently used as a make-shift desk or clothes rack. Someone had tried to fix it, based on the cake of dry glue, but the wooden rail had splintered apart right in the center. It would need to be replaced, and the Professor would probably send her out of the house while the materials were being delivered.
She stood up and made her way towards Butch.
Buttercup had better control of her super strength and she planned to gain control over the counterpart connection too. She needed to figure it out for her own good; an unstable power was near useless. "You used the counterpart connection to find me, right? Tell me what happened."
"Now that tone feels familiar." Butch sat on the lab table and leant back against the wall. "I'm getting flashbacks to the chief of police and a nicely air-conditioned interrogation room."
Buttercup rolled her eyes. "Just spit it out, will you?"
He shrugged. "Fine, fine. There was some kind of… pull leading me to the junkyard. It happened the moment I stepped into Townsville, so when I saw you I figured it out pretty fast," he clicked his fingers, "connection."
Something about that word made her stomach flip. "Right. Well I haven't…."
Did it really matter? Butch had felt it and that was a start.
The Professor theorised that when the girl's powers had vanished, their physiologies had become unstable and 'open to possibilities'. Based on what she'd experienced, it seemed true enough. He'd also guessed that each counterpart had an emotional trigger to activate those connections, but he hadn't known what she knows about Butch; their counterpart connection had appeared before he'd even seen her – before there was any chance for an emotional trigger between them.
Butch had stepped into town with an unstable physiology. For the first time in half a decade Buttercup and Butch were…
"Close."
"Huh?" Butch looked equal parts confused and bored.
"Distance. Proximity. Whatever. We were close to each other. The moment you stepped into Townsville, we were physically closer than we'd been since our powers vanished." If they'd become unstable after losing most of their abilities, then what they called the 'counterpart connection' was their systems' makeshift way of balancing out their physiologies.
They weren't made to exist without powers.
Buttercup held out her hand. "Come here for a second."
"Why?"
"Well we know it responds to proximity, so we need to test this out."
Butch didn't look like he was going to budge from his seat. "You've managed to take my power twice now without any contact — one of those times when I was actually using it," he gestured towards the banister, "remind me again, who broke my favourite shoe rack?"
It had never been used as a shoe rack – before or after it had snapped in two. He was just trying to get under her skin. "What? Are we five years old now? Why are you acting like I have cooties?"
"You're reading too much into this, Ballerina." He slouched against the wall. "I just didn't want to get up from my seat. It's comfy. Come over here if you're so eager to touch me."
Buttercup scowled, but made her way onto the table. She thought he'd dropped that nickname.
The osmium was cool beneath her fingertips. Her dark t-shirt and shorts provided no protection against the chill of the metal and the wall was the closest thing to a back rest in sight; it was as 'comfy' as a bed of bricks.
She sat with her legs tucked sideways but still bumped into Butch's jean-clad thigh. He drew his legs onto the table and grasped her hands in his. "So, what now?"
"Uh, just...I don't know. Why ask me?" Yeah she'd borrowed his super strength before, so what? Buttercup started to pull her hands away.
Wait. Now that she really thought about it…both times she had wanted to have powers for one reason or another. At the mall, she'd wanted to save Bubbles. At the lab, she'd wanted to shut Butch up. But she'd been pining for powers since the moment they'd first vanished. If all she had to do was 'wish' then this should have happened long ago.
Butch threaded his fingers through hers and locked them in place. "This is your plan Ballerina."
"I know."
Maybe… maybe it worked like a game of darts? If the board was super powered-Butch, and the dart was Buttercup's 'wish', then the further apart they were, the harder it was to connect.
The power swap was hit and miss if they weren't touching.
"I know," she repeated.
Butch's hands were large and his fingers were long. His thumb pressed lightly against her wrist and his nails were short and clean, but chipped. The edges tickled her skin. When she looked up his eyebrows were raised. "You paint your nails -"
"Save the-"
"It's nice. Pretty cool."
It was only a light coating of clear nail polish, and she'd second guessed it all day. It hadn't felt worth the time or effort with all her battle wear and tear. "Talk about easily impressed," but her voice, even to her, was noticeably weaker.
Butch seemed like he was holding back a smirk. "Huh. Your pulse is really going wild there."
"It's not–"
"What are you thinking about?" His grin shone at full douche-wattage. "Feels pretty exciting."
Buttercup jerked her arms back, but her wrists locked in place. She couldn't free herself because Butch's grip was as hard as steel. She tried to tap into her power, but there was nothing to reach.
A pause, and then, "…looks like I can use my strength again."
So her theory was right; he must have 'wished' for his powers. "What were you thinking right before you got it back?"
He let go of her hands and began flexing out his arms and shoulders. "Couldn't really tell you. Something like...'don't leave'? Yeah. I think I didn't want you to leave."
It didn't mean anything. Of course not. Butch had only wanted her to see the experiment through to the end - he'd wanted to get it over with. But it made her feel weird. The whole damn thing had made her feel weird.
"Buttercup?"
"What?"
Bubbles paused, and then, "sorry. It's just that it's…off."
"Hm?"
"The TV. It's off," she repeated. She sat on the couch and her grey hoodie spilled across the cotton cushions. It was a baggy jumper with blue cursive lettering that read kittycorn.
Just a few months ago Bubbles would have stumbled over her words. The blue puff was clearly more comfortable around Buttercup these days, and her jumper was an added indication. She was actually skipping through the house with a cartoon animal stamped on her torso and zero fear of ridicule.
"..What's a kittycorn?" Buttercup asked, by way of an apology.
"Oh!" Bubbles raked her curls back and straightened her sitting posture; hidden in the folds of excess fabric was a full image of the cartoon animal. "It's a combination of a kitten and a unicorn and it's just this precious ball of furry cuteness! It's both majestic and magical because it's-"
"Not real. I mean it's animated right?"
Bubbles' words dried up and she gave a sheepish nod.
Buttercup breathed; she was proud of that. It was a simple inhale - not a sigh of exasperation, or a groan of annoyance - just a neutral, deep, long, breath. It was her fault for asking, but she hadn't expected there to be so many words associated with 'kittycorn'.
"So what's up? You came to talk?" She'd noticed the pink Post Its sticking out of Bubbles' pouch pocket.
"Mhmm." Bubbles crossed her legs and placed a fluffy dark cushion on her lap. "Have you, um, spoken to Blossom since the drone incident this morning?"
"No."
"Me neither," she pulled out the paper and handed one to Buttercup, "but she's been leaving notes like these around the house."
"For real? I can't be the only one who thinks this is immature."
Bubbles shrugged and pushed a curl behind her ear. "Well…maybe you..."
"What?" The sentence was vanishing in volume with each syllable. "Bubbles I can't even hear you over my blinking. Could you speak up?"
She hugged the pillow. "I just said that maybe you didn't need to throw stuff at her. She must have been so scared. And it was a bit… harsh."
"Come on." She'd definitely been way too easy on the hairball. "Blossom knew I wasn't going to hurt her. I was just making a point." They were speaking about the ice queen herself. Right now she wasn't squirreled away and scared; she was pissed and plotting.
Bubbles didn't seem convinced. "Do you want to be the leader? Is that why you did all that?" She squashed her cheek against the pillow. "I've never seen Blossom so mad. Ever."
This conversation was dripping with blame.
Blossom had been upset way before the incident on the roof, both upset about losing Sedusa and about Buttercup taking the lead and showing her up. Generally just upset with Buttercup's existence it seemed.
The pink puff had majorly overreacted. "She can keep her precious leadership rights. I just don't want her bossing me around and she can't stand that."
"Then… you don't want to be a Powerpuff girl?"
She hadn't thought of it like that. Buttercup was a puff even when she didn't have the confidence to be a hero. "I'm not Blossom's chess piece anymore. That's it really." It was all the explanation she could give.
Bubbles looked confused, but she nodded and sunk into the couch cushions.
Buttercup focused on the note, it read:
Buttercup, you made it perfectly clear that you don't want to follow my orders. If I had told you to attend the ball, you would have refused.
So, I didn't tell you.
Buttercup tossed the post it onto the desk.
Even hibernating in her room, Blossom had been moving Buttercup across the board. How had she known that Buttercup would tag along with Butch? It was a split second decision.
Cursive writing peeked out from the back corner.
P.S. I appreciate that you're now accepting your responsibility for Butch, but if you need more incentive, then there's a possibility that Sedusa will be in attendance.
Ugh. Buttercup crumpled up the paper. Was she still Blossom's chess piece?
"Bubbles." She was doing exactly what Blossom wanted, but she wanted it too – if for no other reason than to hurt Sedusa. "Princess' ball seems… fun. If you help me pick out an outfit, we might as well have that girls' night." Yeah, why not? Better to combine all her suffering into one evening.
Bubbles emerged from her cushion cocoon. "Deal, deal, deal!"
Hope you all enjoyed it. Now, off to the masked ball!
*major hugs* Star-S2002