And So It Goes
2: Another Nightmare for the Books
"Tell me about Compound V."
Helena's chest filled with ice as every one of her muscles froze. Of everything she thought he would ask, that was not it.
"What're you—"
"Don't fuckin' fuck with me," he demanded. "Give us the truth, now."
His voice was low and dangerous, and she thought deceptively calm. She had sort of known him once, William Butcher, but clearly not anymore. He was a thinly caged animal, and she knew if she wasn't smart, here and now, she would become prey.
"Look," she tried. "I'm just a paper pusher. I organize Stillwell's day. I observe and make reports. All I know is the compound makes them stronger."
Stronger, putting it mildly. She knew it was heroin for supes, but beyond its existence, she wasn't allowed to know much. Butcher watched her like he was putting together the puzzle her admission left him with. Like he was about to take a gamble.
"Know where I just came from?" He gestured vaguely behind him with a thumb. "I found me a little lab, where babies are being doped up with Vitamin Supe. Know anything about that?"
His expression turned grim as Helena's slackened, her tanned face paling as she tried to compute what the fuck he was saying. Her arms uncrossed and she gripped her knees to keep her hands from shaking.
"You didn't fuckin' know?" It was his turn to sound incredulous. She glowered fiercely at him while fighting the urge to vomit.
"No, I didn't fucking know!" she hissed. Unable to sit in place anymore, she stood, covering her face with both hands. What. The. Shit.
Hearing him follow her didn't stop her from gasping when Butcher grabbed her shoulder to turn her around and face him.
"You find out they created a goddamn super drug, and didn't bother askin' what the fuck they're usin' it for?" His voice raised to match hers, and admittedly, it scared her.
"Those are the kind of questions that'll get me in a world of trouble." She stared hard at the floor. Then, the paranoia set in, with the realization that Billy Butcher had just fucked her with knowledge she shouldn't have.
"Supes aren't born," she stated. She felt weak, like her legs were about to give way.
He looked down at her wryly. "Nope."
"They're doping babies," she repeated.
"Now you get it." Butcher nodded. He took her trembling wrists to move her hands away from her face, with just a little more gentleness than she expected from him. "I need your help, Helena."
She blinked up at him. Oh God.
"No. You need to leave," she said, in a voice much more stable than she actually was. "I don't know why you're doing this or what exactly you're trying to do, but I can't help you."
He wasn't deterred, but his face did tighten up.
"You know exactly why I'm doing this, why I'm here," he said. His eyes, hazel now that she got a better look at them, were boring down on her. Just like this afternoon, she was pinned where she stood by him, without a touch or a threat.
"Eight years ago," he began, "The CIA showed me a clip of Homelander, takin' my wife into a meeting room."
It broke Helena's heart all over again, to watch Butcher have to even allude to what happened. What they both knew to be true.
"Now, how do I come to find that the person who gave 'em the clip, was you?" he asked.
Her heart hammered away in her chest. "Who told you?"
"Same person you sent it to. Fuckin' Susan Raynor," he said, and she could see his anger building. "And the bitch of the fuckin' bunch: you told 'em to make sure I saw it."
Helena swallowed, pulling a strand of hair behind her ear. "You deserved to know."
"How did you?" he asked harshly. His hands clenched into fists, and she could see his body was coiled tight with the effort of restraining himself. She still couldn't look away. Her guilt wouldn't let her.
"I didn't know, until after…" she faltered. "After Becca disappeared, I dug into our records. Didn't find a trace of her. Not even in Human Resources. So…I broke into the camera archives, found that footage."
"And after that, what'd you decide to do with that information? That America's golden boy is a giant fuckin' cunt," he advanced, making her stumble back a step, then another, until her back met the wall beside the TV. "Didn't go back to help the CIA, didn't go to the police. Didn't go anywhere at all."
"Billy," she tried, but he slapped a hand above her head. She flinched badly.
"You sold your soul, didn't ya?" he accused. "You still work for them, knowing what you know and what he did to her. To me, that's almost worse than a fuckin' supe."
Helena's fear elicited a shiver down her spine, but she knew he didn't understand, because she'd never bothered to tell him, or anyone. She couldn't.
"That place," she said, trembling, "is a fucking nightmare I live every day, and it doesn't stop. But I can't quit. I tried."
He glowered down at her, but at least he was giving her a chance. One chance, she knew, to explain herself.
"They found out what I did…yeah, pretty fucking quick," she explained. "They knew Becca and I were friends."
She remembered Stillwell's threats all too vividly, disguised in that corporate, velvet way of hers. Helena would never forget the cold serene smile on Stillwell's face as she ran down just how they'd make her "un-hirable"outside of Vought, if she spoke out. It didn't matter that Helena Flores hada Master's degree from Columbia in business management. That Becca Butcher had been a person, and they let their prized supe get away with violating her, and had likely killed her to cover it up.
And if Helena spoke out, they'd bury her in so many legal suits she'd never be able to crawl her way back to a normal life again. Not to mention, the subtle threat of jail time for disclosing information she had no right to give away. And what fallout might her parents experience in the press, considering they owned a popular restaurant down in Miami? This could threaten their livelihood.
No, really think about this, Stillwell had smiled. The safest place for Helena to be was right where she was.
But more than all of that, every time she had to stomach looking at that blonde, smirking dickface, she was afraid. She was still afraid.
When she was done explaining, she closed her eyes against the well of hot tears brimming, resting her head against the wall to hide from Butcher. She didn't want to see that gradual look of begrudging understanding on his face. She didn't want to be let off the hook—not for being one more person who'd left him, and Becca's family, twisting in the wind.
Eventually, Butcher pushed off the wall and grabbed her shoulder, firm but not painful. She opened her eyes.
"Then help me take 'im down," he said.
Helena barely kept herself from scoffing. She shook her head. "You're just a man. What the hell are you gunna do to him?"
"Whatever I can to bring him, and Vought, and all those cunts to the ground in a bloody heap of bones and dirt. If you cared about Becca at all—"
"Don't you fucking do that," she warned. She pushed him out of her way and returned to the couch. His presence burned behind her all the while, and at this point, she really wished he would just leave her alone. She was exhausted, in every sense of the word, and the sooner she could crawl into her bed with a bottle of something strong, the better.
"If you had a shred of fuckin' humanity left, you'd do something about it," he said.
She paused where she stood. Where did he get the fucking nerve?
Her temper finally managed to snap her out of the haze of exhaustion. Turning on her heel, she found him right where she left him. In the middle of her apartment, taking up space and pushing all of her buttons. From the look of his burgeoning smirk, he knew it too.
"I loved her too. Like a sister, really," Helena confessed. She hated how her voice cracked. "And you know what's really fucked up?"
Butcher watched her closely, like he was trying to decide if he believed her. Or maybe he did, deep down, but was just still at war with the rage that had clearly lived inside him all these years.
Helena let out a shaky breath. "I recommended her for that goddamn marketing job."
Tears finally brimmed over and slid down her cheeks, but at this point, it was a relief to tell the truth she'd shoved down under layers of self-loathing and threats from Stillwell and legal. Still, the wound that had never really healed in her heart was tearing and bleeding all over the place.
"I've had to live with that for eight years," she said. "But I can't. I can't do this, not even for you."
And yet, she knew. She just knew what he would say, just by looking at him. It hit her in the gut all the same.
"Yeah, maybe," Butcher said. "But would you do it for her? Or was all that shit leakin' out your mouth just some fairytale to help you sleep at night."
Helena was tired again. She sat on the arm of her couch and shot him a weak glare. "You're gunna be another nightmare, aren't you?"
He grinned a cheshire grin. Cheeky bastard.
She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. That headache was now a full-blown fucking migraine, and Butcher was already making himself comfortable in her favorite chair.
She leveled him with an exasperated look.
"What do you want me to do?"
