Author's Notes: The chapters from here on out are going to be a little shorter to make them more manageable if you guys don't mind. The first one that was setting everything up was the longest by far, and I still think I can go back and make a few changes to it. A writer's work is never done, I suppose! Anyway, here's some awesome Daddy Wednesday, because I swear, that guy is one of the most underutilized minor characters in the original Powerpuff Girls cartoon. Even though the guy was mostly seen as a pretentious hardass in the episode "Schoolhouse Rocked", I saw his intentions as always being in the right place. At least he was actually willing to look at the Gangreen Gang's futures, something that no one else in a town that supposedly "cares" ever took the time to do.

Chapter 2

You're Not a Bad Kid

"Get back in your seat, Buttercup." The man ordered calmly, once he could see she had unbuckled her seatbelt and was sitting on her knees, looking out the back window in shock at the retreating house in the background. "Safety first. Buckle up."

"But!" She began to protest.

"Relax, kid. I'm not abducting you." Perhaps it wasn't the best time, but Wednesday couldn't help but try to apply a bit of humor to the situation, however dry, to at least try to put her at ease. "I'm just taking you someplace safer, so that we can talk."

Abducting a Powerpuff Girl? Buttercup couldn't help but feel a little cocky at that. She scoffed at him a bit. "Tch. Like you even could. I may have a toothache but I can still kick your butt!"

"I don't doubt it." Wednesday replied agreeably, and a part of him was secretly happy to have a bit of that spunky Buttercup back in action. It had been slightly unnerving to see her so listless. "And I also see that you can actually smile. It may not be the best right now, but I was starting to think that all you could do was scowl."

The remark had a deliberate goading edge to it, and Buttercup took the bait swimmingly, scoffing back, "Me? You should look in a mirror! I can say the same thing about you!"

"I know." The man said, and he felt the corners of his lips curl up into a tiny little smile of his own.

"You're crazy."

"So I've heard. And what about you?" He went on, sobering up and adopting a serious tone again. "I find you out in the park in the wee hours of the morning all by yourself and you're not even dressed properly; where were you planning on going before now?"

Oh right. That. Buttercup looked down into her lap at that armor piercing question, and she even took the time to do as he said earlier, fastening her seatbelt as she sat back down in her child seat.

She hadn't really given much thought into where she should go. She just felt that she should, because if she didn't, she might cause more problems for her family. They had already kicked her out once before for refusing to take a bath. How much more devastating could this be, really?

"I don't know." Buttercup finally admitted, realizing that she never really had a plan. It wasn't like there were too many options for a six-year-old.

She didn't have any food, she didn't have any money, and she sure as heck didn't have a job—not that her superhero work really counted, since she wasn't getting paid for it or was properly employed.

Most of the money she did have was already gone from paying her dental fees, and even if she had enough left to scrounge up some bus fare, that wouldn't really solve the problem of what she was going to do after she left Townsville.

She supposed there was one option left, and she shrugged her shoulders, asking, "Where do all the bad kids go?"

This question didn't seem to go over well with Mr. Wednesday who she could see reflexively gripping the steering wheel in front of him a little harder, nearly turning his knuckles white in the process, and he muttered, "You're not a bad kid, Buttercup. And I don't ever wanna hear you say that again."

If she had the strength for it, she would've scoffed in his face. Not a bad kid? Then what was her whole track record and existence up until now?

"Then why do I do bad things all the time?"

"Because you're a child. And like any child, you tend to test boundaries and exhibit what some might call "challenging behavior" at times. No different from any other kid."

Then he really didn't know her. Because she wasn't like "any other kid" at all, and it wasn't just because she had superpowers or because her dad made her in a lab.

"Hmph!" She said, slumping down and crossing her arms. "I bet every other kid didn't get ran outta town because they refused to take a bath."

"Oh?" Wednesday prompted, raising an eyebrow at her from the rearview mirror. Sure, the kid could've just been exaggerating, but when you were really around these kinds of people in Townsville and saw how far they could take 'mob mentality', he didn't find himself entirely disbelieving it either.

"Yep. I stank so bad I made the whole city stink too. And then all the townspeople got mad at me and chased me out with pitchforks and knives and the Mayor told me to either take a bath or take a hike."

Yikes. Now he knew these people were crazy. Even if the child's stench was truly that dire - and he'd already been around some pretty smelly kids in the form of the Gangreen Gang, who had the smell of the City Dump hanging off of them at all times - that didn't make their reaction any less extreme. Surely there were less drastic measures they could've taken?

"Why didn't you want to take a bath?" Wednesday asked, but not in a way that made him sound revolted or disgusted with the green puff like Buttercup might have expected.

"Because I thought it was stupid!" Buttercup exclaimed. "I mean, what's the point? We're just gonna get dirty again the next day, and I didn't see how being a superhero had anything to do with personal hygiene and I just wanted to fight monsters again and just… everything."

He snorted a bit, finding faint amusement in the five-year-old's logic. "I suppose you can use that logic for most things." Wednesday observed. "Why do the dishes if they're just gonna get dirty again the next time you have a meal? Why make your bed if it's only going to get messed up again the moment you wake up? Why fight crime everyday if there's just going to be another criminal roaming around tomorrow?"

Buttercup rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, already knowing where this conversation was going. "Yeah, yeah, I know, because it's my 'responsibility'. I gotta do stuff like that, even when I don't wanna."

Wednesday nodded his head, and then went on to ask, "How did your father handle you not wanting to take a bath?"

Buttercup dropped her head, remembering her moment of stupid stubbornness. "He kicked me out after I wouldn't clean up my act. And I told him to."

"What do you mean you 'told him to'?"

"I said 'If you don't like it, throw me out!' and he did. I don't blame him."

That didn't sit well with Wednesday.

Kids said stuff they didn't mean all the time. Adults were supposed to be more sensible than that.

"So he tried no other methods before that? He just skipped straight to kicking you out of the house?" There was an edge of anger in his voice now that Buttercup was surprised to hear.

She was quick to defend her dad in response to this. "Well, what else was he supposed to do? Walk around the house in a hazmat suit?"

Buttercup wasn't mad at him for kicking her out. At first she was, feeling hurt by her family's rejection, but then she realized that she had brought it all on herself. He couldn't exactly make her take a bath, not when she had superpowers. And if he tried to get her sisters involved, that would only end up creating a bigger fight. Maybe he could've given her some money for food or shelter after kicking her out the house, but that would just end up enabling her bad behavior.

"Did anything happen to you while you out there by yourself?"

Buttercup scoffed at the concern. "Of course not! I was able to do bad all by myself! I even beat up a monster by myself."

That was all fine and dandy, par for the course for the superpowered little girl, but Wednesday was more concerned about her general welfare.

"So how did you eat? Where did you sleep?"

Buttercup shrugged. "I just slept out in the park. It wasn't too bad. I scared all the dogs and the homeless people away, so it wasn't like there was anyone there to bother me. And I ate at Pokey Oaks Kindergarten when I came to school the next day. 'course I was the only one left inside. Ms. Keane had the class take an 'early recess' because I stank."

That still sounded pretty pitiful. Superpowers or not, a five-year-old girl being left to fend for herself for all that time while her family hardly seemed to worry about it made a knot tighten in his stomach.

"So how many days did you keep that up? Just being out on your own?"

This man sure seemed to ask a lot of questions, but Buttercup was trying to be better about her attitude, so she continued to willingly answer them.

"Not long at all. Only two nights. On the second night, I found out even monsters didn't wanna be around me anymore. That's when I decided to take the stupid bath."

"That sounds like a harsh way to try to teach a lesson."

Buttercup shrugged again, looking off to the side. "I told you I'm a ba-" Oh right, he didn't want her to say that for some reason. "-stubborn kid. I don't listen when people try to just tell me stuff. I have to be forced into doing it."

The Professor had flat out told her too, "Buttercup, you stink. Take a bath." He didn't mince his words or pull his punches. It was clear what he wanted her to do, and it wasn't like she was oblivious to her own stench. Despite what it looked like on her face, she did have a nose. She just... wanted to be defiant for some reason.

"Were there other times where your family disciplined you in such a manner?"

Buttercup raised her eyebrows. What was he getting at with all this? Did he feel like her family was mistreating her or something?

"Why are you asking me all this?"

"Because if everything was working just fine, then I don't think you would want to willingly run away this time. And despite how I look, I do tend to take that sort of thing pretty seriously."

Buttercup didn't answer him this time. Her mouth was starting to hurt all over again and she really wasn't feeling good. So she just groaned and avoided direct contact, not wanting to share the true reason behind her actions just yet. If she did, she knew that Mr. Wednesday would only say that she had what was coming to her and that she shouldn't have made her family worry for nothing.

As if reading her own thoughts, Wednesday took a glance at her from the rearview mirror and told the girl, "You don't have to tell me anything yet; there's a lot I already know."

This made her eyes briefly widen with surprise.

"But there's still so much that I don't," he went on. "And that's for you to fill in the blanks. In the meantime, I'm taking you to a doctor to have him look you over and then I'm taking you to the drugstore to get some form of syrup for that fever. After that we're going home. Our home."

Our home.

What did a place like that even look like? Where did a man like Wednesday even live? She didn't really know but she knew she was soon to find out. As she took one last look behind her to the last home she had came from, she knew she'd be lying if she said she wanted to go back immediately. It felt cowardly, but she knew she didn't want to face her family just yet. Not like this. Not while she was still so pitiful.