Free Web NovelChapter 70: Chapter 70: Homelander Sees Ryan Again
Chapter 70: Homelander Sees Ryan Again
Butcher’s rough, massive hands gripped the steering wheel in a death grip, the veins on the back of his hands bulging. freewebnoveℓ.com
"Becca... is alive..."
Butcher thought of a great many things. Those countless late nights spent drowning his sorrows in booze, those moments when he woke up from a nightmare and shattered liquor bottles. Some of those nightmares even featured him kneeling to the side, watching with his own eyes as Homelander and Becca... And because he had refused to believe Becca was dead, he had personally swung a sledgehammer, smashing the freezing tombstone carved with her name to pieces.
In his gut, he felt it—Becca was absolutely not dead! And now, that suspicion had finally been confirmed from Mallory’s own mouth.
Butcher slowly turned his head, staring dead at Mallory in the passenger seat.
"You knew she wasn’t dead all along, didn’t you, Colonel?" Butcher’s voice was eerily calm. "All these years, you actually knew everything."
Faced with Butcher’s glare, Mallory remained expressionless. She didn’t deny it, merely returning his cold look. In this brutal game of chess to overthrow Vought International, no one was clean.
Butcher sneered in his mind. Yeah, Mallory was using him, but wasn’t he also using Mallory and her CIA resources to track down his wife’s whereabouts? They were all demons wrestling in the same mud pit; none of them had the right to call anyone else dirty.
"I get it," Butcher said. "I’ll bring that rogue Supe back for you. You’d better pray that once it’s done, you can deliver on your promise." freёwebnovel.com
Hearing Butcher accept the gig, Frenchie let out a sigh of relief from the back row and asked, "So for this operation, do we need to call up that Hughie kid? He’s a bit of a pussy usually, but he’s got a good brain, and he’s already seen blood from when we put Translucent down..."
Butcher’s foot on the gas pedal paused slightly. The image of Hughie, who was like a younger brother to him, surfaced in his mind.
Because A-Train hadn’t run through Hughie’s girlfriend Robin on the street, Hughie didn’t harbor that bone-deep, life-shattering hatred. The only reason he got dragged into it before was entirely because Butcher forced his hand, which led to him being hunted by Vought’s Translucent, ultimately pressing the bomb’s detonator in a state of absolute panic.
Now that the Translucent incident had blown over, Hughie rarely got mixed up with The Boys. Plus, Mesmer hadn’t seen him, and since Kimiko and Hughie didn’t know each other, Mesmer couldn’t harvest anything about Hughie from her memories. Consequently, Hughie had successfully transitioned back into a normal life. He had a complete home, and a living Robin.
"No," Butcher chewed on the cigarette in his mouth and shook his head. "The kid’s doing pretty well for himself right now. Hughie isn’t like us. Hughie... he’s an outsider when it comes down to it. Let’s not disturb him."
Forcing someone with a normal life into this kind of dangerous shit... Butcher suddenly found that prospect completely unappealing.
At those words, the van descended into an eerie silence for a couple of seconds. Mallory turned her head, sizing Butcher up from head to toe with a thoroughly mind-boggling look, as if meeting him for the first time. She let out a light chuckle.
"Well, hell must have frozen over. Butcher, I took you for a rabid dog who would use absolutely anyone and give zero shits about anything just to hit your objective."
In the back row, Mother’s Milk and Frenchie exchanged a look of deep mutual agreement, then nodded heavily without a shred of hesitation. Even Kimiko, who had been sitting silently in the corner the entire time, nodded in tandem.
Glancing at this crew of ride-or-die comrades through the rearview mirror, Butcher raised an eyebrow and barked out roughly, "Fuck! In the eyes of you bastards, am I really just some goddamn unprincipled piece of shit?!"
"Yes." Mallory, Mother’s Milk, Frenchie, and even Kimiko—all four of them nodded in unison.
"Fuck you lot." Butcher rolled his eyes hard and slammed the pedal to the metal.
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Meanwhile. Vought’s secret community, Becca’s cottage.
Warm afternoon sunlight filtered through the glass window, spilling across the living room carpet. Ryan was sprawled out on the floor, intensely focused on manipulating a pile of colorful Lego bricks in front of him. He was using the bricks to try and assemble what he envisioned as a "perfect, warm family."
In the Lego layout, there was a beautiful little house, with three minifigures standing on the lawn. One was a female figure wearing an apron, representing Mom; one was a little boy figure, representing Ryan himself; and standing beside them was a dark-haired man figure. This dark-haired man figure had been personally assembled by Becca.
"Mom..." Ryan gripped the black-bearded figure, his clear blue eyes flooded with confusion. He turned his head, looking toward Becca, who was sitting on the sofa mending clothes, and asked with a pout, "This isn’t Daddy at all! Daddy has blond hair, he wears a cape, and Daddy is super handsome! This black-bearded guy doesn’t look a single bit like Daddy!"
Hearing her son’s innocent words, Becca merely offered a bitter smile, reaching out to stroke Ryan’s small head. "Ryan, you’ll understand when you’re older."
Ryan didn’t quite get it.
Boom!
A familiar sonic boom echoed outside the cottage yard. With a click, the front door was pushed open. Homelander strode inside with purpose.
"Look! My little genius, Ryan, guess what Daddy brought you?!" Homelander pulled the building blocks from behind his back. It was Vought International’s newly released Homelander Lego set—and a limited edition at that, the kind that was completely unobtainable unless you were a super fan.
Ryan blinked in surprise first, then his blue eyes instantly went wide and round. He instantly cast aside that poor dark-haired figure in his hand and lunged into Homelander’s arms with a cheer!
"Whoa!! It’s Daddy’s Lego! That’s so cool!" Ryan wrapped his arms around Homelander’s leg. "Dad! You’re so good to me!"
Hearing this phrase, "Dad, you’re so good to me," Homelander felt a massive surge of joy. He cast an exceptionally smug glance at Becca, whose expression was hideous, then hoisted Ryan high into the air, offering a doting counter-question, "Silly boy, you’re my son! In this world, if I’m not good to you, who the hell am I supposed to be good to?"
After spending some time playing with the blocks with his son, the father and son headed out to the yard to play catch again. The crisp crack of the bat and Ryan’s laughter echoed throughout the community.
After working up a heavy sweat from playing, Homelander abruptly stayed his movements. He looked at Ryan, who was currently retrieving the ball, and spoke, "Ryan, come here."
Then, Homelander discarded his baseball glove and opened his arms wide. Ryan ran over dutifully. Homelander scooped him up into his arms, exerting a slight surge of force into his legs.
Whoosh!
The two instantly rocketed up onto the cottage roof! The roof of the cottage was easily over six meters off the ground, equivalent to a two-story building. As a light breeze swept past, the vantage point instantly opened up an exceptionally wide panorama.
Ryan stood right at the edge of the sloping roof, poking his little head out to steal a glance downward. Even though it was a bit high, he didn’t manifest a shred of fear; instead, he felt an extraordinary rush of excitement from this perspective of "standing higher than anyone else." After all, he was a kid who had been flown into the upper stratosphere by Homelander!
"How about it, Ryan? Feels pretty spectacular standing up here, doesn’t it?" Homelander rested his hands on his hips, facing the wind, thoroughly intoxicating himself with this top-down sense of absolute control.
"Yeah! Super cool!" Ryan nodded with pure excitement.
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