Brooklyn hasn't seen Billy Butcher for a week.
She was starting to wonder if it was a one time thing, that he wouldn't break in again but for some dumb reason – and she honestly didn't have a good reason as to why she felt this way – she wanted him to break into her apartment again. She had so many questions like how come he was beaten up, earning a few good shiny bruises, and getting cuts on his face; she's seen enough movies to where she learned that a guy like that had a past you did not want to get involved in so a small part of her was glad that he hadn't returned.
With a sigh, Brooklyn opened her laptop up. She had a smile on her face as she waited for one of her games to upload. She had the news playing on in the background as white noise, she didn't pay attention to it anymore. There was nothing for her to worry about when superheroes took care of everything, helping the local government when they were needed the most.
As she waits for her laptop to turn on, it takes her a minute or two to realize that it wasn't. With a raised eyebrow, she looked at her charging cable for it and realized that a wire was exposed, and the plastic covering was ripped. She let out a sigh, whenever her charging cables were broken, they never worked again. She sits up and placed her laptop on her coffee table and grabs her purse and keys to make a quick trip to the local electronics store.
There was one that wasn't too far from her apartment. It was a ten-minute walk and she needed the time to think about what she needed to do for the weekend chore wise. She wonders if she should pick up some more hot pockets as a joke for herself if Butcher decided to break in.
The cashier at the electronics store was named Hughie Campbell, she went to high school with him. At first, they didn't recognize each other but after they started talking, Hughie remembered that he went to high school with her. Ever since then they exchanged numbers. Brooklyn knows he has a girlfriend, Robin, but she was always sweet and didn't mind that Hughie talked to Brooklyn – maybe it was because she felt bad for Brooklyn that she didn't have that many friends to begin with.
When Brooklyn came into the electronics store, Hughie greeted her with the usual smile and his smile grew even bigger when he saw Robin come in. "Hey Brookie!" while Brooklyn was never one for nicknames, Robin's was an exception. Brooklyn gave her a high five as she came to Hughie to check out the cord she needed for her laptop. "How've you been? Haven't seen you in a while."
How has she been?
Brooklyn thinks of a lie as she rubs the back of her neck. "Oh, you know, busy." A guy broke into my apartment, turned out he was a neighbor and lived two floors up, but it's cool. "Grocery store's been hell." Well, that was true too.
Hughie looks at her with a raised eyebrow and suggested something Brooklyn hadn't thought of. "I can talk to my boss to see if we're hiring. You're always in here, I'm sure you know the store better than I do." Hughie offered; Brooklyn snickered, and Robin clears her throat.
"Did you ask him about anything else recently?" Robin asked, this looked like a conversation that Brooklyn better not be a part of, so she thanked Hughie for the purchase and started to head out. Telling him that she would think about applying to the store.
Walking home, she gets a call from Hughie. It comes out of nowhere and when she answers the phone, he sounds frantic and upset. She didn't know what happened, all she heard was "A-Train" and "Exploded" and while she wasn't one to comfort people when they're frantic, she knew that he needed someone to talk too.
"Alright, alright, what happened?"
×××
Despite hating funerals and death, she went to Robin's funeral for Hughie. He needed a friend right now and she was there to comfort him as best as she could. She went to his house to comfort him for a few hours; talked about the funny things Robin said about other people she didn't quite care for and shared memories of her – even though Brooklyn didn't know her for that long, like a few months she knew her but she knew Hughie longer – and she eventually went home.
Today was a stressful day for Hughie, and Brooklyn knows she shouldn't feel tense about being there for a friend, but she just wasn't good at comforting people when it came to subjects like death. It was a thing that happened, life goes on. Hughie just got the raw end of the deal because it was a superhero who ran through that poor girl.
The last thing she wanted to see was her door ajar... again. That could only mean one thing and she didn't even know if she wanted to see him right now. Whatever he was doing, she just let him do it.
"Heard 'bout your lads day," he was sitting on the couch and looking at the TV, she saw him sitting there and she just let out a sigh and continued listening to what he had to say as she placed her purse on the counter. "Sounds rough. Knew 'er well?" he was asking her if she knew Robin personally.
"Why? Just why?" Brooklyn asks as she heads towards him, leaning over her own couch not to far away from him.
Butcher gives her a smile. "You wanna help him out with this, do ya?" he asked. She gave him a raised eyebrow, "'Cos he's your pal from back in the day?"
"What do you mean by 'help'?" she was honestly scared for asking, but it was something she had to do before saying yes to this man. He looked like one who would turn something as simple as getting a straight answer as to why this happened into something more diabolical than it needed to be.
Butcher sits up as he turns off the TV and starts to head out the door instead of just giving her an explanation. "Come along then," he says in his cockney accent, "you wanna help the lad or not?" he asked, not really giving her a choice. Or if he was, he was making it hard to say no. Brooklyn looks at him and then lets out an aggravated sigh as she grabs her jacket that she had left on the hook by her front door, following him out.
Even though Brooklyn never said anything, Butcher knew she was going to follow him.
She just didn't know what she was following him into.
×××
a/n - tbh i'm not really thrilled how this chapter turned out, but i just wanted to get this out of the way. i'm re-watching episodes as i write it and i'm getting so many ideas, this part was the hardest to get out tbh.
