A/N: How Jughead should have found out about the Black Hood trying to singlehandedly destroy Bughead.
***SELF-HARM WARNING***
Archie and Betty had reached Pop’s Chock-lit Shoppe and as they walked towards the front door, they saw a certain black-haired boy laughing with a pink-haired Serpent. Archie put his hand on Betty’s shoulder.
“Betty...”
Betty knew she didn’t really have a right to be upset, but she couldn’t explain how hurt she was when she saw how quickly he had moved on. Had she really meant so little to him? She didn’t want Archie to see how upset she was.
“I’m fine, Archie,” she started, but he knew she wasn’t because her eyes had started swimming with tears.
“Betty, you have to tell him.”
“I can’t Arch!” she yelled, crying openly now, “I love him too much to put his life in danger.”
“But this is killing you, Betty, I know it is!”
“So what?” She yelled back, “I’d rather it kill me than him.”
“If you don’t tell him, I don’t know if your relationship can survive this.”
“If it can’t,” she said shakily, “maybe it was never strong enough to survive in the first place.”
“Don’t say that Betts, I know you guys love each other.”
“If that was really true, Archie, would he be laughing in a booth with her, after they’ve clearly spent the night together, only two days after we broke up?”
Archie said nothing.
“Exactly.” Betty ran back in the direction they had come, unable to watch any longer.
“Betty, wait!” Archie yelled.
This yell brought the attention of the two people sitting in the booth nearest to the window, Toni and Jughead.
Jughead saw Betty’s blonde ponytail, just as it whisked out of sight. So did Toni. Before he had time to process this, Archie stormed into Pops.
“Jug, are you serious? You couldn’t even wait, like, a week? For common decency? What’s wrong with you?”
“No, what’s wrong with you? How can you come to judge me when she sent you to break up with me out of the blue, like 12 hours after she told me she loved me?!”
“You have no idea Jug, no idea what she’s going through right now.”
“Then explain it to me, Archie, because I really don’t see how I’m at fault here. I get that she was upset that I’m a Serpent now, she has every right to be, but we could have talked about it, and she could have, at the very least, broken up with me herself.”
“You have no clue how badly I want to tell you the truth of why she sent me to break up with you, but I can’t. She would kill me.”
“So instead, you come and judge me and I don’t think you have any right.”
“Right, sure, so why don’t you go and date Toni, and once Betty is finally allowed to tell you what happened, it’ll be too late, and you’ll have lost her forever.”
“Maybe I will, so why don’t you just fucking explain or get out of here and leave me alone.”
It was pretty much deserted at Pops, so they didn’t really care how loud their voices were being.
“I hate to interrupt, but I’m gonna go,” Toni said, out of nowhere, “and also, I’m more into girls, sorry Jug.”
She left and Jughead barely paid attention as he kept staring at Archie expectantly.
“Betty’s gonna kill me, but you’re acting like an idiot right now and if you’re too much of a prick to trust her enough without knowing, then I guess I have to tell you.”
He pulled Jug into the furthest booth from the door and dropped his voice to barely above a whisper.
“Jug, what I’m about to tell you, you can’t tell anyone else. If you decide to go after Betty, as I’m sure you’re going to do, be rational, be quiet, and please don’t yell at her. She’s doing what she can, and she didn’t really have a choice here.”
“You’re freaking me out here, just tell me.”
“First, swear to me you’ll be careful.”
“Fine. I swear I’ll be careful, but I still don’t think anything justifies what she did,” he said rolling his eyes.
“Betty’s been getting calls from the black hood, threatening calls.”
Jughead drew in a sharp breath,
“Ok, I guess, maybe nothing justifies it except that. What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, he’s been calling her for a while now, forbidding her to tell you, Veronica, or anyone who’s with the police or FBI. However, he forgot about me, so she thought she found a loophole and told me. In the beginning, he was threatening Polly, telling Betty he’d kill her if Betty didn’t do what he said. So, she published the article about her mother being a serpent. Then, since the Black Hood knew he could control her by threatening the ones she loves, he started telling her to cut people out of her life. So, first, Veronica. Betty staged a huge fight, and now they aren’t speaking. Of course, the next most important person in her life would be-”
“You and then- me, oh my god. I’m a terrible person.”
“I’m not done. She knew she couldn’t face you so that’s why she sent me to do it. I thought it would be easier for both of you. And then, we were walking to Pops, to discuss a plan, and then we saw-”
“Me with Toni. God, I’m so stupid.”
“I have to ask, did you actually sleep with her? A day and a half after you and Betty break up? And not that this is really any of my business, but have you even slept with Betty yet?”
“I didn’t sleep with Toni. We did stuff, but I couldn’t bring myself to go all the way with her. And no, I haven’t slept with Betty, we’re both virgins, and I just-”
“I know, but you have to see that he threatened to torture and kill you if she didn’t do this. If you would have heard the conversation we just had when she saw you in here, I think you genuinely would have cried. She said she loves you too much to put your life in danger and that maybe you didn’t really love her as much as she thought you did if you were willing to move on so quickly.”
Jughead was shaking with anger and sadness,
“How dare he do this to her? I have to go find her, I’ll never forgive myself for this. Thanks for telling me, Arch.”
With that, he ran out of the restaurant, leaving Archie by himself.
When he was outside, he realized he had no idea where Betty was. He debated checking her house but realized the Black Hood would probably be watching him. He decided that the school was the safest place to check because he goes there all the time anyway.
Sure enough, when he looked through the window of the Blue and Gold classroom, he saw the vulnerable blonde crying with her knees pulled up to her face. His heart clenched in his chest. He did this to her. How could he have been so stupid? He was about to open the door when he saw that her hands were bleeding, meaning that she had relapsed into digging her nails into her palms. He could have cried. This was his fault.
Since no one else was at school, she couldn’t have known he was there so she got up and started throwing things against the wall. First a handful of pencils, then a few books, and finally her phone. He saw her mouth moving so he opened the door just a crack to hear what she was saying.
“Why?! Why does stuff like this have to happen to me? Am I not good enough? Don’t I deserve to live a normal life, happy with my boyfriend? Or ex-boyfriend I guess because god forbid he wait for me or try a little harder to understand,” at this, even though she thought no one could hear her, she clapped her hand over her mouth, “That’s not fair, he’s just hurting, but I’m hurting too and I have no one left. No one.” She sunk to the floor and buried her face in her hands. He had to strain his ears to hear her whisper, “Why does no one love me enough to stay?”
Quickly, he took a deep breath, opened the door, rushed in, and bolted it behind him.
Betty jumped as she saw him and quickly stood up and started wiping her tears. She looked around wildly, broken school supplies littering the ground at her feet.
“I can’t explain but you can’t be here-”
“Archie told me everything.” Her eyes widened in horror.
“No! You can’t know! You’re in danger and it’s all my fault. He can’t see you here with me, he’ll kill you!”
“I don’t care, I‘m a terrible person and I deserve anything and everything that’s coming to me.”
“Don’t say that Jug, you’re not.”
“Then why are you crying right now?”
Betty was silent.
“That’s what I thought. You did all this to protect me and what did I do?”
“Jug don’t-”
“I just left. I thought you betrayed me. I should have trusted you, I should have known you wouldn’t have wanted to hurt me, but as usual, I made the wrong decision.”
“It’s my fault, Jug.”
“How, exactly?”
“Well, I should have-”
“There’s no good outcome to this situation. You did what you thought was right. I had every option available to me and I picked the wrong one. I wish you could see that you deserve so much better than me.”
“But Jug!” she exploded, “Don’t you see? None of that matters! Whether or not I deserve you is not the point. I love you and I want to be with you! So you made a mistake-”
“A big mistake.”
“I’ve made mistakes too, everyone makes mistakes, but I just have to ask you one thing,” Betty took a deep breath, “Did you- um- did you sleep with her?” She looked into his eyes, her eyes wide and sad, awaiting his imminent response that could change everything.
“No, Betty, I didn’t. I could never do that to you.”
She let out a huge sigh of relief.
“I won’t lie to you, we did do stuff, but I could never go all the way with someone who isn’t you. I love you too much for that.”
He walked up to her and opened his arms. She hesitated but then collapsed in his arms, sobbing. He kissed her forehead and rubbed her shoulders reassuringly.
“I’m just- I’m just so s-s-scared, Jug. He’ll come after everyone I love, and I-I-I don’t know how to stop him. How can I stop him when I don’t even know who or where he is? He’s not afraid to kill people, he’s shot Archie’s dad and Moose, he killed Miss Grundy. What if he comes for Polly next, or Veronica, or Archie, or you! I sound completely ridiculous right now, but I couldn’t live without you, Jug, I just couldn’t. Now I sound pathetic and desperate and stupid, but it’s true.”
“Betty, we’ll get through this together. I love you and you don’t sound ridiculous or pathetic. I couldn’t live without you either. I love you.”
Betty took his face in her hands and kissed him hard.
“We have to end this.”