Sure, he tried to make sure she'd stay in the basement but the inevitable was that Butcher was fully aware of her slipperiness, which was why he had frustratedly pulled her along to see his parents instead of leaving her in the car. He stated that 'if he left her by herself, she'd be on the other side of the fucking state once he got back to the car'. But he had kept her in the dark about his other... problem, and he intended to keep it that way. Just as he waved for the bartenders attention once more, the door to the bar swung open and a small cough could be heard, tempted by the clouds of smoke hanging over the air. Fighting his smirk with his eyebrows raised, he pushed away his glasses and glanced at her sitting a seat away from him.
"You alright, there?" He asked curiously as Rowan winced, yanking off her boots nonchalantly in the public area. No one seemed to care, though, too lost in their own world painted by the spills of alcohol on the disgusting tables.
"Shoes." She scoffed,"More trouble than the little fuckers are worth." She decided, laying a small pot of nail polish at the bar where they were sat.
"And what's that then, eh?" Butcher reached for it, peering over the blood red colour, rather intrigued.
"I was hoping Kimiko could do it for me. It wouldn't last long, but she seemed to enjoy trying to put makeup on me while I had a nap." She sighed. He let out a coarse chuckle at the image he once walked into:
'Oi! What the fuck is this? Come on, we ain't 'avin this!'
Both Kimiko and Rowan looked up at him before the younger spoke,'What can I say? I cut a deal with the lady.'
"And what about you?" He quizzed, since they often enjoyed picking each other's brains for the sake of it and it was currently his turn.
Rowan snuck a glance at her own hands for a moment before replying with a withered volume,"I'm still having trouble sitting still."
Before he could utter another word, the bartender called to her while running a dirty tea-towel around the rim on a shot glass,"Hey! We don't serve kids in here - you better get the fuck out before anyone catches you."
"Do I look like I need a fuckin' drink to you?" She threw a hand into the air in expression, all while Billy continued staring - there was still one thing lingering in the back of his head among all the grief and misery so thick he could only see a person through it.
"Oi, come 'ere a sec." He muttered, to which she obeyed with a small groan. The last thing he wanted was to make a big deal about it. "What's the deal, then? You like girls or something?"
Rowan's eyes widened in utter, blatant fear and her skin suddenly began to burn beneath her clothes,"U-uhm..." Her voice trembled as the cell phone on the table rumbled. "I don't know. Maybe?" She panted,"What's it to you?" She snapped defensively.
"Nowt." He shrugged and carefully picked up the phone before remarking indifferently,"I like women too."
"But-but you're a-"
"M.M., how'd it with Vogelbaum?" Their equally dark eyes locked once more as she waited to judge what had gone on while Marvin and Mallory had gone to question the main scientist who brought up that creature in a lab. Butcher finally let his smirk take hold again and announced,"Sounds like we're back on the road again, kiddo."
____________________
"I'm sorry, he's very tired." The lady attempted to turn them down over the radio as Butcher and Fields looked out over the massive house through the windscreen and gates. The stench of cigarettes had followed them via the coffin nail hanging from his lip. She tutted and grimaced at him to make her disapproval apparent but the hypocrisy was not absent. Her lungs were probably as black as his, being a her age, constantly around people like Frenchie.
"I understand he's had a few surprise visitors today, but you're gonna' have to tell him he's got a couple more." He called out of the window, sharing a rehearsed, instinctive glance with Rowan who had pulled her sweater hood over her head since he had sunglasses on. She wanted sunglasses too. But that would just be too cheesy, so she made do with the maroon hood under her washed out green coat.
"Excuse me, but who are you?"
"You can tell him it's William Butcher. And his kid."
"Mr Butcher, Miss Fields, I can't apologise enough for what I've done." Vogelbaum began grovelling as soon as the pair of them entered his sights in the grand lounge. "But I can't give you the information-" He paused, swinging around in his electric wheelchair as Billy scraped his seat along the floor. Seeing nowhere else to sit, Rowan shrugged to herself and hopped onto the posh, glass table, crossing her legs and carelessly dirtying the clean table with her grafted, bare feet. "...But I can't give you the information you or Grace came for, either."
"What was he like?" Butcher wondered.
"Who?"
"Homelander. Growing up as a lad, what was he like?"
Jonah let out a small sigh,"I'm sure you don't want to talk about this-"
"Oh, there's nothing I want to talk about more." He smiled wickedly,"And who knows better than you?"
"...When he was a little boy, five or six, he was quite sweet. He'd cuddle up to me. He loved stories about Davy Crockett, Teddy Roosevelt. Loved the idea of the woods, the forest, manifest destiny." It made Rowan completely sick to the stomach to hear about him in such a way - to learn of their childhood similarities and wonders about nature. She wouldn't even give him enough credit to be a human, after all they's done to her, too. "Well, you know I went to be the strongest man in the world. So, I went to work on him. He didn't even want it, it was for me."
"Hmm... and that wasn't your only sin, was it?" Butcher fed from his shame,"It wasn't Homelander who hide my wife away for all them years, told him to lay waste to a sweet, little family up on Beckhill, either." She was rather taken aback by him remembering her old street name after all that time, it caught her off guard, but she continued to listen,"Did it ever occur to you... the pain you cause sorry bastards like us?"
"It was barely a blip on my radar." He admitted.
"Oh, really?" He leaned forward in his chair,"And what's your radar telling you now, eh?"
"Do what you want to me, but I can't help you. My family would be in-"
"Your family's already in trouble." Butcher managed to raise his volume without shouting - something Rowan had only managed once when she was really digging into him, taking the piss so much it would've given them a black eye had it been coming from anyone else. "'Cause that child, right there, can go into that room next door and bash your daughters brains out over the kerb while we sit in here and 'ave tea, then I'm gonna' find your two sons, and their wives and their little kiddies. Your whole fucking family, gone in an instant. Imagine that, eh? Or, you can help us. What's it gonna' be, Doc?"
Vogelbaum helplessly pinballed between his opponents,"It is a terrible thing for a child to have to come to terms with some people just waiting to hurt her but... how... how can you be so...."
At that moment, his daughter brought through a set of china tea, prompting Butcher to chuckle heartily,"Do you know, I can't remember the last time I had a good cuppa' char? You're a doll, love."
Rowan was given a teacup, but she kept hold of it for the moment because of her recent discovery that tea was not an enjoyable thing for her. Nonetheless, she continued to watch as she sat on the beautiful table, looking so out of place just dumped on top of it. The pair of them stared and Doctor Vogelbaum, glaring at the old man and drinking his fucking tea.
____________________
"Oh, hello, little one, it's you." Rowan's face turned to an expression of deep thought as Mallory's rather hurried voice frazzled it's way through her right ear into her brain.
"Sure sounds like it, huh?" She scoffed,"We're still in the car - old man's getting lazier again now I'm back, I reckon."
"Oi!"
"Shut up." She went back to the phone,"We all good?"
"No, I'm afraid Hugh let our star witness burn himself to death." She announced.
"Really?" Rowan chuckled, relaying the message to Butcher as they parked outside a rather familiar diner,"About time something fucking diabolical happened. He says we're good, anyway. No worries."
"No worries?"
"Listen, we gotta' go-"
"Fields, don't you dare hang up on me-"
"Yeah, bye!" She let out a small sigh and handed him the phone back with another roll of the eyes as they stepped out into the dark, spitting street,"You know what? Fuck you for calling my social skills 'wounded', I'm brilliant at talking to people."
"Sure you are, kid." He encouraged over the happy chiming of the bell as they entered the eatery and she decisively pulled her hood over her head once more. Rowan had no clue what she was meant to be looking at, or why she was there, because she had learned not to ask over time. She just followed Butcher around, like a little puppy, and bit the baddies in their way. "You're gonna' stitch me up again?" She jumped at the sound of his low, hoarse voice right in her ear, and followed his gaze to see Connie sat at the window on a table, looking rather alone.
"He's at the airport." She nodded,"I promise."
On that sombre note, Rowan took her cue to insert herself out of it and quietly make it known,"I'm gonna get a snack."
"From here?"
"We all deserve to hurl once in a while."
Letting out a tired sigh of defeat, Billy addressed his mother,"You got a right bloody nerve, you do."
"I didn't mean for it to go so bad. I'm sorry." She admitted."You won't have to see him again, he ain't got much longer - couple of months."
He subconsciously gazed around to the counter and watched the child stuff her hands in her coat pockets, swinging her feet across the disgusting tiles and muttered,"Let me know when it happens, I'll piss on his coffin. Come on, Kiddo!"
"I didn't do it for him." Connie stopped him as Rowan grabbed her coffee and cookie and began to make her way over,"He's a cunt. I just thought, when you saw how helpless he is now, you'd let it go. He wouldn't have this hold over you, you wouldn't become like..." She held her tongue as the child reached earshot and stood a few feet away, innocently grimacing at the jet black liquid in her paper cup. "Oh, look at you two," She cooed heartily, before pulling her son into a tight hug. Once she'd pulled away, Connie looked over the oblivious girl and let on a rather pleased smile, leaving the diner silent as the bell chime faded away.
____________________
Rowan was getting better at the shower. She was slowly learning to trust bathrooms again - which was why she could now get as far as tipping her head over, rendering herself almost completely blind, with the shower head in her hand to wash her hair. That was what was occurring in that moment - she had nabbed Frenchie's cell phone and turned the volume all the way up, so that the vibrations of 'Cherry Bomb' by The Runaways rattled throughout the entire, rotting cabinet in a continuous war against jets of water splashing against the porcelain.
She knew all the words to it, of course she did, after so many times of Butcher repeatedly blasting it through the car doors. Well, he played it a few times and she had insisted upon it almost every car journey since. There was some kind of diabolicalness to it which made her heart beat pure emotion in her chest and although she didn't understand a lot of the words she was whisper-screaming to herself, Rowan felt rather validated by the tune. It brought a sense of satisfaction to who she was. The Striker - wronged by almost as many as she hurt in return. The Devil's daughter.
A shower seemed like a good idea at the time, since she had been immensely distracted into late hours by Vogelbaum's comments about Homelander, Sam's rotten remarks about Lenny's suicide and on top of all of it, Frenchie being inexplicably jittery whenever they were around each other. Jonah said that his subjects became violent without their mothers. She couldn't help but wonder if that was what had happened to her. Did the complete absence of a mother figure in her life keep her in such a wild state? Was that why she managed to befriend older men who most people wouldn't dare go anywhere near so easily?
But the way Butcher's Father had spoken so insensitively was so raw in her ears. If that was the consensus, then what about all the times she'd wanted to give up? And why hadn't Billy even mentioned he knew what she felt like? Maybe it just hurt too much.
Unfortunately, her entire mood was ruined by the sudden stopping of the song in return for a group of men shouting words she couldn't recognise in perfect unison. She yelled in surprise, because screaming was just too girly, and spun around, using the showerhead as a weapon to squirt water in the intruders face. Since there was no bath and only water flow, Rowan was thrown backwards and hit the burned orange tiles, slipping around on the water and landing right on her behind. She growled, squinting through the water in her eyes and throwing the blurry figure into the wall to her right. The shower head was yanked from her hand in return for fingers clawing at her arm.
"K... Kimiko?" She groaned and rubbed her eyes, the Japanese song returning to her ears after all the clutter and water splashes. The young woman looked over both of their clothes, which were now soaked to the skin, and raised her head to Rowan as they both sat on the floor. Their dumbstruck quickly turned to sweet, mischievous giggles as they sat in the corner, droplets streaming down the walls and falling from the ceiling. "Girl, we're gonna' get in so much shit for this. The old man'll be pissed."
Her and Kimiko's method for communicating with each other was one of many facial expressions - Rowan did the talking and guessed the conversational turns and contributions from hand gestures.
The eye roll prompted her to guess while they sat back against the tires, suddenly exhausted from the unexpected burst of energy,"Fuck 'em, eh?"
The young woman smirked back and pulled herself to her feet, before holding her arm out and lifting the child upright in a way which resembled the agreement made when they first met: gripping each others wrists in a union for peace. "You just scared me. What is it, is the hearing about to start?" She was given a nod and sighed,"I'll be in there soon."
Kimiko furrowed her brow slightly as she watched the adolescent try to usher her out the door. She shifted towards the sink and hesitantly spread a small cloud of breath over the mirror. After a few scattered pauses and squeaks on the glass, Rowan found herself staring at an admittedly daunting word.
"Friends?" She read aloud. "You mean... a-are we still friends?... Y'know, it's weird to think having friends is all I'd care about if we were..." She let out a strange, little chuckle,"'Girls Get It Done', am I right?"
____________________
"Well, well, well!" The Brit appeared in the doorway with perfect timing. Rowan stared his reflection tiredly, bottom lip slightly more prominent. "How would it be going, Miss Fields? Lookin' a bit mucky in here, kid." He joked, leaning on his shoulder. "What's up with you?" He asked more genuinely.
The mirror wasn't showing a girl, it was just 'the kid'. Rowan didn't feel like a girl - she hardly thought of herself as a human. She was more like the old man than anyone else. "Nowt," She yawned,"I want bed."
"Right..." He hesitated,"Well, I'd say shift your arse but you got a cute, little fucking panda thing goin' on." Butcher gestured to her eyes, bringing attention to the dark smears across her cheeks before sending her a small nod and going on his way, abruptly stopping in his steps when a scream echoed from the bathroom.
"MOTHERRFFUCKERRR!!!"
"Kiddo?" He sighed.
"BILLY, IT'S IN MY EYES! IT FUCKING STINGS!" She whined.
"I'M GETTING A TOWEL, DROP THE FUCKING SOAP, YA' LITTLE SHIT!"
After a few more minutes full of watering eyes and red marks, they had both made themselves comfortable at the couch with The Boys, Starlight and her Mom, Donna. Somehow, it was the first time they'd met, and Rowan took it as an introduction in order:"Mrs January, pleasure to meet you."
"You know, you look like that girl from the-"
Before she even opened her mouth, Butcher answered for her,"Nah, she ain't. Frenchie, turn the fucking volume up, mate."
Rowan attempted to sit at the top behind Hughie but accidentally slipped onto him, resulting in a playful chuckle. When she squinted at the screen, she could make out Homelander's cape and Jonah's wheelchair making its way down the hall. He was testifying against Vought and their use of Compound V, just like she and Butcher had persuaded him to. The camera suddenly zoomed in on its face and she couldn't help but smirk,
"Cunt's fucking terrified." She chuckled, hardly even noticing Donna glancing at her with horror glimmering in her aged eyes.
Vogelbaum was sworn in by the judge who then began,"You now have five minutes to make your opening-"
SPLAT.
Squeals and gasps echoes each other through her ears and for a moment, Rowan was convinced she was daydreaming, and she'd just walked into a store covered in blood again. Once she realised that wasn't the case, and the judge's head had literally exploded on top of his shoulders on live television, a strange smile crept upon her lips and she obliviously crawled over the cushions to sit on the floor with her nose only inches from the screen.
SPLAT.
Vogelbaum was the next to go. The Boys started to complain since her head was completely in the way.
"Rowan, get out of the way!"
"Kid, shift!"
"Jeung one! Move the head!"
The frustrated yelling passed right through her. Her eyes were glued to the screen in some sort of paralysed joy.
SPLAT.
Then Shockwave bit the dust, orange suit eternally stained. Dozens of congress members, politicians, with their brains doing a classic Translucent. Witnesses tumbled and slipped over pools on the floor all while the basement was going nuts to the point where Frenchie had to forcibly haul Rowan away from the screen and onto the beanbag.
"What the fuck are you thinking?" He pressed, staring at her limp state with sight frozen dead ahead and arms stiff to her sides. "Enfant?"
Rowan only giggled to herself as countless questions bounced from the walls. She wasn't as trapped by 'diabolicalness' as she was by pure euphoria. The fact the trial had been utterly destroyed didn't register in her mind. All she was capable of was shaky, heavy breathing and a psychologically crooked smile.