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obsidianfr3sk · 3 years

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through the aching shell

Hello!!! After a practically two months without posting anything (not because I was feeling down or anything, school was just making me go crazy), I finally finished the thrid part of the shell series I’m writing with my mother and dear friend Dawn ( @honey-hippie-harper), where we explore the angsty and depressing parts of Hugh and Simon’s relationship, because we’re crazy and we like to make it everyone’s problem.

The last two parts (which you can find here and here, and should read in that order for you to understand this one) were from Simon’s POV, but this time I decided to take some creative liberties and write it from Hugh’s POV, since this is basically my own birthday present (yeah, people, I’m 18 years old now, I’m so grown up *emoji with cool glasses*) and I have a permit to do whatever I want (? so I decided to write about Adrian starting his criminal life (?), the Council fighting like my mental ilnesses do at 2AM, and how Georgie’s death affected her loved ones, but especially Hugh, since, like Dawn said, we firmly believe they were best friends and he didn’t grieve her in a healthy way:’)

This ended up being... a lot longer than I expected (literally 67 word pages). And also a lot more depressing. I want to give a pretty important trigger warning for suicidal ideation, especially for the last scenes. Please, if you read, proceed with caution and take care of yourself.

On other important news (?), I didn’t feel like killing people today, so I took this canon divergence post my moms did of how Callum and Winston survived the arena, and decided they were going to survive. I don’t think it’s super obvious because of how I wrote the scene, but I just wanted to let you know, so you can be happy with me about it.

And what else? Well, I think that’s it:’) thank, Dawnie, for letting me continue this, I feel honored you let me form part of it skldhfjksdjhskd and I’m tagging @healing-winston-pratt and @the-wee-woo-girl in this, because I know you really like the shell series and want to know what happens next! Thanks to you too for your nice comments, I love you so much, my friends <3 and I hope you love this part too as much as I love writing it.

It wasn't until several minutes passed after he heard Simon going upstairs that Hugh realized he had been sitting on the ground during all this time.

He held onto the kitchen counter and stood up with difficulty. As soon as he saw his own hand, he noticed it had small silver drops all over it, and they reminded him of the coffee sometimes they accidentally spilled when they grabbed their respective cups before heading out of the house.

They also reminded him of blood.

In fact, they were awfully similar to blood.

He passed his sleeve over it to clean it. Not only did that refuse to work, but now he also had a gray stain on his uniform

Fuck.

But before he could come up with something to do about it, Simon started walking downstairs, slower and clumsier than before, while struggling with some heavy object. He stayed completely still for a couple of seconds, deliberating about what he was supposed to do.

Should he go to see what was going on?

Should he go help him?

Should he go and ask him to stay for the last time?

He was fast enough to turn his back on Simon when he showed up on the kitchen door hiding the trail of chrome he had left with his body

During the ten seconds Simon stayed there, staring at him, Hugh kept his eyes on his hands, flatly refusing to look back at him because if he did, he would meet her eyes too.

And he wasn't willing to go through that again in front of Simon.

In front of anyone, really.

He should have never allowed his emotions to come out in such a grotesque and explosive way. He thought he had learned to keep his anger, but the last time he had snapped like that was as recent as Genissa's Clark threat, after he couldn't stand how the rest of the Renegades were looking at the Council—

How they were looking at him.

It had been a slip. A pretty serious slip and that should not have happened again. Much less in the magnitude with which it had just happened a few moments ago, with Simon.

Simon.

Of all people, it had been Simon.

The man who irradiated the the most powerful beam of kindness without even saying a single word. The one who was able to talk people out of their evil ways because he was convinced goodness was a crucial part of human nature and no one was beyond repair. The person he thought about each time the fire of his anger started to emerge in his throat, and whose smile, eyes, and voice were enough for Hugh to be able to control him.

But today it hadn’t.

It hadn't been enough.

Simon hadn't been able to make it better.

The fire had gotten out of his control, and now, there was nothing left but ashes.

Ashes of anger that now was reduced to shame.

When Hugh turned around, Simon was closing the door on his way out.

***

He stayed leaning against the kitchen bar for a good four hours before he received the first message asking him where he was.

It was from Tamaya.

She said they needed to talk.

About what? She didn’t specify. But it was probably about how they left her alone for hours when it was supposed to be just during their lunch break.

While he texted her he would be there in a minute, he couldn’t help but look at his sleeves, and immediately knew, he couldn’t go there wearing those clothes, so he went through the small closet where they kept their clean superhero suits in case they needed to change after a mission or something. When he opened the closet and realized it was empty, he remembered Simon had taken them to the Headquarters, because he thought it was better to keep them there, since it was where they were most of the time.

Hugh clenched his fists and, before he could make a hole through the wall or something, he sighed and decided to take a shower first.

Tamaya would be fine if he disappeared a couple of hours more.

Maybe Tamaya could bring him one…

But Tamaya was in charge of the Headquarters, so she was pretty busy at the moment. Evander would take hours to get there and ask for explanations he didn’t want to give him, and… to be honest, he wasn’t quite sure if he was in the right state of mind to ask Kasumi to do him a favor.

“If Adrian wants to see me—”

Then, he remembered Adrian.

He was still at the hospital with Max. And if his mental clock was correct, he needed to be with his team in exactly an hour so they could start patrolling.

After showering, he put on some civilian clothes and grabbed the keys he had left on the entrance table.

Simon’s keys weren’t there though.

He had taken his own car.

***

Adrian wasn’t at the waiting room like he had said he would, but that didn’t surprise Hugh. No, what actually surprised him was how empty the whole hospital looked. No nurse was attending the front desk, and the few doctors he could see were either running to get to the next patient or whispering something to their coworkers. When he started wandering through the hospital, looking for a familiar face he recognized from the ones who were involved in Max’s case to ask them if he had seen Adrian (and if he could pay a quick visit to Max to kiss him goodnight because he probably wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital again before his bedtime), he noticed a group of nurses consoling a crying one a couple of meters from there.

He didn’t recognize her from anywhere, so he didn’t even bother to ask her anything.

Also… what the hell, he could pay a quick visit to Max without asking for their permission first. He was Captain Chromium, even if he wasn’t wearing his uniform at that moment, but most importantly, he was Max’s dad. He wasn’t going to stay there and wait for them to get their shit together and start doing their job.

After taking the elevator to get to the floor where Max’s room was, he noticed two doctors standing right beside the door, arguing in a low voice. They didn’t even realize Hugh was there until he was right in front of them, about to ask them if they could move to let him enter the room.

One of them interrupted what the other was saying and immediately tried to stop Hugh.

“I’m sorry, sir, you cannot be here, it’s a quarantine—” when she made contact with him, she and the other doctor’s expressions changed completely.

He had seen the same face a thousand times after people realized who they were talking to.

In other circumstances, he would have tried to be nice about it, but at that moment, he didn’t have any energy left to tell them about his intentions.

He needed to kiss Max goodnight. And then, he needed to look for Adrian.

So when he carefully pushed them aside and walked into the room, he didn’t feel any guilt for acting like that.

What he did feel, was his blood freezing the instant his eyes laid on Max’s bed and saw it was completely empty.

The small smile he had just put on his face to greet his kid immediately disappeared.

“Where—”

“Your sons have left this hospital, Mr. Everhart,” the doctor blurted out. “Together.”

But that wasn’t what Hugh was going to ask.

“Doctor— Where’s my husband?”

I need to see my husband.

***

According to what the doctors told him while they took him to one of their offices, Adrian and Max had escaped the hospital forty minutes before Hugh arrived. They knew it had been that way since one of the nurses saw them and tried to stop them, but they somehow made her faint for a couple of minutes, and when she was able to turn on the alarm, they were already gone. The doctors who were in Max’s room when he arrived were the ones who found the note Adrian had left, a note where he assured Max was fine, with his brother, and that the Renegades had nothing to worry about.

But Hugh was worried. He was so worried he couldn’t even yell at the staff for being so negligent and letting a teenager and a kid— two kids, go under their noses. He was so worried, that when Simon barged into the office, also wearing his civilian clothes, he didn’t run to hug him like he had been craving all that time he had to sit down and think about the horrible things that may be happening to his sons in those instants, while he heard the doctors doing their absolute best not to look like complete idiots in front of him and failing miserably; instead, he stayed quiet and let him ask all the questions he wanted to ask, doing his best not to look at him, not even out of the corner of his eye.

The last straw for him was when, by accident, the crying nurse (who apparently worked in the maternity ward) entered, and broke again as soon as she saw them, assuring them that she would never let them get to the roof if she had known their true intentions.

He heard roof and he heard intentions. And he immediately came to the realization, that even though the doctors had told him the whole staff was looking for them everywhere, no one told him if they had already looked for them...

If they had already looked for them outside the building.

After murmuring some words to the nurse, Simon got out of there, running like a crazy man through the hospital, being followed by the two doctors, trying to stop him, so he wouldn’t make a scene in front of the other patients.

And Hugh, who immediately felt uncomfortable as soon as they left him alone with the sobbing woman, stood up and followed the sounds of the doctors' pleas.

He knew where Simon was going.

When he got there, Simon was leaning over the roof, while the doctors stayed under the door frame, with mortified faces.

Seconds later (which felt like hours), he stumbled back from the edge of the roof and sat down on the floor, sighing with relief.

It was more than enough for him to feel able to breathe normally again.

“Mr. Everhart—” the doctor said. “I think you should call your son.”

He agreed and let him know with a nod of his head. Then, he asked something about if they wanted to go to the office again, but Simon answered before him and told the doctor it was fine. Then, his co-worker grabbed him by the arm and told them they were going to give them their space. That time, none of them answered her. So they left without saying anything else.

It wasn’t like it mattered to him anyway. At that moment, the only one he wanted to hear was Simon’s voice.

Simon’s voice yelling at him. Crying. Cursing. It didn’t matter in what tone he was talking as long as he was able to hear him say his name.

Say something.

Anything.

Simon kept his head low but pointed at Hugh’s bracelet.

Call Adrian.

The bracelet rang on the other side of the line, and the more it did, and the more silent Simon stayed, the more Hugh’s worry started to vanish.

The wind took away the ashes of his anger, and let the fire start again.

As soon as Adrian picked up, he put him on speaker.

But he didn’t let him talk.

“Where is he?” he barked through the phone. “Adrian, what have you done?”

Simon slowly stood up, stumbling a little, and Adrian clicked his tongue. “So… you got the note?”

Oh, my—

“Yes, we got the note!” he yelled. “What’s going on? Where’s Max?”

“He’s somewhere safe,” Adrian responded immediately. “Trust me.”

He almost snorted. “Trust you? What does that even—”

Suddenly, Simon grabbed him by the arm and brought the bracelet closer to his face. “Adrian, we do trust you.” And he quickly added: “And we trust Max.”

Trust.

“But this is serious,” Simon continued. “We need to know where he is. You of all people should understand how dangerous it is for him to be alone out in the world.”

“He is not alone,” Adrian argued. “No other prodigies will be at risk, and he’s comfortable and secure, maybe even happy, which is more than we could ever say about putting him back in that quarantine.”

Simon opened his mouth but he couldn’t find any words to say. His grip started to get loose little by little until he let him go completely.

He couldn’t take his eyes away from Simon’s hands.

He wanted to hold them so bad.

“How did you even manage to get him out of the hospital?” Hugh asked Adrian. “Did you find the Vitality Charm?”

“No, Dad. But I— I borrowed one of the hazmat suits from HQ and put Max into it,” he explained. “The barrier protected me from his powers long enough to get him to where we needed to go.”

That was enough for Simon to come back to reality. Just that this time, he just got closer to the bracelet; he didn’t touch him at all. “A hazmat suit? And no one noticed a ten-year-old kid wandering down the corridors in a hazmat suit?” just after saying that sentence, he subtly gasped and groaned. “Invisibility. Right. You know, I forget that he has that one, too.”

For a second, Hugh thought he was talking to him. But when Adrian answered, he knew Simon was not. “You did give it to him, so technically, it’s kind of like you helped him escape.”

“Don’t get smart,” he snapped. “And he didn’t need to escape. He’s not a prisoner!”

“Wasn’t he?”

He didn’t wait for them to answer him. It was a rhetorical question.

Not like Hugh knew how he would answer that question.

“Look, I know you guys love him,” Adrian continued, “but I’m not letting you put him back in that quarantine, end of story. For now, he’s safe where he is until we find a more permanent solution.”

Simon turned away, covering his mouth with his hand, and looking at the sky.

Adrian— Adrian didn’t sound like his usual self. In fact, if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, the way his son was behaving reminded him a lot of a younger Adrian, who was just a little bit older than Max, entering into what would soon become his teen years, and liked to think all his parents did was making his life a living hell. Like when he asked Hugh to let him go to that Renegades Camp that was supposed to be only for the kids who were living in orphanages funded by the Council, or when he wanted Simon to get him a couple of new sneakers; in both situations, he received no for an answer, and proceeded to make a huge deal out of it, asking them why were they always trying to isolate him from other kids, or if they were poor again and would have to share a piece of bread between the three of them, like when they lived at Simon’s house.

Both of those situations were tantrums that Hugh could let slide. He let Adrian go to the camp that year (after a lot of consideration) and bought him the sneakers he wanted as his birthday present, even getting a little mad at Simon for not getting them when Adrian asked him to since it wasn’t like they didn’t have the money or something.

Even he could understand those situations were… things all kids went through at that age. It was a phase that Adrian outgrew.

But that— that was not a phase.

That was not even a tantrum.

It was reckless and stupid, and dangerous.

And he was putting Max in danger. He was making Simon as worried as he had never seen him worried before.

And it was something Hugh could not let slide.

Not this time.

“No, Adrian,” Hugh said, “you are going to tell us where he is right this minute, so we can get him back to the hospital and make sure—”

But Adrian knew how to play that game too.

“We’ll talk about it later,” he interrupted. “For now, I’m late for a team meeting. Okay, guys? Love you, bye!”

And he hanged up.

And he didn't give them a chance to tell him they love him too.

But even if he had, Hugh knew he wouldn't say it back.

Just like that morning when they visited Nova at Cragmoor.

Before Hugh could even move, Simon left the roof, leaving him alone with those words echoing inside his head.

Trust me.

Hugh remembered he had trusted her. And, in a way, she had trusted him too.

And that was when everything started going downhill.

***

There was nothing Hugh could do at the hospital anymore. He encountered the doctors that had been informing them about the whole situation, and when he started telling them everything was fine and that they were able to locate their kids, they told them Mr. Westwood had already been there and notified them. They also promised everyone in the hospital was going to keep Max’s condition a secret and assure him no information was going to be leaked to the media to keep him safe. Hugh thanked them, but honestly, it was the least they could do.

When he went to the hospital’s parking lot, he looked for Simon’s car. Since he didn’t find it, he assumed he had gone to Kasumi’s house.

Hugh was going to return to Headquarters. To distract himself.

He entered through one of the back doors, so no one from the patrol units or the janitorial team saw him in his civilian clothes. He was lucky not to walk into someone while going through the corridors, but he didn’t feel safe until he entered his office and closed the door behind him.

And that feeling lasted… five seconds.

Because when he turned on the lights, Tamaya was sitting on top of his desk, with her legs crossed and drumming her fingers against the dark wood.

“Shit, Tamaya, why are you in my office?” he asked her with a hand on his chest.

She didn’t seem a little ashamed when she heard him scream. She didn’t even flinch.

“Shit, Hugh, why are you not in your office?” she asked him back.

She knew he didn’t like when people copied his exact words.

“Get off my desk,” he ordered her while walking towards it and sitting in his swivel leather chair. “You look super creepy waiting for me in the dark. Next time send a text”

Tamaya acted like she didn’t hear him. “I did,” she growled. “I did and you told me you were going to be here in a matter of minutes. What the hell happened there? What the hell was so important it made you think it was appropriate to leave me hanging here?”

Hugh opened one of the drawers (the bigger one) and found his uniform inside a plastic bag. It had a purple sticky note, and in permanent black sharpie, Simon had written his name with his wonderful, horrible calligraphy and drawn small hearts around it.

Hugh turned it into a small ball and threw it in the trash.

“Evander was here,” he reminded her as if she didn’t already know it. “I didn’t leave you hanging.”

“Evander doesn’t count. He’s asleep right now, actually.”

In Headquarters, they had a couple of rooms filled with beds, in case the patrol units needed to rest after a particularly long shift or wanted to take a nap before patrolling. For some reason, Evander liked to rest there, and if no one else was there, he even locked the door so no one was able to come in. Hugh thought it was very selfish of him to do that, but Evander assured him it was actually pretty comfortable (as if that was the problem he had with it) and Simon always told Hugh to let it go since it was something Evander only did after he finished his shift or was about to be up all night, just like the patrol units.

But he wasn’t going to let it go now. He decided that after putting on his uniform, he was going to kick the door down, grab him by the ankles, and throw him out of the bed.

Hugh closed the drawer. “Hey, I’m going to change my clothes, so—”

His lips sealed just as Tamaya put a hand on his shoulder.

Not like “I’m with you”.

More like…

“Move and I’m going to kick your ass.”

Hugh didn’t want to get his ass kicked that day.

“Answer. My. Question.” And she said it again. “What the fuck was so important it made you think it was appropriate to leave me hanging here?”

He tried to think of an excuse not to tell Tamaya the truth.

But, honestly, there wasn’t one. She was going to know all about it sooner or later.

“Max disappeared from the hospital.”

Tamaya let go of his shoulder and gasped. “What?—”

“Don’t worry,” he quickly added, “he’s fine, Adrian took him. Can I change now?” She sighed and then, she nodded. “Thanks. Hold the fort.”

Tamaya walked to the door and locked it, just to make sure no one was going to enter and see Captain Chromium, their boss, just wearing his underwear and trying to get into those tight leggings everyone had told him looked ridiculous since the moment he turned them into a crucial part of his superhero gear (and personality), but he kept wearing and will keep wearing until the day he died.

Hugh was going to hold on to that small piece of dignity he had left as if his life depended on it, because, maybe, just maybe, it kind of did.

So… one way to do it, was to make sure no one entered while he changed his clothes.

Tamaya could stay though. It would be stupid to put on an act of false modesty when Tamaya had seen all of them naked at some point in their lifes. However, the main difference between her and Evander, who had also seen everyone naked, was that Tamaya just remained quiet and closed the door almost as soon as she had opened it, while Evander started screaming so loud, that if they had had neighbors, they would have heard him say he had seen boobies (or a pee-pee, depending on the case) (he also hated the word pee pee thanks to that.)

Tamaya, respectful as she was, kept her eyes fixated on the ceiling. “So that’s why you were dressed up like that,” she mumbled. “I wouldn't change my clothes if my son went missing, either.”

That hadn’t exactly been the line of events, but what Tamaya didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “How dare you. I have an incredibly good sense of fashion.”

Hugh was wearing a t-shirt, a hoodie, and ratty jeans.

In his defense, he hadn't done laundry that week.

That wasn’t a great defense, but still.

“Yeah, sure,” she scoffed. “When you entered, I thought you were an intruder and was about to get all defensive and shit.”

“Well, you’re not the only one—” he put his civilian clothes in the plastic bag “—When I went to the hospital, no one really recognized me at first either.”

Tamaya slightly smiled and then crossed her arms against her chest. “What do you mean Adrian took him?” she asked.

He stopped what he was doing for a couple of seconds. “I mean that,” he finally said. “He took him. Adrian got Max out of the hospital, took him somewhere else, and refused to tell us where he is.”

“And where’s Adrian now?”

“Patrolling with his team.”

Patrolling with his team.

As if he hadn’t kidnapped his brother and put in danger dozens of prodigies in the process.

As if he hadn’t worried them as if he had done before, because apparently, he was still too young and immature to comprehend that Max’s situation was something neither of them wished for, but at the same time, was a lot more complicated than he thought it was.

As if nothing had happened.

Tamaya stayed in complete silence until he sat down and remembered, he didn’t bring the boots that he wore with the superhero suit.

Great.

Those shoes didn’t even match the leggings.

“And what did you tell him?”

“Nothing. He didn’t give me the chance.”

Maybe if he stayed behind his desk until he finished his responsibilities of the day, no one would notice. And he could always exit through the backdoor.

“That kid. He wasn’t like that— Adrian had never done something like this before. I’m— I’m honestly shocked by his behavior.”

“You tell me.”

But he didn’t want to. Yet. He didn’t want to go to his house.

Not like that.

Not alone.

“What are you going to tell Adrian?”

And Adrian.

Alone, and with Adrian.

“What am I going to tell him?”

Tamaya nodded, and a wave of possible answers flooded his head.

Adrian, you’re in big trouble.

Adrian, you’re grounded for the rest of your life.

Adrian, please tell me where Max is, I’m begging you.

Adrian, grow up.

Adrian, your dad is not coming back for a very long time.

Adrian.

Your mom—

“Nothing.”

Because there is nothing that could be said.

Tamaya raised her eyebrows. “Nothing?” she doubtfully asked.

“Nothing.”

“You can’t say nothing to him,” she objected, incredulous. “That’s just not healthy.”

Hugh pretended he was going through the pages of a document someone had left for him on his desk. As if he could read those tiny letters without his glasses.

As if he couldn’t go years without talking to people.

Or about them.

“Hugh. Hugh, are you lis—”

“What did you want to talk about?”

“Huh?”

When he realized he was rolling his eyes, it was too late to stop. He just kept talking and hoped Tamaya didn’t gouge them out. “You told me before you needed to talk to me,” he explained.

“No, I said we needed to talk,” she corrected him pointing at him with a finger. She was wearing black nail polish.

You see? You remember perfectly.

“Well, in case you were wondering—” he opened the document and started reading it “—I’m listening. What’s the situation?”

Tamaya didn’t have time to react to his words. If she was going to scream, start talking about what she (she, because Hugh didn’t want to), or genuinely gouge his eyes out, no one, probably not even Tamaya herself, would ever know.

A loud banging, stifled voices, and a very familiar yell interrupted them all of the sudden.

“DAD!”

Hugh grasped tightly the pages of the document, while Tamaya grunted loudly and opened the door, her wings extended and bristly.

“WHAT?!”

The loud banging and stifled voices went silent. But the familiar yell didn’t fear Tamaya.

Because he was that reckless.

“Dad.”

Tamaya’s wings relaxed and she moved aside, letting Hugh see Adrian, still in his Renegade uniform, a little bit sweaty and dirty, like every time he came back from patrol. His team was sweaty and dirty too, but none of them had the same expression Adrian’s face had.

He seemed weird. Different.

He would dare to say he looked hopeful.

And the moments where they just stayed staring at each other, probably waiting for the other to make the first move, Hugh couldn’t figure out the reason why.

***

Innocent.

She was innocent.

According to the Renegades, Nova Jean McLain was innocent.

They came to that resolution an hour and a half later.

When Adrian first told him Nova was innocent, he couldn’t understand what he was talking about, but Tamaya took control of the situation and immediately told Hugh to wake Evander up at the same time she told Adrian’s team to follow her.

Hugh didn’t kick the door down, but he did grab him by the ankles and made him wake up screaming.

Evander walked beside him, wearing a Blacklight t-shirt people sold at Cosmopolis Park and asking him questions about what was going on, but Hugh insisted he waited until the rest of them arrived because it was a delicate situation.

Extremely delicate.

So delicate, Hugh thought it would break like a roof made of glass and the sharp pieces would rain all over their heads, cutting their bodies like a piece of rotten fruit.

At the meeting room, Tamaya was talking to Kasumi over the phone they kept there in case of an emergency, and Adrian was gathered with his team. He was the only one who had bothered to pretend that he wasn’t worried at all because Oscar Silva and Ruby Tucker couldn’t stop throwing glances at each other, and Danna Bell shook her head every once in a while, saying something that sounded like “You’re making a mistake. You all are making a mistake.”

Oddly enough, he hoped she was right. He hoped Adrian and everyone who believed him was just making a mistake, so things wouldn’t get more complicated than they already were.

That was not going to look good for them.

Kasumi and Simon arrived ten minutes after Tamaya hung up the phone. Neither of them were wearing their uniforms or bothering to look at Hugh. Actually, Kasumi walked directly towards Tamaya to apparently ask her something (and Evander followed her because he was Evander), while Simon immediately went over Adrian, turned around the spinning chair he was sitting on, and hugged him, without caring a single bit about embarrassing in front of his team.

Adrian hugged him back. But then, he pulled him away to tell him he knew for a fact Nightmare was not Nova, but instead, Narcissa Cronin, Gene Cronin’s granddaughter.

Simon remained calm, and rubbing Adrian’s arms, told him that was a pretty serious accusation.

“But tell us all about it.”

And Adrian did. He and his team told them all about it.

Mostly him though.

He told them about them encountering Narcissa Cronin and that she explained her evil plans to them, in extreme detail. She planted evidence to make Nova seem guilty because, after the parade, she wanted to get the Renegades off her back, and Nova was the perfect person to incriminate for her crimes. She considered it her revenge against the Renegades for not doing anything when Ingrid Thompson shot the only family she had left, but after hearing a rumor of her execution, she realized she didn’t want Nova to die in the hands of the Renegades.

Not because she cared about her. She just had principles.

Or those were the words Adrian used, that made him question himself if he wanted to see her dead.

Because even when he gave Frostbite— or, Genissa Clark, permission to be the one to execute her, he still didn’t know if he did because he was sure it was the right thing…

Or because he was scared.

Which still— didn’t answer his question.

Do you really want to see Nova McLain dead?

He wasn’t sure about it.

Tamaya, on the other hand, was.

She didn’t want to see Nova McLain dead.

And apparently, neither did Kasumi and Simon, because as soon as Adrian finished telling his side of the story, they immediately started talking about removing all charges that had been filed against her to get her out of Cragmoor as soon as possible. Evander tried to interrupt them and insisted that maybe they needed to hear the rest of the team (who had barely spoken through the entire conversation), as well as to go to the scene to look for clues. Danna Bell agreed with him and tried to take the word, but Tamaya stated they didn’t need to hear anything else, because the more they stayed there, listening, the more time an innocent girl stayed in prison. When Evander tried to argue again, Tamaya looked at Hugh, silently asking him to support her.

The five members of the Council knew the glass roof they had been standing under for God knows how much time, had shattered completely.

The least Hugh could do was use his entire body to try to protect them from it.

So he agreed with Tamaya, and said, out loud, that Nova McLain was free of all charges.

Tucker and Silva smiled as soon as they heard him say that, and Bell just sighed. Adrian let out a “Yes!” under his breath and turned around to say, “Thank you.”

Evander just rolled his eyes and started playing with a pencil he found there, but Tamaya and Kasumi smiled at him, and Simon said, “No, Adrian, thank you.”

Before leaving the room with the rest of his team, Adrian cast a glance at Hugh.

But Hugh pretended he didn’t realize until Danna Bell told Adrian to keep going and he obeyed.

***

The Council stayed in the meeting room for a little while, to put all the cards on the table and make sure they understood each of the steps they had to take to get Nova McLain out of Cragmoor. Evander and Hugh were the only ones who didn’t participate in the conversation at all, but while Evander was doing it because he knew anything he had to say was going to be completely ignored and was mad about it, Hugh didn’t do it because he couldn’t take his eyes away from Simon.

Even if Simon wasn’t looking at him at all.

He talked with his hands. A lot. When they were teens, he remembered Simon constantly kept his hands in his pockets, especially when they were in public, so he wouldn’t draw any kind of attention to himself, and only dared to do it when he was at his house or very excited or sad about something. But now that he was an adult, he gesticulated even more, even during the most serious of conversations, with no shame at all. Hugh always had thought it was an adorable quirk of his, and being able to see him grow and embrace that part of himself (and get emotional when Kasumi pointed out Adrian was starting to talk with his hands too) felt like something very personal to him.

Every single thing that had to do with Simon felt so personal to him.

He wasn’t his other half. Hugh had once said that to him, and Simon confessed he found that “compliment” pretty problematic, and he couldn’t help but agree to him.

Simon was more than that. It was something so much more important, so much, that the way he scratched his beard, raised his eyebrows, and looked at the ceiling to try to remember the word he wanted to say, made him realize how much he missed him already.

He missed him already; and he was right there, inches away from him.

Home.

Simon was his home.

And his house wouldn’t feel like it if he arrived there without him.

So when Tamaya dismissed all of them, he decided to make something about it.

That night, he would go back to his house with Simon— or he was not going back at all.

Adrian was leaning against the wall, waiting for them while playing with his keys. His team was nowhere to be seen, which was completely understandable considering how late it was. As soon as he saw them walking through the door, he started to walk towards them, almost ignoring how Evander accidentally pushed him while trying to get out of there as soon as possible.

Then, he asked, “Are we going home now?”

And even if he was looking at Hugh when he said that, Hugh, instead of answering him, turned to see Simon. Not only because he knew that if he opened his mouth, the only thing that would come out of it would be… something not very nice about what he thought about Adrian’s behavior over the last hours; but also because, at that point, it all depended on what Simon had to say about it.

Even if he didn’t know it.

Simon.

Are we going home now, Simon?

But instead of answering the question, Simon smiled at him, and rubbing Adrian’s arms, told him, “I think Tamaya’s going to drop you at the house. You could do that, right?”

Tamaya and Kasumi were standing behind them. “Yeah, of course, I can.”

“Are you going to carry me in your arms and take me for a flight?”

“Funny. What about if you carry me, huh?”

“I can.”

“I cannot allow it though. It wouldn’t be very feminist of me.” Adrian laughed at her joke, and she pretended to act all cocky about it, brushing off her shoulders and trying not to smile. “Let’s go. Kasumi—”

“It’s all right. I arrived with Simon, my car’s here.”

Tamaya told her it was all right and then pointed at the elevator to tell Adrian they needed to get going. Both women started walking beside him, being slowly, but closely followed by Simon, letting Hugh standing where he was, probably waiting for him to follow them or—

Or maybe not.

But Hugh didn’t want to follow them.

He just wanted him.

“Simon—”

Adrian didn’t stop; the adults, however, did.

He was so happy, so relieved to see Simon turn around when he called his name, he didn’t even care that Tamaya and Kasumi also did it, with an expression on their faces he couldn’t tell what they meant.

That was enough for him to blur out his question.

“Can we talk?”

Simon slightly opened his mouth, but before saying anything, he turned to see his friends, for a reason Hugh didn’t understand (and didn’t bother to think about it).

Adrian called for the elevator, and realized, everyone was literally just standing there, without moving, and all their eyes were fixated on Simon. “Um… guys?”

Tamaya was the first one to come back to reality. “Wait for me in the car, Adrian, I’ll be there in a minute.”

He didn’t give it too much thought and nodded.

Simon still hadn’t said anything when Adrian left in the elevator. But now that his presence was gone, Hugh felt enough courage and serenity to— beg, he guessed.

“Please. Can we talk?”

Please. Please, please, please—

“Yes,” Simon said. “Yes, we can talk.”

He smiled. Just a little bit. Because Simon didn’t move towards him after he accepted. Instead, he stayed right where he was, as if he was in a line to get something from a store and if he moved, he was going to lose his place and the thing he had been waiting for hours to get.

After waiting for a good ten awkward seconds for Kasumi and Tamaya to keep walking, he realized they had no intention of doing so. And also, he realized that he didn’t want to talk with them either. Not at that moment.

At that moment, the only thing, the only person that mattered, was Simon.

“Could we… maybe go somewhere else more private?” he mumbled while scratching his eyebrow and trying not to make eye contact with any of the girls.

Simon clicked his tongue and glanced at Tamaya and Kasumi. “I’ll be back in a second.”

Or not.

The few instants they were walking towards the meeting room, Hugh looked at Simon’s hands, wondering when it would be the right moment to sneakily touch them, like he did when he was in love with him but still didn’t know it.

But Simon had his hands deep inside his pockets.

The only light that came into the room was the light of the few lightbulbs that illuminated the corridor; they turned off the majority of them during the night, not only because there weren't that many people around, but also to save electricity. Hugh entered first and Simon didn’t completely close the door behind him, only enough for no one to be able to see what they were doing in case some other Renegade was around there and walked past the room.

After that, Simon closed his eyes, grabbed tons of air, and then let it all go with a sigh. When he finally looked him in the eyes, Hugh realized it was the first time he did that after their fight in the kitchen.

And he realized all of that had happened in one day.

What a day. He bet they would remember it for the rest of their lives.

He hoped they wouldn’t. He hoped, and he hoped, even if his rational part told him it was not going to happen because memories didn’t work that way at all, but he kept hoping anyway, and started searching for the correct combination of words he needed for Simon to also forget about that day.

Hugh was willing to ignore everything they had gone through during that day. He would take Simon’s silence, words, and indifference, put it all inside a box, and then throw it at the back of his memories and never be opened again, if Simon was willing to do the same for Hugh’s cries, screams, and feelings.

He was even willing to let Simon stay mad at him for the rest of the night if that was what he needed. Yes, he could handle a night like that. He could be the one to stare at Simon’s back, for Simon to take a break from staring at his almost all the time they got into bed. He would do anything for him.

And he just wanted him to do one thing: to ignore everything that had just happened.

Forever.

While his mind was still trying to come up with how he was going to put all those thoughts into words, he caressed Simon’s cheek to buy himself a couple of extra seconds. But when Simon tensed and clenched his jaw, instead of tilting his head a little bit and putting his own hand over his, like he did every time Hugh touched his face like that, he knew there was nothing he couldn’t let more time go by.

Suddenly, his eyes were fixated on Simon’s lips. The same small, bitten, and dry lips he had contemplated for so many years, they felt like his own, and tasted like peppermint, a little bit of coffee, and sometimes even lavender.

When Simon opened them to speak, Hugh went from having absolutely no clue of what to do, to being absolutely sure of what he needed to do.

So he just did it.

He just placed his lips on top of Simon’s and kissed him.

At first, Simon didn't break the kiss. Instead, he went with the flow and kissed him back, as if he had been craving that kiss for months.

And he probably did. It was just that Hugh, suddenly, didn't.

Like. He thought he had. But now that he was there, with one hand holding Simon's head, and Simon's about to touch his hips, he started to feel like there was something very wrong with that situation.

But he was desperate. He wanted him back. He wanted him back and if that meant kissing him when he didn't feel like it, he was going to do it.

He would do everything for Simon.

He would never give up on him.

He just really wanted him to know that.

And really wanted to know if Simon hadn't given up on him either.

Simon kissed him one last time, raised his hands, put them on Hugh’s chest—

And pushed him away.

He pushed him away so suddenly, he tripped on his own feet and hit his head against the wall.

It didn't hurt though.

Still, the only thing he could answer to that, with Simon staring at him, realization dawning on his face, was a really fake:

“Ouch.”

Suddenly, Simon snapped. “What the fuck was that? Hugh, what the fuck was that?” he insisted. “Did you— do you really think that treating me as if I were a— a fucking animal, you're going to get something from me? Where do you think I have my brain? Huh? Where!?”

Hugh didn't respond. And Simon wasn't taking it. “Where?! Answer me! Where, where, where—”

Simon raised his hands above his head, and started pulling his own hair, hid his face with his arms, and just— broke down.

In a million pieces.

That was enough to make him flinch.

He preferred he pushed him again. Hell, Simon could slap him for kissing him without telling him he was going to do it first, and it would be much better than watching him suffer like that.

“Where, where—” he cried “—Stars, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry for pushing you, it was— are you— I'm so sorry, lo—” and let out a loud sob.

Hugh kept gazing at his crying husband for a while.

“Do you really think that low of me?”

And kept pulling his hair. And his face remained hidden. His cries only became louder and louder, and Hugh didn't dare to move, much less to touch him, because even if he wanted with all his might to hold him and grabbed him by the wrists so he didn't continue hurting himself, he knew it would be useless.

Everything was useless.

“Stop that,” he finally dared to say.

He didn't say “No, I don't.”

He didn't say “Of course I don't think badly of you.”

He didn't even say he loved him.

He told him to stop.

Stop what?

“No, you stop!” Simon shrieked. “Stop whatever the hell you're doing, stop it. You're hurting me.”

Hurting.

You're hurting me.

He looked at his hands. Fortunately, they were completely dry and have not a single drop of chromium coming out of them.

But they felt as if they were on fire. And heavy.

Is that how they were supposed to feel when they were hurting someone?

And if they felt this heavy, and this hot, and this horrible, in how much heavy, hot, horrible pain could the other person be?

No, really: in how much?

How could you explain pain to someone who couldn't feel it?

“Why?”

And like an idiot, he asked back, “Why what?”

Simon removed his arms from his face and looked him dead in the eye for what he knew would be the last in time.

“Why do you have to make everything worse, Hugh?”

Hugh didn’t answer his question, and Simon didn’t answer his either.

A question he never got the chance to ask but was at the back of his mind.

Have you given up on me yet?

***

Hugh didn't come out of the meeting room until he was sure no one else was around. Until the elevator had gone and came back four times, and until his head felt so dizzy, he would faint if he didn't sit down.

He looked around, making sure nobody saw him, went to his office, and put a lock in the door. Hugh didn't want anyone to interrupt him. He had a lot of paperwork to do if he wanted to get Nova out of Cragmoor as soon as the sun came out.

***

It wasn’t the first time he had slept at his office. It had never been because he wanted to, but because he absolutely had to. Somedays, he would have so many responsibilities, that his normal working hours were not enough for him to finish them all. It was a little uncomfortable since the desk wasn’t the best place one could sleep on, and sometimes he didn’t have the energy to get up and go to Max’s quarantine room, to at least have the opportunity to sleep on a bed and an excuse to have a little more time with him.

Those nights, when he had to put his head on the desk and use his arms as a pillow, he would wake up and realized someone had put a blanket over his shoulders. And he always knew that someone had been Simon because the blanket smelled a little bit like him.

Even if Max’s quarantine area hadn’t been destroyed and he could go there to sleep, he wouldn’t have done it. Max wouldn’t be there. It wouldn’t be the same with him moving like he was possessed by a demon and kicking him in his sleep.

Which was something also Simon did.

The day Nova was released from prison, Simon stayed at Kasumi’s house. She didn’t comment anything about it and Tamaya had been the one who told him that the reason he didn’t come to work was that he had a headache. Hugh never asked her about it, but she informed him anyways. For some reason, he pretended not to be very concerned about it and just mumbled he hoped he felt better tomorrow.

When he woke up, after his second night of sleeping on his desk, he considered the crazy idea Kasumi and Evander had told him of getting sofas for each one of his offices; idea that he had brushed off because he thought they would only waste space, but now regretted he hadn’t listened to.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have an extra uniform for that day, so he just prayed the one he was wearing was clean enough for nobody to notice he hadn’t changed his clothes that morning, put on a lot of deodorant and cologne to hide the fact he hadn’t showered, and went out through one of the back doors, just to enter again a couple of minutes later through the front door, pretending he had just arrived from home and hadn’t stayed there all night.

As soon as he entered, he told Sampson if he could please notify him when Nova arrived at Headquarters. He didn’t ask for an explanation as to why he wanted that, but accepted anyway, clearly excited for having her back with them.

Hugh wasn’t… excited. Or happy, for that matter. Not that he wasn’t happy that she wasn't locked up anymore— of course he was happy she wasn’t locked up anymore.

What he was feeling reminded him more of when Simon, Evander, and he were playing a game they liked to call “Tag, you’re straight”, that consisted of the three of them throwing balls against a random wall at the same time, and then doing their best to dodge them while pushing the others so they get hit. Then, whoever got hit, would be smacked on the back of his head, and the other two would yell “Tag, you’re straight!”. It was a game he really liked and they kept playing even when they weren’t teens anymore, since in their family, bullying Evander was a great bonding activity, and “Tag, you’re straight” was the perfect opportunity to do so, especially because, as far as everyone knew, Evander was, in fact, straight, so that made everything ten times funnier when he got hit by a ball and got mad about it.

And yes, everything was fun and laughs, until Hugh broke a window, and a very angry Tamaya practically kicked the door down to ask them what the fuck had happened, yelling at the three of them for a good two or five minutes.

Even if Hugh had been the one who broke the window, everyone (even Kasumi, who was in the bathroom when the whole thing happened) helped clean up the mess and got cardboard to cover what now would be considered a hole in the wall, so the cold wind and dust wouldn't get in the house. It seemed like Tamaya had gotten a lot out of her system after yelling at them, because she chuckled at the jokes Evander and Simon made about the situation, saying that Hugh’s new power was turning straight everyone (and everything) he touched and that now the window was “one of them”. Hugh wanted to laugh too, but at the same time, he could only ask himself how she was going to react when she arrived home and realized what he had done.

And of course he wanted her to come home, as he always wanted every time she got out, to make sure she was still safe and sound, and so they could tell each other about their day and what they had done while the other wasn’t around. But now, he was also worried. And ashamed.

It was a combination of happiness, expectation, worry, and shame.

And he didn’t like it one bit.

So when Sampson let him know, after a while, Nova McLain was there, what he really heard, was Simon’s voice telling him she had arrived.

He knew it wasn’t the same person. But it felt pretty similar.

He made sure he didn’t look like a dead body before going to the first floor while making mental notes of what he was going to say to Nova.

Her situation had always been one that was pretty delicate, but now it had taken a new turn. A simple “I’m sorry”, with only those words, wouldn’t be enough for her, because it wouldn’t be enough for him either. He knew how Cragmoor was.

Hugh wanted— needed her to feel as if she belonged to the Renegades. Because, yeah, she did, but he knew that when she was back in her cell, she probably didn’t feel that way, and if he let this one slide, it would become a problem sooner or later.

Probably much more sooner than later.

It wasn’t like he was going to lie to her face or something; he just was going to point in the right direction. For her.

When the elevator doors finally opened, he spotted Nova surrounded by Adrian’s team (but no Adrian in sight). Silva and Tucker were smiling at her and touching her, but Bell, who was used to keep her hands to herself when it came to physical touch, just stayed there, watching her friends greet her without actually participating in the conversation that was happening in front of her. Actually, she was the first one to leave Nova alone after Silva said something about going out to eat (and Hugh could clearly listen to him because Silva didn’t know how to keep his voice down, so when he went to their house, he could hear everything he said to Adrian, even the most embarrassing parts), an invitation Nova rejected, even after they insisted her to got with them. Hugh decided to take that as an opportunity to talk to her.

Nova was a Renegade.

And the Renegades didn’t turn their backs on each other.

The feeling that he had just thought something pretty hypocrite started to creep at the back of his mind, when someone very small bumped against his chest, and before he could mumble a mechanic apology and keep walking, he realized that very small someone was Nova.

He had to think fast.

“Oops, sorry, Nova.”

He could call her Nova, right? Insomnia felt way too formal. And McLain seemed a little bit aggressive. Plus, she was Adrian’s girlfriend— or that was the last thing he had known about the topic. If they had broken up, Hugh would have probably received a memo or something. He didn't have Max or Simon with him to ask them about what they knew about it. They probably would tell him to go ask Adrian directly though, and that was something Hugh was not willing to do because he was still not talking to Adrian.

“Uh… hi,” Nova stammered.

Then, being completely aware he could break her hand’s bones if he grabbed her too hard, gave her a handshake as carefully as he could.

But still solid enough to show her he was being serious.

“I asked Sampson to let me know when you came in. I wanted to be one of the first to welcome you back to the team.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

He released her hand and stopped smiling.

The conversation couldn’t die there. He needed more.

“And I wanted to offer you a formal apology for this abysmal misunderstanding,” he added. “I’m ashamed to think how we treated you, as one of our own, when your loyalty and dedication has been so unwavering. It’s just…” What was the word? “all this turmoil that’s been going on lately, you know? The parade, Cosmopolis Park, the attack on headquarters, Ace Anarchy… sometimes I feel like we’re jumping through hoops set on fire, and every one of them is a little bit smaller. If we don’t keep ahead of all the threats and dangers, then one of these days, the whole thing will go up in flames.”

That was a good analogy. And he had just come up with that one.

Apparently, Nova thought it had been a good analogy too, because she chuckled and said, “Well, good thing you’re invincible, at least.”

“Yeah, I might be,” he shrugged, “but there are people I care about that don’t have that luxury, and I’m just doing what I can to protect them. I hope you understand that we did what we had to do, given the circumstances.”

The circumstances, he thought.

Nova had people she loved. Adrian had mentioned she had an uncle before, as far as he could remember. She had proved to be pretty passionate about the things she cared about, and he bet that she would do anything to protect the only family she had left.

The circumstances didn’t matter. They never mattered as long as the people one loved were safe.

She would understand.

She had to understand.

And fortunately, she did.

“Of course,” Nova answered, with a smile on her lips.

“Good.” Good. Everything was working out as he wanted to. “Because you are a part of the Renegades family now,” and he added, feeling a little too inspired, “and it’s important to me and all the Council that everyone here feels like they’re being treated fairly. That they are part of this team.”

You’re a Renegade, Nova.

And the Renegades don’t turn their backs on each other.

And as if Nova had listened to his thoughts, she lifted her chin and said, “I don’t blame you and the Council for what happened. You were given information and you had to act on it. I understand why you did what you did. But—”

Hugh had to use all his might not to growl or roll his eyes as soon as he heard that word.

He couldn’t appear too relieved because something was always going to get in the way.

“—I was surprised by the whole execution thing.”

Me too.

Honestly, me too.

“Yes…” he agreed, “it’s unfortunate that we… Well, I hate to think about what you went through.” Then, just to make sure the point was cleared, he quickly said, “But I am so glad it’s all worked out.”

Isn't it?

“Yes, it worked out for me, thankfully,” she answered, putting a lot of emphasis on “for me”, by slowing her voice “But I have to admit that I’d always wanted to believe the Renegades were, well, above capital punishment. To end someone’s life, giving them no possible chance for restitution, and to do it without even offering a fair trial, it seems—” she frowned and put her index finger in the space between her nose and her lips “—how do I say this? A little villainous.”

As soon as Hugh heard that, he chuckled.

Because telling her to stop talking back to him and go to her room was not an option, and he didn’t know what else to do.

“To be fair,” he mentioned, “we did believe you were Nightmare, and Nightmare did try to kill me.”

But most importantly, she tried to kill Max. And should probably go for Adrian and Simon next, if they didn’t stop her soon. Something he should be making sure they did, but couldn’t leave the conversation, because Nova still had a lot to say about the matter.

“I’m aware of that,” Nova agreed “but… don’t you think she would at least deserve another chance?”

During the whole conversation, he had tried to stay as impassive as possible, only showing the right amount of emotion on his features for him to be able to get his point across. However, he didn’t do a good job on that specific moment, because Nova’s tone quickly changed.

“Or, maybe not Nightmare, specifically,” she withdrew. “But think about it. I was in that prison—wrongfully, yes—but it still gave me time to think about my life and my choices, and to decide that, if I ever got out of there, I would do things differently. The Renegades have to be willing to look beyond the mistakes of the past and understand that people can change.” Nova shook her head. “And I’m not talking about the execution, either. I know you’ll never forgive Ace Anarchy for what he did, and maybe you’ll never forgive Nightmare, either—”

At least we can agree on that.

And the only reason they could agree on that, was because Hugh was hearing her words as if she were talking to him underwater, and instead of focusing on what she was saying, he could only focus on her gestures, her hands, and, for some reason, her eyes.

But weirdly enough, he only did it when she wasn’t looking in his.

“—But there are dozens of prodigies on that island, some who have been there for more than a decade. And yet—” she raised her finger “—we have no systems in place to see if they really are as dangerous as we think they are. To see if they deserve the punishment they’re receiving. Maybe some of them want to become useful citizens in this world;” she shrugged, “maybe some of them deserve that. But you want to strip their powers from them, without even giving them a chance to explain why they did the things they did or how they’ve changed in the years since. Many of them are still being persecuted for crimes they committed in the Age of Anarchy…” Nova clicked her tongue before asking, “I mean, didn’t you do anything during that time that you’re not proud of?”

Nova asking him something so directly made him realize his jaw had been clenched during the whole conversation with no apparent reason at all. Then, a lot of things he wasn’t proud of doing during the Age of Anarchy started to come to his mind, and he had to stop his brain from doing that, because if the memories kept running, they were going to get to a point of no return, and no one would like what they were going to see.

Because when he first did, something broke inside of him.

No. It didn’t break.

It died.

Something died.

“We did what we had to do to stop the villain gangs, to bring order and peace,” he answered. “We would do it again if we had to.”

He would do it again. Most of it.

Only most of it.

She arched an eyebrow. “Even if that meant doing things that you wouldn’t allow today as part of the Code Authority?”

He clenched his jaw again and pinched his lips, only that this time, he knew exactly why he had done it.

“Maybe some of those prisoners did things that were… justified, in some way,” Nova continued. “Maybe they stole things because there were no jobs back then. Maybe they fought against authority because authority abused and ostracized people like them. Maybe they would choose differently now, if we only gave them a chance.”

Give them another chance. Chances.

Nova seemed to be really interested in chances. But Hugh had learned that the world didn’t always give second chances to people, not even to those who deserve it the most, and the sooner Nova learned that, the less the world would hurt her.

He had to stop her right there before realization hit her in the face.

When his kids were little and did something wrong, he (or Simon) would kneel in front of them and make it clear why their behavior was wrong, so they knew exactly the reason they were being grounded. Now, Nova was not his kid, and especially, she wasn't exactly a kid anymore. But she was still young, and if he could do something to protect her, he would do it.

He couldn’t apply the same technique he applied with Adrian and Max. However, he could definitely show her the right path and hope she knew, it was for her own good.

And, again, she would understand.

She had to understand.

“Nova… I can tell you’re passionate about this,” he started, and clearly noticed how her jaw tensed too, “but… you have to understand that the people in that prison aren’t like you. You were innocent. You shouldn’t have been there in the first place. While they are criminals and villains, practically savages some of them.”

But to his surprise—

Nova didn’t.

“How do you know?” she spatted. “How many of them have you talked to recently? Or for that matter, how many of them ever received a fair trial?”

Hugh sighed and took a look at his surroundings. There were a lot of Renegades around them, pretending to be on their own thing, but clearly listening to the entire conversation for who knows how long.

He couldn't scream at them. Not again.

Nova, on the other hand, was also looking around but didn't appear as angry as Hugh was.

Maybe because she couldn't understand the severity of the conversation they were having.

“What are you suggesting?” he asked her, lowering his voice. Nova returned his attention to him. “That we postpone the Agent N reveal until we can… what, interview them?” then, he added, scoffing, “Or should we devote our resources to gathering evidence from ten years ago, all so we can prove what we already know? They are villains,” Hugh reminded her.

And in response, she reminded him, “I’m not a villain. But that wasn’t going to stop you from executing me.”

Hugh didn't doubt Nova's innocence. At least, not anymore. But, when she said it that way, she sounded so convincing and so sure of her words, that he wondered why he had thought she was Nightmare in the first place.

“And no,” Nova continued, “I’m not suggesting you postpone the reveal for a while, I’m suggesting you postpone it indefinitely.”

He stepped back, feeling shocked by the determination in her voice.

And her audacity.

That audacity.

Simon always said that one shouldn't be quick to judge other people's actions because there was always a reason why they were acting like that. Within those words (and Simon, always Simon) in mind, Hugh thought that there had to be a reason behind her audacity, and it couldn't be the one he was starting to think it was.

Nova didn't flinch at his reaction and continued to talk as confidently as before. “In fact, I think you should destroy Agent N. All of it. Along with any possibility that it could ever be re-created.”

Maybe it was resentment.

Maybe those were her ideas about good and bad.

Maybe it was that she was scared of losing her powers herself.

So he went with that, and recited the exact words he had been thinking about since Genissa Clark had been neutralized, and that he had been saying to each Renegade that expressed that very same concern. “If this is about what happened to Frostbite and her team, it’s important for everyone to know that we are working to ensure the safety of all Renegades—”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Nova interrupted him violently. “This isn’t about the patrol units or figuring out how to defend ourselves more efficiently or any of that” she clenched her fist, closed her eyes, and exclaimed, “The world doesn’t revolve around the Renegades!”

Suddenly, a shadow rose and turned into the familiar silhouette of the man who had used the exact same words years before Nova entered into his life.

Hugh (and the rest of the world) would’ve been able to recognize his face on any occasion. At first, the only thing that made him less afraid of him was the knowledge that, at least, he didn't know how his face looked like, because he always hid it behind a mask and that made him have something to use against him that couldn't be used against Hugh.

Now, he knew how his face looked.

Now they could be… considered equals.

Even if Hugh had promised himself he would never let the power corrupt him the same way it had corrupted him.

He was better than him.

He would always be better than him.

But since no one could be better than him, Ace Anarchy's silhouette looked at him, raised an eyebrow, and echoed, “The world doesn’t revolve around the Renegades. And the sooner Captain Chromium learns that, the less the world is going to hurt him and his cause.”

She shook her hands a little, but her eyes didn't open, and the shadow didn't disappear. “Isn’t it our responsibility to bridge the gaps between people?” she asked, more calmly than before. “To recognize that we all have to live in this world together? We need to start seeing other prodigies, not as villains, but as—” she blinked twice “—well, other human beings, who maybe aren’t so different from us after all. I want to believe that we can close this divide between us, but… Agent N isn’t the answer.”

Ace out his hands over Nova's shoulders.

“But that’s all the Anarchists have to say about the matter.”

And when their gazes locked, it hit him.

Someone was looking at him through Nova's eyes, and he immediately knew who it was because he recognized the feeling from when he looked at Adrian's and for those seconds he dared to do it, he didn't see his son, but her.

Through her eyes, he could see, for the split of a second, the man who had tried to stop Ace Anarchy even before they knew exactly how to do it. He saw the man who felt as if he had been a coward during all those years for staying by the Anarchist’s side, but in reality, was one of the best ones out of the bunch, because in the end, he had been able to have the courage to do what was right.

And she said that one cannot be brave who has no fear.

He wanted to get close to her. He wanted to kneel, grab her by the shoulders, and take a closer look at her, just to be completely sure he wasn't going crazy, because it for sure sounded crazy and maybe Hugh was indeed a little bit crazy, but he was also desperate enough to do all of those things he was thinking about just to get an answer once and for all.

But Ace's hands were still on her shoulders.

And she seemed so far.

And he feared it would happen again. Like when he saw Adrian's eyes, looking for her, just to realize she wasn't really there.

The Artino girl wasn't there either.

All the Artinos had been killed during that same night and nothing was going to bring them back.

“I know this is coming from a place of good intentions,” he stated. “I don’t expect you to understand the challenges facing our world of the difficult decision we’ve had to make, but I can assure you that none of our decisions have been made lightly.”

None of them.

Not a single one.

“I know that, but—”

“Everything the Council has done these past years has been in service to the people of this world who need our help, for protection and justice. I’m afraid this isn’t up for debate, Nova. Our decision regarding Agent N, and the fate of those villains, has already been decided.” But before Nova McLain could object, he sentenced, “And our decision is final.”

He turned his back on her before she could do it, and pretended he didn't notice she kept following him with her eyes until the elevator doors closed, and he leaned his back against the wall, doing his best not to start hyperventilating.

She didn't turn your back on you.

She didn't fail you.

She died.

She just died.

***

He stayed the rest of the morning inside his office after that, without (luckily) no one entering his office to ask him about anything. Not even Evander did it, and he had this horrible habit of just bursting into their offices to pretend he needed to seriously talk about something to ignore his own responsibilities. Hugh hated when he did that, so when he heard someone knocking on his door, he was ready to yell at Evander to get the hell out of his office, as if he were a seventeen-years-old teenager again, saying, “EVANDER, GET OUT OF MY ROOM!” (only that this time, Evander wouldn’t be able to answer him with “WE SHARE THE ROOM, YOU CAPTAIN CU-”)

But Hugh didn’t have to yell anything, because it wasn’t Evander. It was Tamaya.

And whoever dared to yell at Tamaya could consider themselves a dead man.

“I’m going to get some take out for lunch,” she said, leaning against the door frame, “you want me to bring you something?”

Tamaya was the one who went out to get the others lunch each time they needed because she was able to fly to the coffee shop and get there a lot faster than any of them could. She didn’t seem to have a problem with it, even though she did have a lot of problems with a lot of things, and people taking advantage of her powers were one of them.

Maybe she liked to feel useful. Or maybe something she just needed to get out of there every once in a while.

“No, I’m fine,” he answered her.

“Oh, you brought something to eat then.”

“Of course.”

Tamaya wasn’t convinced by that answer.

“What did you bring?” she asked.

Without hesitation, Hugh opened one of his desk’s drawers. Fortunately, there was a can of soda that he didn’t know how had arrived there, but he was glad it did.

He took it out and showed it to her, pretending to be super proud of himself or something, and Tamaya rolled her eyes. “Well— if you don’t want anything, I won’t bring you anything.”

“That’s literally how things are supposed to work.”

She was about to leave when she remembered something. “Oh, by the way— Kasumi wants us to have lunch together.”

Hugh couldn’t help but growl. “Why?”

“Because she says so,” she answered him. “So take your… soda, and meet us at the dining room in half an hour.”

Hugh just went back to what he was doing and told her he was going to be there. Tamaya didn’t say anything else.

The Council didn’t eat at the cafeteria with the rest of the staff. They had a private dining room on the same floor their offices were. The cleaning staff never went there, because the six of them took turns to mop and sweep, and the main unspoken rule was “If you spill it, you clean it”. It was like when they lived all together in one house and had to work as a team to keep it clean, which Kasumi said was nice and brought her nice memories, but most of the time, Hugh thought it was a pain in the ass, since, obviously, sometimes people didn’t respect the unspoken rule, probably because they knew that someone else would be the one who would clean it anyways.

Just like when they lived together.

Only that, now, that someone was Hugh.

The dining room was mainly used by him and Simon. Sometimes Adrian went there to have lunch with them, but lately, he preferred to do it with his team. It wasn’t very common for the Council to eat together, because each one had their own schedule. He didn’t know why Kasumi suddenly wanted to do it and he thought it was a little bit annoying she didn’t take into consideration that maybe the rest of them had other things to do, but at the same time, couldn’t find a good reason for him to say no.

When the half an hour Tamaya said went by, he walked to the dining room and saw Kasumi for the first time that day.

She didn’t greet him or anything. Evander was with her, chattering about something that he didn’t comprehend, and didn’t want to know about, so he sat down on one of the chairs and completely ignored their conversation until Tamaya appeared uncomfortably sitting down in the chair beside him.

She didn’t bring him anything. Anything at all.

And, well… yes, Hugh had told her he didn’t want anything; but he always told her he didn’t want anything and she brought him something anyway. When one of them forgot their lunch, Tamaya bought them a sandwich or a sushi roll and basically stayed there until they finished the whole thing, and since Hugh was the one who forgot about his basic human needs the most, he had a lot of recent memories of Tamaya watching him eat, like a mother making sure her kid eat all his vegetables (which turned even more accurate when Hugh informed her he didn’t like green peppers and she told him to grow the fuck up and eat the damn thing.)

The next thing he knew, was that everyone was sitting at the table, eating their respective lunch in complete silence. Tamaya had bought a gyro, Kasumi was having a bowl of rice and pasta salad she had brought from home and was drinking a white milky beverage that Evander got for her when he went to the taco stand Oscar Silva and Adrian had told him about.

“You know how many calories are on those things?” Hugh asked Evander.

Evander looked at him and pointed at the soda he was drinking. “Is that all you’re having for lunch?”

He remained silenced for a little. “No…”

Tamaya rolled her eyes and Evander scoffed. “Evander, chips and soda do not count as lunch, eat grapes, grapes are the chips of nature,” he said in a ridiculous voice that intended to sound like Hugh’s (and didn’t). Kasumi snorted and tried to hide it by drinking some of her weird water/milk, but wasn’t able to. “Come on, Kasumi, make the Hugh voice,” Evander told her.

Don’t you dare.

Kasumi didn’t dare.

“Maybe later, Vandy,” she said, with a serious face. “Maybe later.”

“Come on!” he insisted, after taking a sip of his drink (the same he brought Kasumi). “Zoomie, you make a pretty good imitation of Hugh.”

Tamaya nodded. It was true; Kasumi was pretty good at imitating voices. He just wasn’t in the mood to hear them make fun of him.

Luckily, Kasumi wasn’t in the mood for that either. “Evander, I said no.”

Her voice was so severe and chilling, that Evander understood immediately. Tamaya asked him for a napkin, and the whole dining room fell silent again.

And it was also like when they lived together.

It hadn’t always been like that though.

“You know, this is the first time in, like, five years, I don't have any paperwork to fill,” Evander announced.

Literally nobody asked.

“Well, I do have tons of paperwork waiting for me on my desk,” Tamaya said, “I wouldn’t mind sharing it with you.”

“That’s low, dude, I’m telling—” he frowned and looked around “—Wait… where’s Simon?”

And with that simple question, the room’s silence turned into a completely different type of silence.

One that he could not only feel, but also touch. One that made his vision blurry, a lump in his throat, and his eyes water. One that it was more like a fog than silence.

One that he could tell came from an imaginary fire that was so dangerous, he always shared a look with someone to make sure they were also aware of the situation they were in.

Only that this time, he didn’t share a look with anyone.

Tamaya and Kasumi did though.

And then, they turned to see Hugh.

But he didn’t turn to see them back.

“He wasn’t feeling well,” Kasumi said. “So… he stayed home.”

Evander arched his eyebrows. “Huh. Again?—” he turned to see Hugh “—Does he have a cold?”

“Evander—” Tamaya said.

“What? Dude, I’m literally just asking.”

“Well, don’t ask,” Hugh blurted out. “It’s not of your business.”

“But—”

“Not of your business,” then, he echoed, mockingly, “Dude.”

It’s not of anyone’s business.

He pretended he finished his soda and threw it in the can that was beside the water cooler close to the door. Even though the rest of them had just started eating, he saw no point in staying there longer than he already had. He had done enough by just being there for a while.

And he had other things to do.

Hugh excused himself and stood up. Neither Kasumi nor Tamaya said anything to him and just kept eating their lunches, probably because they already knew there was nothing that could be said.

But Evander didn’t know that.

So, before Hugh walked through the door, he said loud and clear:

“Someone didn’t get it last night.”

Kasumi got all pale and Tamaya started choking with her gyro. When they were able to recover from the initial shock, they cast an expecting and preoccupied glance at Hugh, waiting for his reaction for what felt like hours, and not seconds.

It took him a lot of time to process those words. He considered himself someone who reacted pretty quickly to everything, but the words Evander said to him were like freezing water, or a blow to the face, or…

Those things that would never be able to hurt him, but for some reason, if they were cold or powerful enough, would disorient him for a couple of seconds, before he would be able to get back up again and do something about it.

So at that moment, the only way he could react was asking him:

“What did you say to me?”

Evander raised an eyebrow and smirked. “I said you didn’t get it. You know”

But everyone pretended to not know what he was talking about.

Seeing they didn't react the way he expected them to, he frowned and clicked his tongue. “You didn’t tap that ass. You didn’t do the PP. He didn’t rub your silver spe—”

Kasumi got all red. “Evander—”

“I’m explaining it to him, I’m explaining it to him,” he told her as if trying to calm her down. “Let me finish the last one, I’ve been wanting to say that joke for months.”

Tamaya left her gyro on the plate and massaged her temple. “Evander, seriously, shut the fu—”

“Wait, no, I got this—” he chuckled, put his elbows on the table, closed his eyes “—Your hubby didn’t make love to you last night?” And then, after opening his eyes again, he added, “Darling.”

And with that, Hugh lost his head.

He went there.

He really went there, and the worst part was, he probably didn't even realize that.

He closed the door violently and screamed, “THAT'S IT.”

He threw himself at Evander before he could process what was happening. But Tamaya and Kasumi were a lot faster than him, and swiftly got in between the two of them, Tamaya grabbing Hugh by the shoulders and pulling him back, and Kasumi pushing Evander out of his way.

“BRO, WHAT THE—”

“I SAID IT’S NOT OF YOUR BUSINESS,” he yelled. “IT’S NOT OF ANYONE’S BUSINESS”

Tamaya and Kasumi finally managed to put them behind each of them, creating a weird barrier between the two. And even if they were almost as tall as the two of them were, they still weren't tall enough to completely block each other from the other's view. Hugh could perfectly see Evander paralyzed by his reaction, almost tripping with his own feet because of how much Kasumi kept pushing him and having to hold all of his weight on a chair to not fall backward.

But that still wasn't enough to stop him from shitting on him.

“WHAT’S YOUR DAMAGE!? DID YOU FALL OFF THE BED!? JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.”

“Evander, lower your voice,” Kasumi urged him, “people will hear you.”

“Tell him to lower his voice!” he answered pointing at Hugh with the palm of his hand. “He started it! HE’S THE ONE WHO'S ACTING LIKE A FUCKING LUNATIC!”

Kasumi didn't agree with him directly. Instead, she turned around, looked at him from head to toe, slightly closing her eyes and pressing her lips, and before she even opened her mouth, he already knew he didn't want to listen to anything she had to say.

She hadn't listened to him first.

But now she was going to.

Everyone there was going to hear him.

“Hugh, I think—”

“Why did you tell him?” he asked.

Evander frowned even more. “Huh? Tell me what?”

But Kasumi barely moved.

“Why did you have to run to Evander and tell him about my personal life?” he kept asking her. “No, the real question is,” he scoffed, “why do you feel the necessity to get in my personal life, Kasumi?!”

Now it was Evander the one who carefully pushed Kasumi aside and put her behind him, but before he could scream at him or punch him in the face, knowing perfectly well that wouldn't do anything, Tamaya put his whole arm in front of him, giving him a deathly look, and Kasumi slightly touched his shoulder, completely poker-faced.

And for some reason that made him even angrier.

She had no right to act like she was the sane one in the situation.

“It’s not only your personal life,” she explained to him in a calm voice. “It’s also Simon’s. And I’m not getting into your personal life, he was the one who told us what was going on.”

“Us,” he echoed.

Tamaya let her arms down to her sides. “Yeah. Us. He told us everything.”

Evander didn't take her distraction as an opportunity to punch Hugh. “Everything?” he asked instead.

“Everything,” Hugh repeated.

But he wasn't answering Evander's question.

“Yeah, that’s great,” he said, faking a smile. “That’s fucking great. He went with you and talked shit about me behind my back.” The words were coming out of his mouth before he could question them, “What a great fucking husband he—”

“Do not finish that sentence,” Kasumi ordered him, giving a step forward. “He wasn’t talking shit about you, he was worried. Simon was worried sick about you. He is worried sick about you.”

“Why— why is he worried about him?”

Everyone ignored him one more time.

Hugh crossed his arms. “Well, he doesn’t seem like it.”

Tamaya massaged her temple one more time and sighed. “Maybe if you—”

“Maybe if I do what?” he interrupted. “Should I make the first move? I already tried it, and it didn’t work.” He tried to scoff one more time, but what came out of him sounded more like a growl. “You should know; Simon must have told you.”

“When—”

“Yes, he did,” Kasumi answered, shameless. She crossed her arms too and frowned. “That wasn’t right, Hugh.”

What do you know?

You weren’t there.

No one was there.

“No, everything was going fine.” He clenched his fists. “Look, I don’t know what Simon made you think, but we were fine.”

“Not kissing your husband for weeks and then trying to do it just to avoid talking with him about the issue doesn’t sound fine to me.”

Evander gasped. “Wait, you actually haven’t been getting it—”

Hugh laughed out loud, and even he could notice he sounded like an absolute maniac. “You too? You too are going to pull that card on me?” he questioned her. “I do kiss him, and I do hug him, and we do have sex, and I shouldn’t be telling you any of these things, because these are private details of my life you shouldn’t know about! My private life is completely okay.”

Tamaya took him by surprise.

“But are you okay?”

Her voice sounded so soft, so calm, and so genuinely concerned, that he didn’t dare to lie to her, or to even look at her when he answered:

“Again. Not of your business.”

After that, Tamaya was herself again. “Hugh, listen—”

And Hugh managed to get the courage to lift his face. “No, you lis—”

The entire room went dark before Hugh could finish talking. A pair of blinding white lights started shining right in front of him, and, even with his eyes slightly closed, he could tell they were coming out of Evander’s fists.

The spotlight wasn’t on him at that moment. So he decided to steal it.

Classic Blacklight.

Classic Evander Wade throwing a fucking fit when the world dared not to revolve around him for a minute.

After making sure he had grabbed everyone's attention, he opened his hands again and the tiny balls of lights returned to their light bulbs. But his face was still clouded by a strange darkness that even made Kasumi flinch and move backward towards Tamaya.

“What the hell is going on?” he asked, clenching his teeth and glaring at the three of them. “What the hell are you even talking about?—” and then, he turned to see him “—Why does everyone seem to know what the fucking problem is except me!?”

“…and she left me here!

ME!”

Him.

It was always him.

It hadn’t been enough for Evander that their lives practically had to revolve around him during all his childhood and teenage years. He now wanted them to stop their discussion and tell him what was going on as if they couldn’t have their own problems without him feeling he was entitled to know every single detail about it.

And hadn’t that been how that whole fight had started in the first place?

He hadn’t been able to control Tamaya and Kasumi finding out about what was going on because Simon had told him. But Hugh wasn’t Simon, and he was sure as hell he didn’t feel comfortable at all sharing that part of his life with him.

He wouldn’t understand. He would pretend he did for a couple of minutes, and then would use it against him on the first opportunity he had that would benefit him one way or another.

He knew Evander. He knew he was capable of that, and more.

“I think you should leave,” he told him.

His expression hardened. “I think you should answer my question.”

“I told you to leave!”

Hugh raised his arm to point at the door—

And Evander grabbed him by the wrist.

Kasumi’s eyes widened and Tamaya’s face contorted while her wings bristled, alerting her of the danger.

Hugh knew Evander was taller than him. At first, all of them made a lot of jokes about how it was Hugh’s worst fear and that he wasn’t allowed to stand beside him at any moment so nobody noticed it. But every one of those comments stayed like that.

Jokes.

Not only because, well, they were. But also because, inside his head, Hugh always saw Evander as shorter than him, probably because he had gotten used to the idea of things being that way, and he wasn’t in the mood for other detail of his life changing again, it didn’t matter how small it may seem.

Yet, now he couldn’t keep pretending he didn’t see what was right in front of him.

He could tell his hands were getting warmer and warmer, to a point that if he had normal skin and his suit wasn’t covering his arm, he would start to feel as if they were burning him, and Evander didn’t appear to have any intentions of letting him go.

As if he wanted to burn him to death.

He kept staring at each other, with a vein popping out of his neck. The corners of his lips curved up, but before it could turn into a grin, it disappeared, and instead of laughing, he ordered, “Don’t you talk to me like that.”

“Me.

She left me here, guys.

She left.”

“Evander, that’s enough,” Tamaya said, with a calm, but terrifying tone. “Let him go.”

But Evander only grasped him tighter.

Her fingers shone with the electricity they carried. “Let. Him. Go.”

He glanced at Tamaya, then at Kasumi, and finally, he returned his attention to Hugh, waiting.

Waiting for him to say it.

“She left.”

“Let me go.”

Evander pressed his lips together and lost his grip until his arm fell, and he sat down again.

“And for the record—” Kasumi’s voice said, “—Don’t talk to any of us like that.”

Hugh turned his back at them and took off one of his gloves as fast and discreetly as he could. He heard Kasumi asking something to Evander but she said it in such a low voice that the only thing he could actually listen was Evander’s childhood nickname, which Kasumi always used and Hugh didn’t because it felt so personal to both of them he didn’t dare to interfere with that.

His hands were dry. And he forced his eyes to stay that way too because he could sense them getting wet at the thought of Evander really believing Hugh was going to hit him.

He heard Tamaya’s footsteps getting closer to him, and he rapidly put his glove back on and turned to see them again, scoffing. “So, that’s what today is about? You collectively decided all you were going to do was contradict me?”

Tamaya stepped back the steps she took and scoffed too. “Sounds familiar?” she asked. Hugh couldn’t ask her at first what she was talking about. “You can’t ask us to blindly follow you b and get mad when we decide not to do it. Especially when the things you’re doing are—” she looked for the right words “—not right.”

Kasumi straightened her back and nodded, agreeing with Tamaya. Evander tilted his head to one side while raising one eyebrow, and Hugh fought the impulse of doing it too.

“What?” he asked instead. “Tamaya, what are—”

“I’m talking about the fucking execution of Nova McLain,” she blurred out. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

Evander growled and put his feet on the table, leaning in the chair he was sat on. He was so confused by Tamaya’s reaction he didn’t even bother to take the time to tell Evander to sit like an adult for once in his life.

“What does that have anything to do with what we’re discussing right now?” he exclaimed.

“It has everything to do with what we’re discussing right now!” she answered. “You, and you—” she pointed at Evander, and Evander pointed at himself, confused “—decided that, since you were too afraid of a spoiled girl ‘ruining’—” she made quotes in the air “—our reputation we were going to let her kill, in front the entire city, a child. A child, guys! A child who probably had parents who worried about her, just like you, Hugh, worry about your kids, or you, Evander, will worry about yours when they are born. Would you like them to be publicly executed without a proper trial just because the adults that were supposed to protect them, acted as the children in the situation?”

But before Hugh could tell her his kids would never act like Nightmare, more than comfortable with the idea of pretending as if the whole Max and Adrian situation hadn't happened, he heard it again.

But this time it was not a quiet chuckle.

This time, Evander was shamelessly chucking so loud, it almost sounded like a burst of laughter.

Tamaya was talking about Nova McLain’s situation and Evander was chuckling.

“Child?” he asked, trying to contain his laughs. “Nightmare is not a child. Children do not do the things she did. Children don’t try to overthrow—” he turned his hands into fists and glanced up to the ceiling for a couple of seconds, and then added, to no one in particular “—Children do not try to kill other children. She wouldn’t have tried to kill Max, or Adrian, or his team if she were truly a child because she would see herself in them. That’s just how things work.”

Inside his head, maybe.

But Evander had a lot of things inside his head and most of them were so twisted Hugh couldn’t tell what he truly believed and what he did not.

“Genissa Clark is nineteen,” Tamaya reminded him. “And Nightmare, as far as we know, it’s sixteen. They’re still children.”

Evander rolled his eyes, smirking for a microsecond. “Age doesn’t matter. What matters is this—” he tapped his temple “—the head.”

Out twisted and merciless heads.

“If they act like adults, they deserve to be treated as adults.”

“No,” Kasumi said, playing with her fingers. “No, they don’t deserve that. They don’t deserve anything that happened to them. Children…” she raised her head “children are never to blame.”

But, instead of looking back at her, Evander rolled his eyes once more and crossed his arms.

Like the child he still was even if he always acted he was not.

“They may not be kids anymore, but, stars, you’re acting like one,” Hugh quipped.

He immediately put his feet on the floor and his jaw clenched. “I’m no longer nine years old, Hugh.”

Yes.

Yes, you are.

You’ve done nothing to prove me wrong.

Hugh didn’t have the opportunity to say anything though, because Kasumi put herself between Hugh and Evander once again, with her hands in her hips, and clearly said, “I wasn’t going to attend the execution.”

He froze. “You what?”

“Neither was I,” seconded Tamaya.

Hugh gazed at them, without being able to recognize their faces behind that proud expression they had all over them. “Why the fuck not?”

Kasumi scowled and rubbed the fingers of her right hand as if she wanted to snap them but didn’t, closing her eyes and keeping her head low. Tamaya instantly noticed that, and after throwing a quick attentive glance at her, her eyes bared into him.

“Because it was a monstrous and villainous thing to do,” she answered, barely opening her lips. “And the Renegades are not that.” She put her hand on her chest. “I’m not a villain, and I’m sure as hell I’m not a monster either. And I’ve spent too much time hating myself to let you or anyone allow those toxic thoughts to win.”

He looked over Tamaya’s shoulder to have a clearer vision of Kasumi. “And you? You agree with this?”

“Leave her her alo—”

“Yes, I agree,” Kasumi answered, without opening her eyes.

That was enough for him.

“So— are you insinuating I am a monster and a villain?” and he put his hand on his chest, the same way Tamaya had just done.

Kasumi stopped rubbing her fingers and saw him out of the corner of her eye.

“Take it as you want to take it,” Tamaya declared, crossing her arms. “I’m not surprised you’re trying to make it about yourself.”

“You know what? Yes!” he barked. “This is about me! I’m the one who's getting totally dragged right now, I’m the one you're criticizing, and I’m the one who’s getting attacked by all of you!” and he pointed at the three of them. “So yeah, this is about me, Tamaya, not about you!”

As soon as he said it, he knew what was coming next. He knew what Tamaya was going to do. She was going to spread her wings, close her fists, and get a lighting bolt for her to throw at him. Then, she would get so close to him, he would see the anger glowing in her eyes, and she would proceed to yell at Hugh for five minutes nonstop, and when Kasumi or Evander was able to make her keep quiet for an instant, he would start yelling back at her, and they would get trapped in an endless cycle, where neither of them knew when to shut their mouths and give up.

And he knew it because there had been times where the only thing the two of them did was fight, and yell, and try to silence the other by making sure one’s screams were louder than the other’s.

However, Tamaya didn’t do any of that.

Tamaya’s mouth fell open and was unable to say a single word while she stepped back, and leaned against the table because she wasn’t able to sit in a chair without feeling extremely uncomfortable.

Her silence was worse than her screaming.

He needed to fill the silence in one way or another.

“Why won’t you listen to me anymore?” he asked the rest. “Why don't you respect me, or my privacy, or my decisions? Do you think it’s easy? Do you think it’s easy to have this weight on my shoulders?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “No, it’s not. But I man up, I shut my mouth, and do it, you know why? Because we stopped playing superheroes a long time ago, and now we’re governors, and I don’t want us to fail, which is something the Anarchists would love to see—” he extended his arms, like pointing at the rest of the world, when in reality, he was just pointing at the small room that seemed even smaller than before “—Tell me, do you want us to fail?”

This time, he did want an answer. He did give them the time to respond, but they didn’t take it. Tamaya stayed in complete silence, Kasumi started rubbing her fingers again, and Evander just turned redder and redder with each word he said.

“Do you want us to fail?!” he insisted. “DO YOU?!”

Still, no answers.

“You don’t, do you?! YOU DON’T!”

Silence.

Silence and Kasumi covering her ear with her fists.

“YOU DON’T! So—” he pointed at Evander, “—man up—” at Tamaya, “shut your mouth—” at Kasumi, “and listen to me!” And finally, at himself. “Because I am your leader! I AM YOUR CAPTAIN! AND YOU’LL DO AS I SAY!”

His yelling immediately was cut short by the sound of the tap of the water turning on savagely and the screeching sound of Kasumi asking:

“WELL, WHO MADE YOU CAPTAIN?!”

The water in the room started to go crazy. Not only the taps had opened, but also her drink was spilled all over the floor, small drops started to float around them, and the water inside the cooler became a strange swirl, that with each passing second just turned faster and faster.

And Kasumi was crying.

Or something like that.

It was water. They seemed like tears, but they were actually water that was coming out of her eyes, without any emotions in them. Her face, which at this point was soaked, didn’t change at all, as if it had changed if she were really crying.

Still, Hugh felt it like a slap across his face.

Evander was the first one to react. “Kasumi—”

“WHO MADE YOU OUR LEADER?!” she rasped. “WHO, HUGH?” and she grabbed him by the shoulders “WHO?”

The floor started to flood. Tamaya got on the table and moved her eyes from one side of the room to the other, trying to process what was going on in front of her, while Evander stood up in the chair he was sitting on. “Kasumi Hasegawa—”

“IT WAS US!” she answered, letting go of him and stepping back. “IT WAS US AND WE CAN TAKE YOU OFF THAT POSITION AS EASY AS WE PUT YOU THERE! SO CUT. THE. CRAP!”

“Zoomie!”

The cooler felt down on its side. If Tamaya hadn’t moved slightly to the left, it would have hit one of her wings. The sound of the heavy metallic object crashing against the floor was enough to make everyone in the room go quiet, and their eyes fixated on the water that was coming out of it.

Like blood in an open wound.

He was the last one to come back to reality, after the water started to disappear right in front of his eyes, and realized Kasumi was manipulating it to form a small wave that she dropped in the sink.

She closed the taps and sighed.

“You’re… you’re not acting like a leader right now,” she mumbled, leaning against the sink without looking at him. “You’re… you’re acting like… like—”

“Like what?” he asked.

As if he wanted to hear the answer to it.

“I don’t know— You’re just…” Kasumi turned around and the water running down her face was actual tears this time. There was no sadness clouding her features that was able to hide that fact. “You’re just not my friend.”

She looked at her own feet while walking towards her the things that remained on the floor. Tamaya grabbed the plastic cup of water she had been drinking from, and even though she took it (because Kasumi liked to reuse those things) she didn’t say thank you or acknowledge her gesture, and instead, kept talking to Hugh.

“We’re not your sidekicks. We’re not even your coworkers or your employees. We are your family. We are all a family. But somehow— you forgot it.”

She grabbed her small fabric bag and started to put all her things in there, with the rest of them quietly watching her, without daring to get close.

“I’m going to ask the three of you, but especially you, Hugh, to leave me alone.”

Before Kasumi left the room, Evander got down from the chair and rushed to her. She stopped in her tracks and pressed her bag against her chest. A small tear started to come out of the corner of her eye and her lower lip trembled. He extended his hand to wipe away her tears, and Hugh suddenly felt the urge to look away.

Until Kasumi stepped back, rubbed her eyes with one hand, and mumbled: “I said the three of you. Please, respect my decision, Evander.”

Kasumi walked out of the room, without closing the door behind her. Evander followed her, but stopped right under the door frame, grabbing to it. He glanced at Tamaya, and she, almost imperceptibly, shook her head saying no to something he was silently asking her.

His eyes didn’t well up. Instead, after a blink, they turned to see Hugh, burning and glimmering an emotion he could not describe as something else but hate.

His eyes were burning and glimmering with hate.

And his words too.

“This is all your fault.”

He walked in the opposite direction Kasumi went.

I know.

This is all my fault.

“Kasumi was right, you know?”

Tamaya was the only one remaining.

“You have acted like the biggest idiot that has ever existed,” she continued. “I don’t know how you’re going to fix this and I don’t know how you’re going to fix yourself.” Her expression dulled and she slightly bent down to try to look him in the eye. “But we are your family. And you are ours.”

Hugh ignored her attempts to make eye contact and felt his hands getting moist and hot under his gloves.

But he couldn’t decide if tell her or not, because Tamaya sighed, grabbed the rest of her lunch, and without turning to see him, sentenced:

“Talk to us when you start acting like it.”

And just like that, Hugh was left alone in an empty room, again.

***

Everything had started two months ago.

It wasn’t like there weren’t somedays where they didn’t have sex. After all, they were part of the Renegades Council. The days were long, and there were occasions when they just arrived at the house and went directly to bed, without eating dinner or anything.

Despite that, they had managed to keep a certain schedule. And if he wanted to be completely honest, those days when he could have a little time alone with Simon were the best.

Until they weren’t.

“What’s going on?” Simon asked suddenly.

“Huh?”

“What’s going on?” Simon asked again.

He wasn’t mad at all. He was genuinely concerned.

It was… adorable. So Simon.

“Everything all right?”

Hugh knew something was wrong. But he felt a little bit embarrassed about backing down with something he had started.

Which was… weird.

Because nothing was embarrassing with Simon.

“Hugh—”

“I think I’m no longer in the mood to keep going,” he blurred out.

Simon’s eyes widened. He licked his lips, like he did every time he was analyzing a situation, and smirked. “You aren’t in the mood? You? You, Hugh Everhart, aren't in the mood for sex?”

Hugh couldn’t laugh at the stupid face he had made. “No.”

Luckily, Simon noticed that. “Oh. All right. Well, don’t worry, love. It’s okay.”

“I’m so—”

“No, don’t be sorry,” he interrupted him, using the same tone Hugh used all the time when they were younger to tell Simon not to be sorry. “There’s no need to apologize.” He ran his hand through his hair and gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “I’m just— going to the bathroom—” he grabbed the pile of clothes he had left on the nightstand “—I won’t take long.”

Hugh couldn’t tell if he took long or not. He just put on his clothes again too and got under the covers. He didn’t even turn around when Simon asked him, “Do you wanna be the little spoon tonight?”

He was never the little spoon. But he accepted anyway.

There were a lot of other nights that ended up that way. Nights that Hugh started something just to follow the schedule, things that they never finished because Simon always noticed something was wrong and said they should stop. Then, he kissed him, told him there was nothing to be sorry about, went to the bathroom to change, and went back to be the big spoon.

Until one day, Hugh fell asleep in a position that didn’t allow Simon to cuddle with him. Or at least he pretended to fall asleep to avoid any questions as if why he didn’t want to cuddle that night.

He couldn’t avoid any questions the next morning though.

When he went downstairs to have breakfast, Simon was waiting for him in the kitchen.

“Glad you’re here so early,” Simon said. “We need to talk.”

It was Saturday. Simon was wearing his cotton rob and had prepared an avocado toast and a cup of coffee.

Just the mere fact of him drinking coffee, plus the “We need to talk” phrase, was a bad sign. Not only because Simon got really anxious when he didn’t control how much coffee he drank, but also because the last time he had told him they needed to talk, was when he found some not very family-friendly videos on the family’s computer and thought that it would be better if he asked Hugh if they were his first because he didn’t want to accidentally introduce Adrian to that kind of… audiovisuals.

Stars…

That day had been one of the worst days of his life. And Hugh had fought a civil war. The bar for “bad days” was pretty high, but Adrian still managed to go higher than that.

“What did he do now?”

“Oh, God, no— Adrian’s clean. He’s still sleeping, actually,” Simon responded, completely aware of what Hugh was talking about. “But that’s why I want to talk to you before he comes.”

Hugh felt a little bit less tense. A little bit.

He took the coffee pot and started pouring it on the first cup he found. “What do you wanna talk about?”

Simon drummed the fingers of his right hand on the bar and scratched his beard with his left hand, staring at his unfinished breakfast. “Love… are you having problems?”

“Problems?” he scoffed. “What kind of problems?”

“Oh, you know… problems… down there.”

He lost focus and he poured the coffee on his hand. “Shit—”

“Look, it’s just that I think it’s kind… strange what has been going on these last days,” Simon said without noticing the whole coffee situation. “We— we had a schedule, and now we don’t, and I’m not mad at all, I just want to know if there’s something more to it.”

Hugh left the coffee pot where it belonged and Simon kept talking.

“You should— we should go to see a doctor,” he whispered. “I know you have never had an appointment with a doctor before, but we could… I don’t know, ask around, until you find one that makes you feel comfortable.”

And he would have probably kept talking if he hadn’t interrupted.

“It’s more common than you may think, you know,” he assured him. “And there’s nothing wrong with it. Everyone once in a while has— you know, some kind difficulties, or it hurts, or—”

“No.”

Simon suddenly went silent. “No what?”

“Nothing hurts,” he answered. “I literally cannot feel pain, remember?”

“Oh, no, I mean, of course I remember,” Simon mumbled. “It was— it was just an expression.”

Hugh frowned. “I’ve never heard that expression before.”

Neither of them said anything for an uncomfortable amount of time, while Hugh stirred his coffee with a plastic spoon and Simon pretended he was really focused on his breakfast.

“You didn’t answer my question though,” he said after a while. “Are you having any kind of problems?”

Hugh gave him the same answer. “No.”

“All right. I believe you. And I trust you. You know I’ll always trust you, don’t you?”

When Simon said he trusted him, Hugh usually responded to him saying he trusted him back. But this time, he said, “As you should.”

At that moment, Adrian walked into the dining room, letting them know their conversation had come to an end.

Hurting.

What a strange word.

He couldn’t comprehend it. And he’d never liked things that he couldn’t comprehend.

Nevertheless, even if he had lived his whole life hating things he couldn’t comprehend, now he didn’t understand why he felt so attacked by the way Simon formulated his question. The rational part of him knew he had no intention of making him angry, but his emotional side got angry at him anyway. He got so angry, he dedicated the rest of the day to ignore him.

And things didn’t change after that conversation. They just got worse.

So much worse.

Hugh didn’t even bother anymore to make the first move. He slept turning his back on Simon, so he could make clear he didn’t want to be touched at that moment. But sometimes, Simon didn’t understand (or pretended he didn’t understand) his signals, and asked him in a thousand different ways if that was going to be the night everything was going back to normal.

“How are you feeling, love? Are you better now?”

“How about we try something new today?”

“Hugh, are you awake?”

“Hugh, love, please… answer me”

But Hugh never answered him. Not with anything else but “Fine”, “Other day”, “No”, or just silence. Because sometimes silence counted as an answer.

And sometimes it was the loudest of sounds.

He was already ready for bed. He had brushed his teeth, had put on his pajamas, and had gone downstairs to make sure Adrian was still breathing, being especially careful not to wake him up.

Fifteen minutes had passed since that, and he was still standing up next to the bed, without feeling like getting in yet.

Then, he realized they hadn’t made the bed since the day of the fight. The coverlet was almost touching the ground and the pillows were everywhere except where they were supposed to be. He felt a strange energy going through his body, that ordered him to get closer and start making the bed.

No one liked to sleep on an unmade bed anyways.

However, the moment he started doing that, he made the mistake of graving Simon’s pillow. And Simon’s pillow made the mistake of smelling just like him, and the smell of mint, fabric softener, hit and the citrus body lotion he used was so intense, it made him feel, even if it was for a couple of seconds as if Simon were there.

That feeling lasted, at least, five seconds. And when he tried to smile, he started crying.

Because that pillow wasn’t Simon. Because Simon was not there.

Because Simon had left. He really left.

Without letting go of the pillow, he sat on the cold and hard floor. His elbows accidentally hit the nightstand he had next to his side of the bed, making the lamp and the couple of glasses he never returned to the kitchen tremble a little, but he wouldn’t have cared less if they fell to the floor and broken.

It wasn’t like they could cut him or anything.

He smelled the pillow one more time, and it was more than enough to make Simon’s ghost appear a couple of feet away from him, with empty eyes and a serious face, asking the same questions over and over again.

Why don’t you ever touch me anymore?

Why am I always invisible to you, even when I’m not?

Why are you so fucking cold all the time?

Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?!

“Because I don't even know what is wrong with me,” he finally answered.

Simon’s ghost didn’t ask what he meant. After all, even if he did and Hugh answered him, he wouldn’t have understood.

In fact, he knew Simon hoped he never would.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t attracted to Simon anymore. No, it was not that. For him, Simon was the most perfect man he had ever seen in his whole life. He loved his voice, soft like velvet. He loved his hands touching his skin. He loved his eyes that looked at him with adoration, and he loved his body, toned and covered in body hair, that used to make Simon feel self-conscious, but that Hugh had always found really appealing and he made sure to remind him that in every opportunity he had.

Simon had not a single flaw because he was perfect for him.

But when the darkness filled the room and he stretched out his hand to touch him…

It was like something fell upon him. Something so heavy and so big, he couldn’t get rid of it, not even using his powers at their maximum capacities. It didn’t let him move, it didn’t let him speak, and the only thing he could do was to soldier on, praying to a God he wasn’t sure it existed, asking him to please take that weight off him when the sun came out because if he didn’t do it, Hugh would have been capable of staying there for the rest of his days.

Completely still. Without any strength to move his head or change into a more comfortable position. Letting his body get all dusty as if he were part of one of those sets of furniture that they kept in the guest’s rooms that were never used because no one visited them, other than the rest of the Council.

Now, he didn’t know if it was God the one that took that weight off him, but he did know that as soon as the sun started to come out, the weight became lighter and lighter until it finally disappeared and Hugh was able to move again. He dusted off his whole body, prepared to go to the Headquarters, and put on his best face to convince others (and himself) that he wasn’t tired at all.

It had been a long time since the last time Hugh was able to sleep comfortably. He would say it was something that affected him even before his whole… situation with Simon. It had been going on for years. Adrian was still a kid when it all started.

“You should pop some pills or something,” Evander told Hugh when he dared to look a little bit more tired than normal. “You know— to help you sleep.” He clicked his tongue. “After the Day of Triumph, I began to take some sleeping pills, and they helped me a lot.” But before Hugh could ask him why he needed to take sleeping pills, Evander grabbed the folder where the documents he had asked him for and walked to the door, not without patting him on the shoulder first. “Maybe they can help you too.”

There was no need to say Hugh didn’t listen to him. Not only because Evander’s advice wasn’t always the best advice someone could receive, but also because there was something about taking pills he didn’t like at all.

Besides that, it wasn’t like Hugh could take any pill he wanted. They needed to have a strong effect or he would have to take more than one at a time. And Simon already needed to take pills to help him control his anxiety and went to therapy every two weeks.

He hated to say it, but it was a lot of money. It was not worthy. Simon had it worse than him, he needed those pills and those therapy sessions.

Hugh didn’t.

So, yeah, he didn’t listen to Evander. Neither did he listen to Kasumi when she gave him the same recommendation, and couldn’t contain his laugh when she suggested he should do some yoga. He also got into a big fight with Tamaya when she pointed out something was wrong with him, even though the reason that made her think that was that Hugh had broken one of the cupboard doors and was going around looking for something to eat without noticing at all he had destroyed his perfectly designed kitchen.

As time went by, going to sleep became like playing Russian roulette. He never knew if that night he was going to be able to go to sleep or not, but it wasn't like sleeping made a huge difference because each morning he woke up feeling tired anyway.

Probably, the only difference between sleeping or not, was that when he didn’t, when he stayed up all night, all he could see were ghosts.

During his childhood years, Adrian developed a huge fear of ghosts. Adrian was afraid of so many things Hugh couldn’t name each and every one of them, but he did know ghosts were very high on the list. He woke up in the middle of the night all the time, and the most common excuse he gave for his behavior, was that he was afraid the ghosts of the people who were murdered in that house would suddenly start hunting him.

Hugh didn’t believe in ghosts and he didn’t think Adrian should do it either. But when he started to see his own ghosts, he stopped complaining each time Adrian woke him up, asking him, “Daddy, can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

Of course, he didn’t see the same ghosts Adrian thought he saw. Hugh’s ghosts were completely different.

Sometimes, it was a man, who despite his young age, he appeared to have lived a thousand years. He had deep circles under his blue eyes and the saddest smile it had ever existed. Occasionally, he was accompanied by a woman, with long and dark hair, who carried in her arms a chubby and loud baby that cried each time she felt her mom wasn’t close enough to her. And most of the times, they also brought with them a little girl, that got between the sheets at the same time Adrian did, and that each time he got closer to Hugh to ask him if he could cuddle him until he fell asleep, he felt as if he were hugging the dead body of that tormented soul, asking him why he didn’t arrive on time.

Hugh didn’t like other people’s kids. Especially if those kids liked to meddle in his business.

So one of those nights, he locked the door. That way, no ghost was going to enter his room.

And neither would Adrian.

That night, he was starting to kind of fall asleep, after spending hours looking at the window, when he heard a couple of small hands trying to open the bedroom’s door. For a second, they stopped, trying to process why it wasn’t opening as it should. Then, they tried again. When they failed a third time, Adrian started bawling.

Simon woke up immediately.

But Hugh wasn't surprised at all.

“Adrian…” he mumbled. “Adrian, hold on, I’m coming!”

He removed the covers so quickly, he punched Hugh on the face, waking him up completely. He tried to open the door the same way Adrian previously did, but the panic he was feeling at that moment didn’t allow him to process why the door wasn’t opening, and just made his anxiety levels go to the roof.

“Hugh… Hugh, the door,” he mumbled. “The door’s— the door’s not opening, help.”

But he didn’t help.

Not because he didn’t want to. He wanted to help him. He wanted to tell him to calm down, and that the door was just locked.

But there was something on the sound of Adrian’s cries and the way Simon called his name that made the weight on his chest start to choke him.

Really choke him.

“Hugh! The door, please.”

“DADDY! DADDY, LET ME IN, DADDY, LET ME IN!”

“Aren’t you listening to me?! Wake up! Wake up and help me, Hugh!”

“LET ME IN, DADDY, PLEASE!”

“Hold on just a second, darling,” Simon squeezed. “Hold on just a second— HUGH, FOR FUCK’S SAKE, COME HERE AND HELP ME!”

“DA— DADDY, PLE— AAAAH!”

First, he heard something getting violently hit. Then, complete silence. And finally, Adrian started crying again.

When Simon turned on the lights, Hugh was able to turn around to see what was happening.

Apparently, Simon had kicked the door down, and Adrian had been fast enough to get away from it before it punched him in the face...

Bit he still got hit on the forehead pretty hard.

“Oh, Adrian, dar—”

“DADDY! POPS HIT ME! HE HIT ME!”

“DARLING, I SWEAR IT WAS AN ACCIDENT, FORGIVE ME!”

Hugh rubbed his eyes, annoyed at the sudden change of light in the room. He noticed Adrian was wearing the blue pajamas Kasumi had brought him during his ninth birthday and was holding the Baby Indomitable blanket.

The blanket she had made for him.

Simon kneeled in front of Adrian and grabbed him by the cheeks. “We need to take him to the hospital,” he said. His eyes were all watery and his voice broke. “We need to take him to the hospital,” he repeated with more emphasis. When Hugh didn’t respond, his worried expression turned into one of pure angriness. “Fuck, Hugh, why did you lock the door? WHY DID YOU LOCK THE FUCKING DOOR, HUH? WHY?”

For some reason, the weight that was suffocating him decided that was a good moment to let go of his throat for a second, just for him to give Simon a reason why. And the only thing that came out of his mouth was:

“Adrian is too old to be sleeping with us every night.”

Adrian started bawling again, and Simon realized going to the hospital was going to take too much time, so he took his son in his arms, and went downstairs to call Tamaya’s husband, Owen, the only doctor they truly trusted.

When Simon got out of the room, he didn’t turn off the lights. Hugh got up to do that, but in the end, decided it would be more appropriate to go with his husband and kid, in case they needed anything.

In the kitchen, Simon was holding Adrian with one arm and holding the phone next to his ear with the other. After a long wait, he hung up, ready to start yelling and punching the first thing (or person) he saw.

Luckily, the first one who noticed Hugh was there, was Adrian.

He had a big bump on his forehead.

“Give him to me,” Hugh whispered. Simon (who was dialing the phone one more time) doubted for a second but finally accepted. “How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts,” Adrian whispered.

There it was again. That word.

He sat him on the kitchen bar. “Of course it does, buddy. Do you want some juice?”

Adrian nodded. “Can I have apple juice?” he shyly asked.

Hugh looked for it inside the fridge. “We only have strawberry juice,” he said.

“I like strawberry juice too.”

“Good.”

He took two strawberry juice cartons and gave him one. At that moment, Simon pointed at the phone with a hopeful and scared expression, and said, “Tamaya, I almost ripped Adrian’s head off, I need your husband.”

While a really confused Tamaya asked Simon what the hell did he mean with almost ripping Adrian’s head off, Hugh sat down on one of the stools, right in front of his son. He had his legs crossed and was drinking his juice, moving his head as if he were listening to a happy melody.

“... and accidently hit him with the door,” Simon said to the phone. For his change of tone, Hugh could tell he was talking to Owen too (he knew Tamaya well enough to know she was still listening to everything that was going on after putting the phone on speaker). “No, he didn’t lose consciousness, he just… cried a lot… he’s—um, actually kind of hungry right now. Yeah, he’s… he’s drinking some juice. Um… let’s see— Adrian, darling.” Adrian turned around to see him. “Do you know what day it is?”

“Um… Sunday.”

“Great job—” he returned his attention to the call “—He doesn't seem disoriented either.”

Hugh paid a little bit more attention to the nasty bump Adrian had on his head. He didn’t dare to touch it for fear of hurting him more, but a part of him remembered having seen someone wrapping a bag of frozen peas on an old cloth and putting it on the injured area.

So he did that too. He just changed the bag of frozen peas with the strawberry juice carton.

“Can I drink that one too?” Adrian asked, chuckling slightly.

Hugh smiled at him. “No, you can’t. Too much sugar.”

And when Adrian laughed again, he remembered where he had learned that piece of medical advice.

And he stopped smiling.

“Ice? Just… just ice?” Simon asked Owen, incredulous. His gaze met Hugh’s. “It seems like… Hugh already did that. Are you sure that’s all he needs? And can he go to sleep? Sure? He’s not gonna— no, but… Tamaya, please, let the doctor speak— ok, there’s no need to talk to me like that, I’m sensitive, all right? When you hit your kid with a door, you'll understand my concern.”

After Owen and Tamaya were able to calm Simon down, he hung up the phone. “Well, Adrian, Owen says you’re fine,” he said a little bit less shaken up than before. “And Tamaya is not invited to next week’s party.” Adrian chuckled again. “Let’s get you to bed.”

Simon carried Adrian all the way to his room. Hugh followed them closely, and stayed at the door, listening to his son asking his dad if they could sleep with him that night.

“You’re not too old to sleep with me anyways,” he assured.

Simon looked at Hugh, but he was so far away, he couldn’t tell what he was trying to communicate with his eyes.

If he was trying to communicate anything at all.

There was nothing Simon could say though; it still didn’t seem right for him to sleep in the same bed as Adrian that night.

After all, he had been the one that locked him out of his room when he needed him the most. Adrian was asking for his dad (or “daddy”, like he called him at that age), and he had not reacted immediately after hearing his first cries.

And to make matters worse, he hadn't bought apple juice, even if he knew it was Adrian’s favorite.

Hugh felt like the worst parent on the planet.

Simon was the one who stayed with Adrian that night. Hugh told him the three of them wouldn’t fit in the same bed anyway. Adrian wasn’t that convinced by that answer, but as soon as Simon kissed the top of his head, he seemed a lot happier than before.

He wasn’t able to sleep that night. Not because it was the first time in forever he slept on a bed all by himself, not at all.

It was actually the opposite.

Because from that moment on, two things happened: first, each time Adrian woke up in the middle of the night and went to their bedroom, Simon grabbed him by the hand and together went back to Adrian’s room, where Simon slept on the same bed as his son, and Adrian cried until he fell asleep. And second, after that night, a new ghost joined in. It was no longer the man with blue eyes, or the mother and her loud baby, nor it was the little girl who made too many questions for her own good.

It was her, whose smile could light up the darkest of rooms. Her, whose laugh he heard everywhere, without actually hearing it. Her, who sometimes made him think was seeing her through their son’s eyes, and her who, when no one else was there for him, hugged him from behind and assured him everything was going to work out at the end of the day because there was no force on the universe that was able to take down Lady Indomitable and Captain Chromium.

But she had been wrong.

Like the night after that mission.

It probably had been an unimportant mission, because Hugh could no longer remember what it was about. He just remembered he had planned it and it had failed. They were not able to get what they wanted and the bad guys won. Also, all the members of the team had gotten hurt in some way or another. For example, Simon was left temporarily deaf on one ear after a big explosion and his right hand had first degree burns. Kasumi had been able to avoid getting burned by using her powers to make a kind of water dome around her, but she still got her knees all scraped when she tried to run and fell, and when he said scraped, he meant really scraped. Tamaya wanted to electrocute one of those guys by herself when they tried to take Evander by grabbing him by the leg in a way she didn’t like at all, and even if she did leave all of them unconscious, both still got deep cuts on their hands and arms.

When they arrived, the house became a hospital, where she was the one and the only doctor, because she didn’t get hurt that much and was able to move around without bleeding to death or something.

Hugh also helped her take care of everyone’s injuries (and to calm down Simon when he started panicking about the whole “I CANNOT LIVE MY LIFE ONLY HEARING WITH ONE EAR” thing.) But he wasn’t as good as a doctor as she was, even if he was the designated nurse when one of them got sick of something that may be contagious. That’s why he limited himself to passing her the bandages, towels, and anything she needed, without complaining or giving his unsolicited advice like he constantly did with everyone except her.

After they were finished attending everyone, they decided to go to sleep. Hugh didn’t feel like sleeping that night though, so he went to the roof, thinking he was probably going to stay there until the morning came, to be able to get in bed again and pretend like he had been there the whole night.

However, someone did notice he was gone.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

She was flying a couple of inches above the ground and was wearing her pajamas and a little blanket as a cape, to cover herself from the cold wind.

With one hand, she was holding a bag of frozen peas wrapped in an old rag and put it on the small bump she had got when she got hit during that night’s mission.

Hugh just nodded, and she sat beside him, sighing.

They stayed in complete silence, and when he was about to ask her if he could help her with anything, she asked him:

“Where does it hurt, Hugh?”

“What?”

“Where does it hurt?” she asked again.

“No, I heard you the first time,” he answered. “It’s just—”

Just what?

But Georgie didn’t ask him that.

“I know it may not… physically hurt,” she explained herself after realizing he was not going to finish that sentence, leaving the bag of frozen peas on her lap. “But I also know there are a lot of ways someone can be hurting, and those wounds that are on the inside, are as important as the wounds we can see on the outside—” she grabbed his hand, and gently took him by the cheek to make sure he saw her in the eyes.

He would recognize those eyes everywhere.

“Why does it matter?” he asked her softly.

“Because… you’re very strong, Hugh,” she answered caressing his cheek. “Very, very strong. But maybe, if you tell me exactly what’s going on inside your head, we can find a way to cure your pain together. Because we’re in this together. You don’t have to do it alone. Not again. Not ever again.”

She closed her eyes, and he pressed his forehead against hers, looking at their hands, holding each other like their life depended on it.

“So tell me… where does it hurt?”

He didn’t answer the question; but he remembered it was the first time in forever he cried in front of someone who wasn’t Simon. He wasn’t even sure why he was crying and his memories about that moment were blurry as if it had been a dream. What he did remember very vividly was that she didn’t judge him at all or made him like his feelings didn’t matter. On the contrary, she stayed there as long as he needed, crying with him, until he was able to calm down again, and asked her if she wanted to go back inside. She didn’t think twice and accepted. After returning the frozen peas to the freezer, they pushed together the two couches they had in the living room, covered themselves with the small blanket she had brought with her and cuddled until they fell asleep.

From that moment on, it became more common for them to cuddle together. She was always cuddling with everyone, even with Tamaya and Simon, who were the ones with more difficulties accepting physical affection from others. But not even them could refuse her hugs, and her kisses, and her not so uncommon tickles, which Evander and Kasumi loved. Hugh couldn’t help but notice though, he was the one she hugged, kissed and tickled the most, even after she had Adrian and had to share her love with one person more, that probably needed it more than him.

And he loved to be her favorite.

Well— her second favorite. Adrian went first.

He just wished he had hugged her, kissed her, and tickled her more. She was always the one who looked for him, but he rarely looked for her to show her physical affection.

Hugh didn’t look for her at all. Not even when she disappeared.

He didn’t even know why.

He didn’t know anything.

But he did know that she had been wrong when she told him he was strong.

If he were truly strong, he would have protected her, like he had promised her he would do thousands and thousands of times.

If he were truly strong, he would have been the one that was there when the Artinos needed the Renegades, and he would have stopped the hitman Ace Anarchy sent to end them.

If he were truly strong and death had come after him the same way it came after her, he would have survived the fall.

Because he always did.

Because it was not possible for him to get hurt.

It was not her fault she hadn’t survived though. She wasn’t built that way. While Hugh was made mostly of chromium, Georgia Rawles was made of flesh, bones, blood, but mainly, she was made of love, and sometimes, love could be indestructible, but other times, it could also be fragile.

Very fragile.

It didn’t matter how strong she was.

Oh, because she was strong. She was really strong. She had the kind of strength his superpowers couldn’t give him, and that was the one that was going to change the world they lived in.

Georgia Rawles was so strong, she kept her cool when things were going to hell.

Georgia Rawles was so strong, she raised a child in the middle of a world ruled by anarchy, and was the best mother that child could ask for.

Georgia Rawles was so strong, she became the face people saw when they thought about hope, and didn’t let her beautiful heart to be changed by the obstacles life threw at her, no matter how horrible they were.

And it hadn’t been her fault she died. She didn’t fail anyone, not even the Artinos.

No. The one who had failed the Artinos, the one who had failed her, had been Hugh.

He should have been the one who died that night. He should be dead and buried, and she should be there, alive, with her son and her family, living in the world she had made a better place.

A world he didn’t feel he deserved.

Suddenly, a couple of familiar white boots appeared a couple of inches in front of him. He tried to convince himself not to look up, but his curiosity was bigger than his fear, even if he already knew who it was because she appeared every night after the door incident. It was Georgie’s ghost, just that this time, she was holding Simon’s hand. Her golden cape had not a single drop of blood and looked like new. She was wearing her whole superhero uniform but without her mask, so he had a clear view of her whole face. She let go of Simon for a second, and tried to walk towards Hugh, without taking her eyes away from him.

She didn’t even have to talk to let him know what she was trying to say.

Georgie was trying to remember him the good things his world had. He had raised two brilliant and kind sons who were his pride and joy, even when they weren’t in their best behavior. He had a friend who felt like an older sister, that fiercely loved him and the rest and had always done even when she was still learning how to love herself for the good, chaotic, intelligent, and beautiful person she was. He had another friend who, on the other hand, felt like a younger sister, and whose gestures, voice, and movements were like the calm before the storm, but when it came the time to defend others or defend herself, she became the storm itself, ready to drown whoever dare to treat her in a way that didn’t fit the respect she deserved. He also had a friend, who felt like a little brother, that he had seen grow up since he was a kid that had to get on his tiptoes to high five him, and the memory of his smile, his laugh, and his jokes that sometimes seemed to be hidden behind that strange villainous mask he wore was enough for him not to hate him, even if he hated Hugh.

He had… or had had a husband too. A husband that made him feel like he was at home each time he saw him. A husband who laughed at all his jokes, even when they weren’t that funny, and made him fall in love with him all over again each time he opened that smart mouth of his. A husband whose personality, humor, and body perfectly fit his, because if Hugh had been made for someone, it had been for him. A husband who always chose him, above anything else, but when it came to the point Hugh had failed him so many times, he had no other option but to choose himself.

And it wasn’t like Hugh could blame him. Simon deserved to be happy. Simon deserved each and all of the good things that this world had to offer to him, even if one of those things wasn’t Hugh.

Suddenly, Georgie extended her hand towards him, but when she was about to touch him, an invisible and polarized wall suddenly got in her way.

It was the first time Hugh actually saw it.

It was something grey, hollow, and invisible, that was coming out of him like the chrome that was dripping from his fingers at that very moment.

But Georgie, being Georgie, didn't flinch when she saw that wall. Instead, she flew over his head to try to get in that way. Hugh was following her with his gaze and realized at the same time as her, that thing was not a simple wall that had the sole purpose of making him get away from the people he loved.

That thing, that grey, hollow, and invisible thing, was a shell that impeded the people he loved to get closer to Hugh.

And Georgie was stubborn. Probably as much or more stubborn that Hugh was, even if she constantly was acting as if she weren’t. First, she proved her luck by kicking the shell into letting her in. Then, she used all the force in her body to try to crack it open. She got so desperate that started using her fists, punching and screaming his name, calling him “darling”, and imploring him to hold on a little longer.

The thing was… the thing was he didn’t want her to do that.

He didn’t know what she was feeling, but each time she kicked, she punched and she screamed, Hugh felt like his body was hurting. Not from the outside in, like he had heard physical pain felt, but from inside out; it was a pain that didn’t limit itself to his chest area, and went through all his body. He felt it in his legs, his face, and his arms, and gave him the sudden need to scratch it away. However, the aching shell was pretty similar to the real world, in the sense that when he did it, when he scratched his body in order to make the pain stop some way or another, his skin, and therefore his pain, didn’t react to it. It was as if he hadn’t even moved or made the most minimal effort to help himself.

Please, Georgie.

Please stop.

Please, please...

Please.

Just give up.

So Georgie fell to her knees, leaving bloody marks of her hands all over the shell. The small body of a girl grabbed her by the arm as if she wanted to hug her the same way Adrian hugged Hugh when he had a nightmare. A woman put her hand on her shoulder and quickly soothed her baby before she even started crying. Then, the man of the family wrapped his arms around the four of them, with a fearful but determined expression, that only brave people like him had.

She had heard him. She had given up on him.

The same way Simon, who didn’t stop watching the whole scene, had.

The same way he himself had.

Georgie tried to make him understand one last time.

You live in a beautiful world.

But she was wrong again.

Not about the part of the world being beautiful; it was about the part of her thinking Hugh didn’t already know that.

He did know the world he lived in was beautiful because the people who were part of it made it that way.

However, each time a happy moment occurred or a tragedy knocked at the door, it was as if Hugh wasn’t able to experience the happiness or the sadness that he was supposed to feel. When they cried, they laughed, or they yelled at him, their sobs, their smiles, and their screams felt real, but when he tried to imitate them, he felt like something that had come out from another planet pretending to be a human. Even those tears he was crying now, were more of a way his mind had found to fill the hole he had on his chest, while it waited for that weight to come and take its place.

Not like it was going to matter though. When the sun came up, all those imaginary ghosts will disappear. All the tears he had cried will dry, and all the aching he had felt will turn into the deepest of numbness.

He laid his head on the floor and grasped Simon's pillow tightly.

The next morning, he would feel no pain, in the same way, he would feel no comfort because that was part of being born with the powers he had.

But was there any point in living if you couldn’t feel anything?

***

The answer to that question was about to come to him when he was standing in the Arena, actually tearing up, after both sides of the battle had suddenly ceased fire.

He wasn’t able to see his family in the middle of the chaos, but for some reason, that didn’t scare him at all. The five of them were competent and strong, and they probably were also looking for him, so it was a matter of time and keep looking for them.

Also, this chaos— this chaos was nothing compared to what the Age of Anarchy had been.

He had been alive during the Age of Anarchy. He had experienced on first hand the horrors and the violence of it and had felt like there was no alternative but to roll with it, even if it was painful, horrible, and made him feel hopeless and small.

But then, he met them.

He met them, and the five of them were so full of light that they turned him into light too. The six got together and were able to bring hope into a world that had already given up on people like them, and constantly told them to do the same.

But what they didn’t know was that their secret was not to give up on each other.

They never gave up on each other, not even when one of those lights was gone.

Maybe she never really went anywhere. Maybe she had always been there. Maybe she was on their monthly dinners, in the internal jokes they still shared after all these years, and in the small gestures that reminded them they still love each other and they were still all in this together.

And she would have loved to see them like that.

She had been right about him being strong. But that wasn’t going to be the reason why he was going to be able to end with this chaos and why the Renegades were going to win in the end one more time. He was going to win because she was right when she said he was not only strong, but he was also vibrant, wonderful, valid, and most importantly, he was right. He was right that this world was worth protecting because life was full of moments and people that he would have never met if he weren’t alive to do it in the first place.

Hugh was alive. He was alive and he still could do something about it, to fix what was in his power to fix, and one of those things was himself and the mistakes he had made. There was nothing wrong with accepting what he had done wrong and in becoming a better person, not for others, but for himself.

There was nothing wrong with being alive.

He asked himself again.

Is there any point in living if you can’t feel anything?

But the answer slipped through his fingers. Because he was about to say it out loud, when something grabbed him and dragged him out of that dream, woke him up, and made him realize he was trapped inside a nightmare.

The helmet fell off Callum Treadwell's hands, and he fell on his back, covering his wound and trying to stop the hemorrhage.

He didn’t even bother to try to stop them when they grabbed Ace Anarchy’s helmet. He also didn’t tremble when they assured all of them had fought bravely, but now it was time for them to know fear, and he barely moved as he saw them turned into a phantom creature and soared like a bird of prey while he made his way to his master to give him the key to gaining back all the power he had previously lost.

Instead, he looked at Wonder, who now was with Nightmare, and then looked at his own boots, who also had the blood of numerous people he probably didn’t know.

Or he did.

Maybe it was his family’s blood.

With the thought in mind, he started searching for their faces in a crowd full of people looking for their loved ones while trying not to get killed in the process. He didn’t have a lot of time to do it though, because as soon as he thought he had seen Simon, the sound of shackles springing loudly reached his ears, followed by the same voice saying:

“Master of Anarchy, rise again, and let us watch them fall.”

As soon as Ace Anarchy started to float upward, the arena began to shake. His powers grabbed each piece of the structure they could find and were used against the few Renegades who were still trying to fight back. The stand he had been gazing at was yanked up from the floor, and Ace Anarchy hurled it at where he was standing.

He threw himself on the ground to dodge it, and then, he turned to see Ace, who was already gazing at him with a condescending grin on his face.

He hadn’t tried to kill him. But he hoped he had.

Actually, he hoped Ace Anarchy killed him right there, and that he did it fast.

Because that would be a lot much easier than whatever the hell he was supposed to do at that moment.

A pair of white boots tripped with Hugh’s body. He had to blink twice to make sure what he was seeing wasn’t a hallucination brought on by stress before turning to look at them and recognize Evander’s black superhero suit. At first, he thought he was going to say something like “Get up!” or “The fuck you’re doing on the ground?!” or a mixture of both, but instead, he just kicked the silver spear in his direction.

Hugh instantly grasped it. Evander gave him a small nod with the head before running towards Ace, and watching him getting closer and closer to him made something inside of Hugh move, giving him the strength he needed to get on his feet again and follow him.

As soon as he saw him throw a blinding strobe into Ace’s face, he knew what Evander wanted him to do.

Hugh took advantage of those few instants Ace gave them when he ducked his head and hurled his weapon at him.

Ace dodged it. Just for a few inches.

Hugh made eye contact with him.

Kill me.

Please.

Kill me. Right now.

And as if he had heard him, a grin appeared on his lips.

He directed the chains that had been used to contain the prisoners at what he thought it was him, and his whole body shriveled at the idea of their cold touch of the metal being the last thing his skin touched.

But Hugh had been wrong, and the chains wrapped Evander's torso and gagged his mouth.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to get on his knees and beg him to spare Evander's life. He wanted to go feral, throw himself at him, and kill him in a way that made sure he dragged both of them directly to the hell he had been told by Ace he was going to when he died, just to make sure he wouldn't hurt anyone else when he was no longer there to protect ones who were left. He wouldn't care that it wasn't heroic of him to ask his worst enemy to end his life on the verge of tears and with a broken voice because it would be even less heroic of him to let the younger member of his family die this way.

He couldn't bear to let another person die instead of him. He couldn't.

He wouldn't be able to take it.

He wasn't strong enough.

Hugh glanced at Evander one last time, to let him know everything would be fine and that he was going to be the one who took his place. But when he realized Evander hadn't taken his eyes away from him, and terror had overtaken his entire face, the words, the begging, and the crying stayed in his throat, now completely unable to come out.

Ace flicked his fingers.

And in a blink, Evander wasn't looking at him anymore.

His scream didn't sound like him. It made his throat hurt and his entire body feel cold.

No.

No, no, no, no.

It was supposed to be him.

He was the one who should be dead right now.

And why wasn't he dead then?

Why were Evander and Georgie dead— and Hugh wasn't?

A pair of knees fell to the ground beside him. He turned around, mechanically, and he saw Kasumi, whose mouth was slightly open and her face had grown pale. Suddenly, instead of breaking down and crying like he thought she was about to do, she made her hands into fists, her jaw clenched, and after a blink, her eyes had turned into the bluest of blues he had ever seen.

Her scream was so guttural and so full of pain, she didn’t sound like her. Kasumi had never been able to make a wave that big out of nowhere in just one second and she had never used her powers with so much hate drawn all over her face full of tears that she didn’t seem to realize she was crying.

But with a simple flick of his wrist, Ace flipped the entire platform and created a barrier that protected him from the wave, breaking it and flooding the arena. Kasumi quickly tried to control the water to protect Evander’s corpse; he took advantage of that distraction to throw the platform at her.

And the only thing Kasumi could do was cry out and raise her arms to defend herself from the crushing weight that now was on top of her.

She didn’t even try to move or to run away. But he didn’t know if it was because it all happened so fast she didn’t have the time to do it—

Or because she simply didn’t want to.

Hugh looked up to the sky, searching for Tamaya. He expected to find her flying, keeping her distance, throwing bolts at her enemies, and when they were able to make eye contact, he would yell her name and ask her for help.

Not for him though.

For them. For Kasumi and Evander. Because each second that passed with Kasumi still under that platform, paralyzed and alone, and with Evander still at the mercy of whoever that passed and that could trip with him or kicked him, was a second that they were being—

Hurt.

But Hugh didn’t see her. She wasn’t anywhere he expected to find her, and he did his best to scan the whole sky, even if the little smoke that still remained in the area made it difficult for him to see.

Then, a dark thought clouded his mind.

Tamaya wasn’t reckless. Not anymore. She wouldn’t risk her life by staying on the ground, and she would know that the best way she would be able to help the rest of them was if she flew and got closer only in case they needed her help.

If she had stayed in the sky, she would have been able to see Evander blinding Ace with his powers. She would have seen Kasumi breaking down and her wave would have touched her wings. She would have known they needed her help long before Hugh did.

Then why wasn’t she there?

Why couldn’t he bring himself to lower his head and look for her in the ground?

Why was he so… numb?

Suddenly, Ace’s roar filled his ears. The villain had a knife buried on his left side, and when he tried to hit whoever had stabbed him, he wasn’t able to find them.

It wasn’t possible that someone had thrown a knife at him since the attack had clearly been from behind. And no one would be fast enough to get out of Ace’s reach and disappear before he realized he had been hurt.

Disappear.

And it was as if he could see him again. He was able to see him standing behind Ace, piercing him with his gaze, ready to push him, made him hit his face against the ground, and kill him himself. He could see his face—the face he had kissed thousands of times— contorted in anger even before his presence was revealed by Honey Harper, who screeched almost as if asking for his husband’s head, and sent every one of the creatures she had control over in his direction.

Simon cried in pain and, after flickering a couple of seconds, he curled into a ball, to protect his body from the bee’s dangerous stings.

An eerie beam of light flew over his head and made Honey Harper fall into a row of plastic chairs. Her bees suddenly lost interest in Simon and flew towards her, hearing their queen calling for someone’s name. When he looked around for whoever had attacked her, he recognized the Sentinel’s armor and noticed how he slowly lowered his arm, as if he couldn’t believe he had just shot someone right in the chest from that distance.

From the corner of his eyes, he saw Leroy Flinn tossing a couple of Renegades who were about to attack him and running towards his ally to check on her as if he were one more of her bees who blindly followed her command. Ace watched the scene as the same time Hugh did, but instead of asking Cyanide if she was fine, or even trying to pretend he cared for her, he used his powers to pull his back out of his knife.

He pulled the knife out of his back, probably because he was too full of himself to realize that he could bleed to death if he did that.

Simon knew that. He would have done it himself if he only had time.

Simon knew a lot of things.

And Hugh saw in his eyes that he knew Ace was aiming at his throat when he threw his own weapon at him.

But before the knife touched any inch of Simon’s skin, a swarm of monarch butterflies covered him and Danna Bell used her forearm to knock it from the air.

The Renegades who were still on condition to fight started using their powers at maximum capacity to try to stop Ace Anarchy. Hugh began to walk around with his head low, looking for his weapon because that was the only thing the dark fog that made his body feel dizzy and his thoughts fuzzy allowed him to do.

Look for it.

Look for it, grab it, get up, and fight.

The spear was nowhere to be found. And Hugh didn’t feel like fighting anymore.

He wanted to lay on the floor. He wanted to lay on the floor with Tamaya, with Kasumi, and with Evander, close his eyes, and try to remember how he felt when they were kids and all of them slept together in the same giant bed. He would try to imagine the sound of their breaths and suffocate the yelling, the crying, and the screeching, to at least feel like he was falling asleep before someone came and finished the job for —not for Ace— but for him.

And if no one did, at least Hugh knew what he was going to do next.

His knees began to tremble and his feet refused to keep going. He saw the Silver Spear a couple of meters behind Ace. Maybe if he was able to get across those barriers Ace had built around him with his powers, he could use it.

He had never tried to use it to see if it could physically hurt him in a way that could potentially kill him.

But he could try.

Immediately after that, he noticed someone’s gaze was fixated on him. He looked at Ace but just at that moment, he was struck by a bolt of smoke, distracting himself by his own coughing.

Two hands covered with black gloves slightly touched his weapon and made it move towards him.

The same hands he had been wanting to hold for so long.

The same hands that belonged to the same person who hadn’t stopped looking at him after all this time.

Simon probably didn’t even notice what he did. When Hugh looked back at him, he wasn’t paying attention to him anymore; instead, he was trying his best not to keep slipping on the muddy ground while he stumbled his way out of there.

Simon was slipping through his fingers once again.

The difference was that this time when the Sentinel landed beside a kneeling Simon, hurt and full with stings on his face and neck, he knew he couldn’t let watching him go away be the last thing he did in his life.

Hugh didn’t like running after people when they decided to go because he would never want anyone to do it if it were him.

After all, leaving took a lot of strength. Someone following him would only make it so much harder.

And being the one who followed and was rejected at the end, was even worse.

But some people were worth following. Just one time. Just to make sure they really wanted to leave, or if they wanted to stay just as hard as one wanted them to.

Just so each other knew they haven’t given up on each other yet.

Because he would never give up on Simon; not even when Hugh had already given up on himself.

When he kneeled beside him, he just threw a glance at the Sentinel to try to figure out his intentions, but immediately centered all his attention on Simon.

The hell with the Sentinel.

“Simon, what happened?” he asked him, with his voice trembling as much as the ground did. “What’s wrong?”

And Simon—

Simon answered him.

“At least one of those hornets must have had Agent N—” their gazes met “—I’ve been neutralized.”

He bit his lips and lowered his head, almost as if he were apologizing for something.

But Hugh didn’t want him to apologize. He wasn’t the one who needed to do it.

That Simon was still his Simon. With or without powers.

Hugh put his arm around Simon. “We need to get you out of here. Can you stand?”

He expected Simon to flinch at his touch and ask him to get away from him as soon as he touched. What he didn’t expect was for him to completely ignore his question and his arm around him, and instead, ask him, “Have you seen Adrian?”

Hugh immediately tried to remember if he had seen him during the fight. But, to his horror, the last time he had seen Adrian had been the night he and his team discovered Nightmare’s true identity because he had been avoiding him during the last days.

Those things now seemed insignificant and petty compared with what was happening now.

First, he only shook his head, and while he helped him to get up, Simon’s eyes started to fill with tears. “We’ll find him,” he assured him. “He’s strong. He has to be fine.”

And it was a threat to the universe.

Simon tried to give a step, but his legs couldn’t hold the weight of his body, and he almost fell again. Hugh instinctively held him tighter. “I’m okay,” Simon quickly said, waving his hand. “It’s just…”

It’s just—

Hugh wanted to ask him: “It’s just what?”

But she hadn’t asked him that question. So he didn’t ask Simon either.

He did want an answer though.

And Simon was so good, he gave it to him.

“My whole body feels like it’s burning up from the inside out. Whatever venom those wasps have—”

Simon groaned and Hugh heard his words echoing in his mind.

Feeling.

At least you’re feeling.

You’re feeling, and that’s what matters.

Hugh tried to speak, but the Sentinel interrupted him before he could even say a word.

“Here, let me take him.” He frowned, and the Sentinel added, “You need to stop Ace Anarchy.”

He contemplated the Sentinel's armor, about to tell him to move and let him take his husband out of there.

Hugh didn't need to do anything.

The only thing he needed to do was to get Simon away from danger as quickly as possible.

But he would be lying.

Because deep in his heart, he knew he had to stop Ace Anarchy before he did anything else.

Not because he wanted to. It was because he had to.

That was the way it had always been.

He would like to hate the Sentinel for making that remark, but as soon as his eyes met with his helmet, he realized he had become one of those insignificant and petty things he couldn't believe had taken so much of his time.

And he had also saved Max.

Without him, Adrian wouldn't have had a little brother to kidnap, Hugh wouldn't have had two sons to worry about, and probably, a husband for the Anarchist to hurt.

“Thank you.”

He meant it.

He really meant it.

If the Sentinel smiled or felt something when he heard those words, he didn't show it. He moved towards them to help Simon put his weight on him, but as soon as he got close, he flinched and held Hugh tighter.

A lot more tighter.

With all his might.

Hugh looked him dead in the eye, and Simon did it too.

He would never forget how soft, yet determined, his voice sounded when he said those three words to him.

It was a plea and it was an order.

It was a question and it was an answer.

They were full of vulnerability and they were full of strength.

It was the first words he had really said to him in a long time but might as well become the last ones.

Simon said, “Don't get killed.”

Two realizations came to him at the same time.

The first one was that Simon's lips were slightly open after he said that.

And the second one was that he couldn't die yet.

Not because of the world. Not even because he was sure he wanted to keep living.

He needed to live because he had to find Tamaya to tell her he was sorry, even if he had to look for her on the ground. Because he needed to help Kasumi, ask her to forgive him too, and assure her she had been right all along. Because he needed to fulfill the silent promise he had made to Evander since the day he appeared on their life's door and protect him one last time.

He needed to see Max, hug him, and get him ready for bed.

He needed to talk to Adrian again and tell him he loved him, without him having to be the first one to do so.

And he needed to hold, touch, but above all, kiss the love of his life one more time, and make sure he would never again think Hugh didn't love him until his last breath, and that his last thoughts were all about him.

So he not only needed to live.

He had to live.

Just one last time, he had to live.

He had done it before; he would do it again.

“I'd like to see him try.”

***

The last thing Hugh saw before falling, was Adrian’s face.

And he looked small. Very small. And completely terrified.

He looked so terrified, that the few seconds he was falling, he could only think about all the horrible things Adrian and Max must be feeling, and not actually about what he was feeling.

But as soon as he realized that, he hit the ground.

At first, he did his best not to give up and stay awake for as long as possible. But he started wondering what Georgie felt when she fell from the sky. If she had looked like a shooting star. And he wondered if it was really her the one who appeared in front of him, wearing a golden cape. If it was really her when she held his face in her hands, caressing his cheeks without saying a single word, and kissed his forehead before getting up again and starting flying, and flying until he couldn’t see her anymore.

He also wondered if she would have been woken up by the pain had she survived the fall, just like he eventually did. If she would have also felt the instant relief everyone felt when they came to the realization that they were alive, just to immediately be followed up by guilt. Or what Georgie would have thought if she had stayed a little longer, just to ask him that one last time.

Where does it hurt?

Hugh would have told her the truth. Because of course he would have told her the truth. He would never lie to her. Not even when all he had done for the last ten years, had been lying to himself.

Everywhere.

It hurts everywhere.

She didn’t ask him anything though.

Not that he was mad at her for not doing so.

He just wondered what she would have thought.

#renegades #archenemies #supernova #renegades trilogy #humon #hugh everhart #simon westwood #should i tag the rest of the council?#let's do it jaja #georgia rawles #tamaya rae #kasumi hasegawa #evander wade #pinche evander cómo te odio en este fic eres la peor escoria del mundo aaaah #adrian everhart #pinche adrian también tú chinga tu madre #nova artino #nova tú estás bien a ti sí te quiero

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